In het cockpit met Louis (Pipecare)

1. The setting

Brussels. A young ex-consultant, a sixty-something veteran from Rigid, and a handful of cargo bikes.

That’s Pipecare in its purest form. Louis had spent years building roadmaps for multinationals at PwC, five years ahead, strategically airtight, without ever tightening a bolt himself.

Then a stint in SME consulting, a year in South Africa putting a tech startup on the map, and finally the question every consultant eventually asks themselves: now that I know how it works, when am I going to do it myself?

The answer didn’t come in a eureka moment, but through Xavier, the father of his partner Charles. A business veteran with the idea of sending plumbers through the city on cargo bikes. Louis heard it and saw more in it than Xavier himself did.

What followed is a story of rapid market validation, tenacious client relationships, and the difference between a business that sounds distinctive and one that truly is.

2. Three F’s and a list of three hundred

How do you start? Louis kept it simple: a list of three hundred property managers and the question of who he knew through mutual contacts. The three F’s (friends, family, fools) didn’t produce much. But the phone did.

Two weeks after launch, Pipecare had booked its first job. Not through a campaign, not through a platform, but through a conversation.

That quick start masks how structural the challenge really is. Because landing a first client and convincing a property manager to switch suppliers are two entirely different exercises. What Louis thought would be a straight line turned out to be a journey with far more friction than the business plan had anticipated.

3. The radical choice for transparency

Before the first client called, Louis had already discovered something unexpected: not a single competitor was able to give him a price for a simple job. Call any drain cleaner in Brussels and ask how much it costs to unblock a sink. You won’t get an answer. Just an “we’ll see when we get there.”

Louis and Xavier called them all. Nobody gave a number. That was the signal.

Inspired by La Compagnie des déboucheurs in France, a company that went from zero to seventy million euros in seven years on transparent flat rates, Pipecare chose to publish its prices on the website. Invoice by email, never on-site. No surprises.

For B2C clients who call already bracing for the worst (“my neighbour got ripped off last week”), it’s a form of reassurance at exactly the moment they need it most. For B2B clients, it’s a signal of administrative reliability: if the quote is already clean, the follow-up will be too.

4. The resistance of the existing relationship

This is where the plan meets reality. Every property manager already has a supplier. Not just one, but ten: because in a large property management firm, it’s not the director who decides, but each of ten employees who each manages twenty buildings. There isn’t one decision-maker. There are ten. And each has their habits, their trusted number on speed dial.

Louis assumed a better client experience would be enough to trigger change. That was too optimistic. The relationship is stronger than rationality. Clients only switch when something goes wrong, not when someone does better.

That demands patience and a prospecting reality much closer to cold calling than content marketing. “The traditional method is still the best,” says Louis, not with nostalgia, but with a quiet realism. Call. Stop by the office. Have a beer. Repeat.

5. Farming and hunting: role allocation as strategy

At Pipecare, everyone has their own cockpit. Xavier is the farmer: he rides through the city every day, knows the streets, knows the names, knows the difference between the sink on the third floor of Rue Véronèse and the one on the second. That proximity has a value no CRM can replace.

Louis structures it: who to call and when, how long between contacts, how to maintain a relationship without wearing it out. Louis and Charles handle the hunting. Cold calling, not their favourite activity, but the necessary fuel for growth. Supplemented by an external freelance prospector who systematically works the B2B segment.

This is not accidental; it’s architecture. Small companies that grow quickly often stumble on exactly this point: everyone does everything, nobody is accountable for what actually works. At Pipecare, the division is deliberate and clear.

6. Acquisition as accelerator

Growing through acquisition is not the Plan B of someone who can’t make it organically. It can also be the Plan A of someone who knows that certain doors only open with a track record you can’t build yourself in two years.

Louis is actively exploring acquisitions in adjacent specialisms. The logic is straightforward: some market segments only become accessible after years of proven service, and that kind of credibility can’t always be built from scratch. Sometimes the smarter move is to find it where it already exists.

The cargo bike stays. The ambition grows.

7. SEO rather than noise

In B2C, the typical client is someone with a blocked sink who opens Google in a panic. That search term, “drain cleaner Brussels,” is the battlefield. Major players dominate Google Ads with budgets Pipecare can’t match, and probably shouldn’t want to match. But in organic search results, space remains.

Radio didn’t work. Flyers didn’t either, and in any case, hard to reconcile with the eco-responsible image. SEO does work. Slowly, steadily, without a single breakthrough moment but with a cumulative effect.

