Three informatics students Marius Högger, Frank Huber, and I decided to start a company at a table on the second floor of the UZH Department of Informatics at Binzmühlestrasse. The business model was sketched with a digital pen in an unnamed OneNote file between lecture notes and grocery lists. We had recognized that UZH was training a generation of students in data science and AI who wanted flexible hours, flat hierarchies, and varied work and who were underestimated by the job market. We founded a software development company shaped around those needs rather than industry convention, set up an office within walking distance of the informatics campus in Oerlikon, and took on clients in computer-supported data analysis, image recognition, and machine-learning-based quality control.
None of us had worked at another company for more than a few weeks. Every question that established firms take for granted how to communicate in a team, how to write quotes for clients who cannot articulate what they want, how to set an hourly rate, how to document code required research, trial and error, and documentation of what worked. The upside: our answers were uninfluenced by inherited practice and often unconventional.
Within two years, the company grew from three founders to 18 employees, dozens of clients, and over ten parallel projects. We rebranded from PolygonSolutions to PolygonSoftware. The workforce remained almost entirely UZH students and alumni. Unlimited unpaid vacation, full remote work, and flexible schedules during exam periods were non-negotiable from day one.
Polygon Software is a software development startup founded by three UZH informatics students Joel Barmettler, Marius Högger, and Frank Huber. It specializes in data analysis, image recognition, and machine-learning-based quality control for SMEs.
Within two years of founding, Polygon Software grew from three founders to 18 employees, dozens of clients, and over ten parallel projects. The workforce consisted almost entirely of current and former UZH informatics students.
Since none of the founders had significant prior work experience, every business process from communication to pricing to documentation was designed from scratch. This produced unconventional solutions uninfluenced by inherited industry practice.
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Copyright 2026 - Joel P. Barmettler