How I Swapped My Corporate Career for ELVIDA: A New Era of Personal Administration
In this blog post, you'll learn how I transitioned from a corporate career to founding ELVIDA and why personal administration is a challenge for many.
Alan Frei has been speaking weekly with entrepreneurs from Switzerland since 2021. He asks about numbers, mistakes, and whether it’s all worth it. At the end of September, I sat in front of his camera. Since October 28, 2026, the episode has been online. Its title: "Giving Up a Corporate Career, Starting Three Companies: Is It Worth It?"
Here’s what it was about. And I’ll share two things that didn’t get enough attention during the conversation.
Almost 15 Years at Roche
I started with an IT apprenticeship at Roche Diagnostics. Later, I introduced and supported software in hospitals across Switzerland, most recently as Customer Segment Lead. I enjoyed this job. Still, I left in November 2023 after a reorganization. I could have switched internally or started something of my own.
The question of whether I wanted to build something of my own had already arisen in 2022 in Nepal during a project with sharing minds. The reorganization answered that question.
A Cabin Full of Ideas
This story was too brief in the podcast, so I’ll elaborate here. After Roche, I didn’t jump straight into the next project. In February 2024, I traveled from Hamburg to Namibia on a container ship, without internet. At night, I filled page after page with ideas in the cabin. The list got shorter every day.
In the end, one idea remained: a software product that can significantly help people in their daily lives.
The Personal Reason
That it’s about paperwork has to do with my fiancée. She lives with MS. There’s nothing that can be done about the illness. However, the burden that comes with it can be alleviated. Letters from health insurance and providers, bills from doctors, forms with deadlines. All of this lands on the table precisely when there’s the least strength left.
This is not an isolated case. Administration is work that no one sees. In almost every family, there’s that one person where all the letters end up. We’re building ELVIDA for that person.
The Smartest Mailbox in Switzerland
That’s how I described ELVIDA to Alan, and he referred to this image several times during the episode. Here’s what I mean: You upload a document, photograph a letter, or let it come directly through ePost. ELVIDA reads it, assigns it to one of 13 life areas, and recognizes what follows. This could be a cancellation date, a payment deadline, or a receipt for the tax return. Before something expires, you’ll receive a reminder. More about this on the features page.
Data protection was also a topic. The data is stored in Switzerland and is encrypted. Personal information is pseudonymized before any AI sees it, and many processes are governed by strict rules before AI even comes into play. There’s no advertising or data selling at ELVIDA. How this works in detail is explained under Security.
Without Venture Capital
Alan likes to ask about money. Our answer: ELVIDA has no venture capital. We finance growth through our own projects at LoomLabs, where we automate processes with AI for companies. This makes us slower. But we’re building exactly what we believe in.
Starting Without a Fixed Address
I haven’t had a permanent home for years and work wherever I am. I talked about this in the podcast but didn’t connect it to ELVIDA. Here’s the connection: For a long time, the only thing that tied me to one place was the mailbox in Gersau. What can’t be digitized keeps you anchored. I wanted to solve this for myself and for everyone else in a similar situation.
What Else Comes Up
In just under 52 minutes, we also discuss these questions:
- How do you market an AI app, and is ELVIDA more for individuals or companies?
- How do you build ELVIDA, LoomLabs, and Citymates simultaneously?
- What does sharing minds in Nepal have to do with all this?
- Which book has helped me as an entrepreneur?
Tune In
You can find the entire episode on YouTube. Thank you, Alan, for the invitation and the direct questions.
And if you thought about your own stack of letters while listening: On elvida.app, you can upload your first document. It’s free.