Louis now has a year of data. He knows what works and what doesn’t. Twenty-five thousand euros of marketing budget later, that’s the most valuable output: knowing where to put the next euro.

8. Lessons from the cockpit

  • Validating a market is one thing. Converting a client is another. Landing a first client in two weeks is impressive. Replacing a supplier at a property manager who is satisfied with a mediocre provider structurally requires more patience and personal contact than any digital channel can offer.
  • Transparency is not a feature; it’s a positioning. In a sector where price opacity is the norm, displaying flat rates is not a marketing trick but a fundamental choice about who you are. This choice attracts the clients who suit you and filters out the rest.
  • Role allocation is strategy. Who farms, who hunts, who follows up. In small teams, this clarity disappears quickly. At Pipecare, it is deliberately constructed.
  • Acquisition is not always something you can afford to wait for. Certain market segments are only accessible with proven experience. You can build it, or you can buy it. The second option is not a concession; it’s commercial intelligence.
  • Healthy growth is also a choice. Louis prefers twenty FTE on solid foundations over a hundred FTE on investor oxygen. In a sector that has sometimes imploded spectacularly, that’s not caution born of fear, but vision born of honesty.

Louis is co-founder of Pipecare, plumbers on cargo bikes in Brussels, specialising in leak detection, drain unblocking, and emergency plumbing. This conversation is part of an ongoing series of cockpit conversations about growth, positioning, and the commercial choices of entrepreneurs in motion.

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by sander

In de cockpit met Ashkan (Exoligamentz)

Hardware: hard game. Faster game over.

1. The setting

The start-up world is in love with software: sprints, releases, growth hacks. Deploy today, tweak tomorrow. In that scenery, hardware quickly feels old school, slow, expensive and difficult. Until you talk to Ashkan from Exoligamentz. We turn out to have sat in the same school benches in Roeselare, thirty years apart; he as the son of a political refugee from Iran, me as a village boy from Kortemark.

No longer in the classroom, but in the cockpit with one question in the middle: what does it take to stick with physical innovation, one single line, for more than ten years? This conversation is about finger injuries on the mat that end in a patent, about a university where there was no blueprint yet for the student innovator, and about hundreds of prototypes, IOF files, a pandemic and big brands on the line. It is about the difference between having an idea and defending it for ten years against everything that seems faster and easier. Anyone who steps out of this cockpit conversation with just a nice story misses the point. The real point is the question: which part of your business do you dare to make so hard that you can no longer build excuses around it?

2. From “declared dumb” to toughest track

Ashkan finishes primary school with the worst diploma of the class. A teacher pushes him towards vocational education and expectations are low. In that classroom sits his mother, in Belgium since 1991, who defends her son calmly but sharply during the parent-teacher meeting. That image burns in and becomes a silent deal: if she turns her life upside down for his future, he will not burden her with extra worries. Her life as a single parent was hard enough already.

After convincing the headmaster to admit him despite his weak grades, he flips the script in secondary school. Where they say “take less maths”, he chooses the track with the most maths. Not because it is fun, but because he refuses to let anyone decide what he can or cannot handle. That parent-teacher meeting in sixth grade did not become fuel, but a boundary: not to show them that he could do it, but to never again let his mother stand in such a conversation. Her sacrifice did not deserve extra weight.

3. A glove born in the exam period

After secondary school follows veterinary medicine in Ghent: intensive, heavy and a “nuclear attack on your brain”. In parallel, he discovers martial arts such as shootfighting and Brazilian jiu-jitsu. On the mat, his fingers are almost breaking on him due to heavily loaded ligaments, where sports tape proves to be more hassle than solution. He looks at it through the lens of a medically trained fighter and wonders what this does to your hands in the long term.

During a night of cramming virology, the click happens: no more tape, but a soft exoskeleton in the shape of a glove that allows normal movements and minimises abnormal ones. He draws the idea, sends the sketch to himself by registered mail for the date stamp and decides: this is going to be serious work.

4. Student entrepreneur without manual

With his student-entrepreneur status, he knocks on the doors of textile engineering and tech transfer. There he discovers that there is a status, but no trajectory for a student who brings his own technical concept and wants to build research around it. After two years, he opens a path himself and develops an IOF file of 100,000 euros with Prof. Lieva Van Langenhove as supervisor.

The first round is rejected, as it was the first time such a research project was submitted from a student idea. Instead of folding, he goes to the vice-rector with the question of whether the rejection is about the content or about the fact that the system is not designed for it. After getting confirmation that they are not against the project, he improves the file. The second round is approved and his case later becomes the manual that did not exist before.

5. Hardware, hard game

After that approval, the real test begins with research, prototypes and choice of materials. He faces factories that do not know rollback and a pandemic that hits just when he wants to accelerate. Where software teams can work in sprints, he works in seasons. Every iteration costs time and money; a mistake is not a new build, but lost lead time and burned budget. Every step forward has to pass through three filters: technically sound, producible and affordable.

For ten years he stays on that one line without pivots to easier products or side projects. The core remains: protect fingers without betraying the sport. Hardware is a hard game, but exactly because of that, it sharpens the entrepreneur who dares to play it.

6. Saying “no” to fast legitimacy

At a certain point, big sports brands start calling. For many founders that is the jackpot because of the logo and reach, but Ashkan pulls the handbrake. The question becomes whether the deal serves his product or mainly their brand. If the balance is off, a quick deal is a shortcut to regret. Better slow and pure than fast and crooked.

These are decisions that never get a LinkedIn post; nobody sees them except you and your mirror. Here hardware shows its sharpness: you can hide less behind a pretty interface. If the glove does not do what it is supposed to do, you feel it immediately.

7. First customers, first confirmation

Ten years after the first sketch, the glove gets its real exam with a version that meets the founder’s minimum requirements. No big launch, but deliberately small. The first dozens of pairs go to athletes who know what finger pain feels like. The feedback is clinically clear: athletes notice that finger joints stay more supple and train for the first time in years without pain. There, in the silence after training, ten years of trajectory becomes concrete; not in a press release, but in a hand that still fully works.

8. Lessons from the cockpit

  • Harsher context, sharper choices: Hardware forgives less, which forces entrepreneurs to be sharper about where time and money go, and forces them to sell only what really fits the customer.
  • No framework? Design it: Ashkan did not wait for the perfect programme for student innovators but wrote it himself. Entrepreneurs should not wait for market readiness but set their own rules of the game.
  • One idea, a very long breath: Building one product for ten years is concentration, not slowness. Entrepreneurship goes far beyond features; it is about the trajectory.
  • Saying “no” as a power move: Consciously saying no to big names protects your product, brand and margins, which builds trust both internally and externally.
  • Reality over presentation: Real validation is not in slide decks but in use. Users who stay are the ultimate sanity check for entrepreneurs.

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by sander

LinkedIn is good for my ego. Postcards are better for my conversations.

The paradox: high reach, little movement

You post on LinkedIn. The views go up. You get likes, “nice post”, “relatable”. And then you check your calendar. No extra conversation.

The more visible you become online, the more invisible you seem to the people who really matter. Your ideal clients live around the corner, sit in your ecosystem, are friends with your current clients. While you dive into your content calendar, they simply scroll past your post among hundreds of others, when they actually just want to talk to someone.

This piece isn’t about “how to game the algorithm better”. It’s about two other questions: why should LinkedIn be the heart of your client development in the first place? And why does being visible in the feed feel safer than directly approaching someone?

The fear beneath all that content

You don’t just post because it’s efficient. You also post because it feels safer than actually approaching someone. Direct contact feels vulnerable:

  • you can get a clear no
  • you show that you need new clients
  • you’re afraid of coming across as pushy
  • you can be personally rejected

LinkedIn feels more comfortable. You throw something out into the world. If nobody responds, it’s “the algorithm”. No no, no yes, no conversation. Just noise.

In cockpit conversations with entrepreneurs, directors and partners, I see the same pattern: they hide commercial doubt behind content activity. Busy doing. Little movement. I did the same for years myself, until I had to honestly admit: my best clients never came through the feed. They came because someone dropped my name in a real conversation. (Neyrinck 2025)

What research has been saying for a long time (and you unconsciously confirm)

Mark Granovetter showed back in 1973 that new opportunities rarely come through your inner circle, but through weak ties: acquaintances, friends of friends, people one or two steps removed (Granovetter 1973). Recent work by Rajkumar and colleagues based on a large-scale LinkedIn experiment confirms that especially “moderately weak” ties generate new jobs and opportunities (Rajkumar et al. 2022). Morgan and Hunt showed in the mid-90s that sustainable business relationships are built on trust and commitment, not on one clever line in a campaign (Morgan & Hunt 1994). Wasiluk and Löfsten show that physical and social proximity accelerate that trust: organizations that sit close to each other, geographically and relationally, share knowledge faster, build trust faster and do business faster (Wasiluk 2020; Löfsten 2022).

In summary:

  • new opportunities run through weak ties, not through mass reach
  • trust grows where people see and hear each other more often
  • algorithms can support that, but never replace it

As a commercial copilot, I see exactly the same thing: the trajectories that really matter at Add Business never start with “I saw your LinkedIn post or email”. They start with a name, a warm introduction, a conversation, proximity. (Neyrinck 2025)

The inversion: from feed to people

Most companies play the same game:

  1. Open LinkedIn
  2. Collect connections
  3. Make posts
  4. Wait for someone to respond
  5. Hope that “something” comes out of it

My work starts from a different inversion:

  1. Determine who you really want to work with (DNA-fit, ecosystem, stage).
  2. Find out through whom you’re already indirectly connected (weak ties, shared context).
  3. Make direct contact, outside the algorithm.
  4. Only use LinkedIn after that for verification and follow-up.

In my own practice, I combine DNA-discovery, ecosystem-mapping and weak-ties theory into concrete workflows: who do you choose, why exactly them, and what do you write to them in a way that’s both human and sharp. This isn’t a theoretical exercise, but something I’ve refined over years in real client trajectories. (Neyrinck 2025)

The 1-2-3 method: from offline signal to real conversation

To make that structural, I work with a simple rhythm: 1-2-3.

  1. a postcard with a personal, handwritten letter.
  2. a LinkedIn connection with a soft request for contact
  3. a phone or live conversation.

That’s all there is to it. But you do it consistently.

  • 3 to 5 postcards per week, depending on how busy my consultancy work is
  • in approximately 25 to 30 active weeks per year
  • good for about 75 to 100 very deliberately chosen contact moments

Not to “the market”. To 75 to 100 people of whom you know in advance: if a number of these get into conversation, it changes my year. And the contacts will undoubtedly be “enriching”, regardless of the outcome.

Research on direct mail shows that physical, personal messages are almost always opened and stick much better than emails (Scribe Handwritten 2025; Letter Friend 2026). The card is your first, tangible signal that you’re taking the initiative, not the algorithm.

As an alternative or addition, you can apply the same principle with something else that breaks through the noise:

  • a short, handwritten letter in a regular envelope
  • a small, meaningful artifact (for example, a cockpit card with your notes on it)

As long as it’s personal, handwritten and clearly for them, it works.

LinkedIn connection with intention

A few days later, you send a personal connection request on LinkedIn:

  • reference to your card (“I sent you a card last week…”)
  • a brief explanation of why you’d like to connect
  • no pitch, no pressure, no “book here”

LinkedIn doesn’t become a lead generation engine here, but a verification screen. Whoever types in your name sees your profile, your blogs, your cases. What was in your card matches what they see online. (LinkedIn Algorithm Report 2025; Neyrinck 2025)

The conversation

The third step is the conversation. That can be a phone call, a Teams call or a coffee.

Your goal isn’t “selling in 30 minutes”, but a cockpit conversation:

  • what’s really going on in their commercial reality?
  • what paradoxes do they feel between growth, team and structure?
  • where can a commercial copilot help in the cockpit — and where not?

With 3 to 5 cards per week, a rhythm emerges of a small but stable number of first conversations and a subset of second and third conversations with real depth

Sources

  • Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360-1380.
  • LinkedIn Algorithm Report. 2025. “Your LinkedIn Reach Is Down 40%. Here’s Why—and What’s Next.”
  • Letter Friend. 2026. “Handwritten Direct Mail Response Rates: Analyzing the Psychology.”
  • Löfsten, Hans. 2022. “Entrepreneurial Networks, Geographical Proximity, and Their Effects on Firm Growth.” Journal of Small Business Management 60 (6): 1234-1256.
  • Morgan, Robert M., and Shelby D. Hunt. 1994. “The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing.” Journal of Marketing 58 (3): 20-38.
  • Rajkumar, Karthik, Guillaume Saint-Jacques, Iavor Bojinov, Erik Brynjolfsson, and Sinan Aral. 2022. “A Causal Test of the Strength of Weak Ties.” Science 377 (6612): 1304-1310.
  • Scribe Handwritten. 2025. “Printed vs. Handwritten Direct Marketing ROI.”
  • Wasiluk, Agnieszka. 2020. “Inter-Organizational Trust as a Statement of Social Proximity.” Journal of Entrepreneurship, Management and Innovation 16 (3): 67-92.
  • Xpert Digital. 2025. “Why Your LinkedIn Success Is a Mathematical Illusion.”
  • Neyrinck, Marc. 2025. Internal cockpit notes and blogs on www.addbusiness.be about weak ties, proximity, DNA-fit and commercial resilience.

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by sander

Cockpit Conversation with Adomas Baskakovas: Building Bridges Between the Baltics and the Benelux

Trust: The Foundation of International Partnerships

When I asked Adomas how he builds relationships across countries, especially when selling something as often misunderstood as outsourcing, he didn’t hesitate.

Trust, he explained, is everything. Baltic Assist doesn’t see itself as a distant vendor but as an extension of the client’s team. They invest time in face to face rapport: virtual coffee chats, on site visits, even weekend hackathons, to become “almost family” with clients. If that bond doesn’t form, he said, the partnership won’t work.

This mirrors what I see when guiding Nordic or Baltic companies into the Belgian ecosystem through the NBB Hub. Without emotional fit, no value exchange will ever stick.

Trust is the lifeblood of business ecosystems (Aguiar et al., 2021). Like blood in biological systems, it keeps the network alive and functioning. Adomas added that outsourcing often carries the wrong connotation.

People associate it with distance and disconnection, but what Baltic Assist offers is integration. They adapt to the culture of their clients. They listen. They work in the same time zone, speak the same language, and align their goals deeply.

In modern partnerships, value doesn’t come from what you deliver. It comes from how deeply you align.

Barriers and Bridging: Navigating the EU Market

Naturally, we shifted to what happens when things don’t align. I asked where Baltic Assist hits friction in the Benelux. Adomas was candid. Even inside the EU, there are barriers: local compliance rules, payroll limitations, legal friction. Without a local legal entity, their service scope is restricted.

This matched what I encounter through the NBB Hub. The market might look geographically close, but operationally, it’s a different game.

More than once, Adomas has heard prospects ask whether they have clients in the Netherlands or references in Antwerp. Referrals, in this context, matter more than websites. I often say the same to founders: a single Belgian reference is worth more than a hundred polished campaigns. And if you convince someone in Belgium, Dutch clients take notice. They assume you must be credible.

Research on cross border regions in Europe (Karagkouni and Dimitriou, 2025) confirms that regulatory friction and lack of local presence remain the top barriers for international expansion, even within the EU.

Culture as Connector: Lithuania and Flanders

At one point, I asked if Lithuanian and Belgian companies share anything culturally. Adomas smiled and replied, “More than people think.”

Both cultures are pragmatic, hardworking, and humble. He described the quiet reliability that’s deeply ingrained in Lithuania. It felt familiar, almost Flemish.

What’s less known is how digitally advanced Lithuania is. E-government, digital fluency, tech tools like NordVPN or Vinted that people use every day, often without knowing their origin. That kind of under the radar excellence opens doors through curiosity.

This cultural overlap is more than anecdotal. Studies on national cultural dimensions (Mockaitis, 2002) show that Lithuania scores moderately on individualism and uncertainty avoidance, with a strong work ethic and openness to collaboration, traits that align well with Flemish business culture. This shared mindset creates a natural bridge for partnerships.

The Power of the First Client: Effectuation in Action

This brought us to a key moment: the role of first clients. Adomas emphasized how important it is to land a champion, someone who sees the value, spreads the word, and opens doors.

Baltic Assist’s first clients came from their own network. They didn’t wait for the perfect campaign. They worked with what they had. That’s where their story mirrors effectuation theory, starting with the means at hand (Sarasvathy, 2001).

Each early client became a kind of co-pilot. They didn’t just buy a service. They believed in the model and shared it forward.

Effectuation scholars describe this as the bird in hand and crazy quilt principles: entrepreneurs begin with who they are, what they know, and whom they know, and co-create solutions with early stakeholders (Sarasvathy, 2001).

Baltic Assist’s approach exemplifies this. They partnered with clients to shape services, adapted to feedback, and built a partnership quilt rather than following a rigid business plan.

I told Adomas that the NBB Hub operates similarly. When I work with Finnish or Estonian companies entering Belgium, I map their DNA to the Belgian ecosystem. We search for entry points, not generic leads, but specific people, organizations, or events that align with their strengths. It’s about building bridges, not casting nets.

Organizational DNA: Aligning Structure and Culture

Adomas and I also explored what makes partnerships stick at an organizational level. We ran both companies’ profiles through a DNA mapping framework (Neilson, Pasternack, and Mendes, 2008), which identifies four key dimensions: structure, decision rights, motivators, and information flow.

We compared our profiles and saw good overlap in decision rights and communication patterns. That should help integration.

Performance isn’t just about formal structure, it’s also about informal culture and mindsets. When formal systems and informal commitments are balanced, companies execute strategy better (Neilson et al., 2008).

Our pilot in plane mindset and shared values give us that balance. This alignment is what allows us to move fast, experiment, and adapt without losing trust.

Nearshoring in Europe: A Growing Trend

Finally, we talked about nearshoring trends in Europe. Adomas noted that clients in the Benelux love that Baltic Assist is in the EU, same data laws, overlapping workdays, and a sense of shared culture.

Recent surveys show that 77% of European firms source within the EU when they outsource, and 35% plan to increase nearshore outsourcing, citing cost effectiveness and easier EU compliance (Eurostat, 2022; Whitelane Research, 2024). Meanwhile, only 7% plan to cut nearshoring.

This aligns with what I see through the NBB Hub. Companies are looking for proximity, reliability, and cultural fit, not just cost savings.

The Uppsala internationalization model (Johanson and Vahlne, 2009) suggests that firms internationalize step by step, building knowledge and trust before deeper commitments. Baltic Assist’s incremental approach, starting with a champion client, then expanding through referrals, fits this pattern perfectly.

Cockpit Reflections: Flying Together

As we wrapped up the call, I realized we had navigated more than a business conversation.

We had explored trust building, effectual entrepreneurship, cultural distances, organizational fit, and European sourcing trends.

Adomas and I agreed to meet again to map out ecosystem entry points, Belgium for Baltic Assist, Baltics for the NBB Hub. I’ll also write this blog to position Baltic Assist in my network. Sometimes, that’s how partnerships start: not with a contract, but with a conversation.

About Baltic Assist and Adomas Baskakovas

Baltic Assist is a Lithuania based operational scaling partner that provides high quality financial services and virtual staffing solutions to companies across Europe.

Adomas Baskakovas, Partnerships Manager at Baltic Assist, plays a key role in expanding the firm’s international footprint, more specifically in the Benelux region.

Source: Baltic Assist (www.balticassist.com)

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by sander

Why Belgian Growth Companies overlook their greatest asset

The blind spot of the growth entrepreneur

As an avid reader of De Tijd, I draw daily inspiration from the sharp analyses of our entrepreneurial landscape. The column De Waarde van Morgen (WAW) presents us with beautiful startups every week. Young, energetic teams, often built around one or two visionary founders.

In that phase everything is clear. The founders are the company. Their passion is the product. Their values are the culture. But then growth arrives.

The article about the Rising Star Monitor from Vlerick and Deloitte exposes a painful truth. Belgian scale-ups score brilliantly on product (70 percent), but weakly on organization (35 to 50 percent).

This is no coincidence. It is a symptom of a fundamental problem. The transition from founder DNA to organizational DNA.

Many entrepreneurs see organization as bureaucracy that distracts from the product.

They think: I have a good product, it will sell itself. But that is an illusion. Your product is built, sold and supported by people.

DNA is people. If you are not aware of that, you cannot manage it. And if you do not manage it, you leave a huge part of your growth potential unused.

The Fundamental Difference. Startup versus Scale-up DNA

Let us zoom in on that difference. That is where the key lies.

The Startup Phase. The WAW phase

In a startup, the DNA is implicit. The team is small. Everyone sits in the same room. The founder makes all the important decisions. New people learn by osmosis. They look at the founder and copy what they see.

In this phase, the product is the DNA. The identity of the founder and the product are one. The values and structure at the moment of founding are burned into the organization (Stinchcombe, 1965). The founder is the blueprint. What they do, how they make decisions, which customers they accept, how they deal with problems, that is the culture.

This works because in a small group everything is tangible. The psychological contract between founder and employees is relational and emotional. We are doing this together. We are pioneers (Rousseau, 1989). Everyone feels the same energy, the same ambition, the same values.

The Scale-up Phase. The Rising Star Problem

Here the dynamics change fundamentally. Management layers are added. The founder no longer sees everyone. New people join for a job, not necessarily for a mission. Osmosis no longer works. You cannot personally mentor everyone.

And this is where the real crisis emerges. Not a technical crisis, the product is still good, but an organizational crisis. This is what Greiner (1972) describes as the autonomy crisis. The founder can no longer control everything, but does not dare to let go because they fear that quality will dilute. They remain stuck in product focus and direct control.

The problem is that the skills required to start the company—product passion, detail control, intuitive decision-making—are at odds with what is needed to scale—delegating, building processes, institutionalizing values. Wasserman (2003 and 2012) calls this the Founder’s Dilemma. The founder must choose between:

  • King (retain control)
  • Rich (truly grow)

Many Belgian entrepreneurs unconsciously choose King, which limits their growth.

The Vlerick research confirms this problem exactly. Founders remain stuck in the directive phase, product focus, and fail to make the step towards delegation and organizational design.

DNA Is not soft stuff. It Is hard business

Many growth companies find terms such as DNA or culture vague. They prefer to focus on features, sales targets and cash flow.

But let us turn that around:

Who builds those features? People who do or do not understand what the customer really needs. That is DNA.

Who hits those sales targets? People who do or do not strike the right tone with prospects. That is DNA.

Who guards cash flow? People who do or do not dare to intervene when things go wrong. That is DNA.

Your product or service, the way you position it in the market, how you deal with customers, it is all directly connected to who you are as an organization. This is not a mystical idea. It is simply organizational reality.

What you do not see is often because you do not measure it. But it is there. Your human capital, the unique way your people work together, how they think, which values they share—that is your real competitive advantage (Barney, 1991).

Your product is easy to copy. Your culture is not.

If the founder drops out, or simply is not in the room, what happens then?

  • In a company without articulated DNA: people guess or do nothing. Quality drops.
  • In a company with articulated DNA: people know how we do things here. Quality remains high.

The Vlerick research suggests that Belgian companies underestimate this. They optimize the product, but neglect the engine that creates the product: the people and their shared values.

Unconscious Incompetence. Why your growth stagnates

If you are not aware of your DNA, you are flying on automatic pilot. At the beginning, that works because the founder is on top of everything.

But as you grow, it stops working.

Without awareness of your DNA, you hire people based on skills (can they code?), and not on values (do they understand our customer obsession?). You get mercenaries instead of allies.

This leads to fragmentation. The company splits into teams that do different things in different ways. Your product becomes inconsistent. Your customer experience diverges.

Everyone feels that something is off. Innovation stagnates. People leave because they no longer know why we are doing this (Gibson and Birkinshaw, 2004).

This is exactly what we see at Companyonwise. Entrepreneurs come in with growth pains. Processes jam. The team does not run smoothly. They think they need better software. But almost always the root cause is deeper. They have not succeeded in translating implicit founder DNA into explicit organizational DNA that new people can adopt.

Practical Case. Awareness as a lever

For many service companies, growth is a trap. More people often means more noise. Jo Roseleth of Moore understood that growth is only sustainable if the core remains identical, even when he is not in the room.

By consciously working on DNA, something fundamental changed. It was no longer Jo’s vision. It became a shared compass.

This is crucial in the scale-up phase. You must move from leader-led to culture-led. The founder pulls the cart versus the DNA pulls the cart.

This institutionalization is exactly what Schein (1985 and 2010) describes as necessary for a culture to survive beyond the founder. Values must be anchored in systems:

  • how you hire people
  • how you reward them
  • which behavior you tolerate
  • where you invest your money

In the IT world, technology changes every two years. If you hang your identity on your product—we do Java—you are vulnerable.

InfoSupport understood that their real strength lies in their people. By making their DNA explicit, they created an anchor point for new employees. Technology changes. Their approach does not.

This makes them agile in a way that competitors without strong DNA cannot match. Their internal identity (who we are) becomes the stable point from which they adjust their external image (what we do) (Hatch and Schultz, 2002).

Filling in the blind spot

The Vlerick research shows that governance is often a weak point. That is logical. If your DNA is not explicit, how can you create rules that make sense? You end up with bureaucracy. Rules for the sake of rules.

But if you realize that DNA is people, governance becomes something else. It becomes agreements that stimulate our best behavior.

Many entrepreneurs think that governance equals limitation. That it restricts innovation. The opposite is true.

If everyone understands:

  • how we treat customers
  • how we handle mistakes
  • what our principles are

then you do not have less freedom. You have more freedom (Schwartz and Davis, 1981).

Your people know where the boundaries are. They do not have to guess every day what is acceptable. They decide faster. They take risks because they know it fits within your values. This is probably the way to scale without losing your soul.

Wake Up and manage your people

The point is not that your product is unimportant. The point is that in the scale-up phase, your product is an outcome.

An outcome of:

  • the people you hire
  • the values you reward
  • the behavior you tolerate

Belgian growth companies leave growth on the table because they manage the output (the product) instead of the input (the DNA and the people).

If you become aware of this, your entire view on growth changes.

You hire differently (on DNA fit, not only skills).

You manage differently (on values, not only targets).

You grow differently (from strength, not from chaos).

At Companyonwise we help entrepreneurs make that crucial shift. From unconsciously competent to consciously competent. From the intuitive founder to the scalable organization. So that you no longer navigate in the dark, but with a razor-sharp compass carried by everyone.

Because in the end, business is simple. DNA is people. And people make the difference.

Reference list

  • Barney, J. B. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99-120.
  • Becker, B., & Gerhart, B. (1996). The impact of human resource management on organizational performance: Progress and prospects. Academy of Management Journal, 39(4), 779-801.
  • Davila, T., & Foster, G. (2007). Management control systems in early-stage startup companies. The Accounting Review, 82(4), 907-937.
  • DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147-160.
  • Gerhart, B., & Feng, J. (2021). The resource-based view of the firm, human resources, and human capital: Progress and prospects. Journal of Management, 47(7), 1796-1819.
  • Gibson, C. B., & Birkinshaw, J. (2004). The antecedents, consequences, and mediating role of organizational ambidexterity. Academy of Management Journal, 47(2), 209-226.
  • Greiner, L. E. (1972). Evolution and revolution as organizations grow. Harvard Business Review, 50(4), 37-46.
  • Hambrick, D. C., & Mason, P. A. (1984). Upper echelons: The organization as a reflection of its top managers. Academy of Management Review, 9(2), 193-206.
  • Hatch, M. J., & Schultz, M. (2002). The dynamics of organizational identity. Human Relations, 55(8), 989-1018.
  • Morrison, E. W., & Robinson, S. L. (1997). When employees feel betrayed: A model of how psychological contract violation develops. Academy of Management Review, 22(1), 226-256.
  • Niesen, W., Van Hootegem, A., Handaja, Y., Battistelli, A., & De Witte, H. (2018). Quantitative and qualitative job insecurity and idea generation: The mediating role of psychological contract breach. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 59(2), 161-171.
  • O’Reilly III, C. A., & Tushman, M. L. (2004). The ambidextrous organization. Harvard Business Review, 82(4), 74-81.
  • Rousseau, D. M. (1989). Psychological and implied contracts in organizations. Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 2(2), 121-139.
  • Schein, E. H. (1985). Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  • Schein, E. H. (2010). Organizational Culture and Leadership (4th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
  • Schwartz, H., & Davis, S. M. (1981). Matching corporate culture and business strategy. Organizational Dynamics, 10(1), 30-48.
  • Stinchcombe, A. L. (1965). Social structure and organizations. In J. G. March (Ed.), Handbook of Organizations (pp. 142-193). Chicago: Rand McNally.
  • Teece, D. J. (2007). Explicating dynamic capabilities: The nature and microfoundations of sustainable enterprise performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28(13), 1319-1350.
  • Wasserman, N. (2003). Founder-CEO succession and the paradox of entrepreneurial success. Organization Science, 14(2), 149-172.
  • Wasserman, N. (2012). The Founder’s Dilemmas: Anticipating and Avoiding the Pitfalls That Can Sink a Startup. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • www.companyonwise.be

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by sander

Van WAW naar WOW: Wat we kunnen leren van startups die vanaf nul begonnen zijn

Every week, De Tijd publishes their WAW section: Where Ambitions become Reality.

A showcase of young Belgian companies that grow, innovate and win customers without resources, without budget, without massive teams. These startups do not appear in the newspaper by accident. They generate revenue. They show traction. They make choices that stand out.

I look at these companies with curiosity. How do they win their first customers? How do they grow beyond their first ten, fifty, one hundred deals? How do they pivot without crashing? And above all: what can I learn from this, what can I bring to the clients I work with?

That is why I invite WAW-founders for cockpit conversations. Side by side in the cockpit. We talk about their challenges, their choices, their turbulence. What works? What does not? Why? I have now spoken with WAW companies such as BiometriQ, Belgotap, Nascent, Borro and FiftyFivePlus.

What stands out is that these young companies, starting from zero and with minimal resources, make courageous choices, take action, pivot, focus and grow. Without unnecessary fuss. Every conversation with them was a WOW-experience.

This blog shares seven lessons from those cockpit conversations, complemented by insights from 119 WAW startups I analysed.

Lesson 1: The founder sells. Always

No sales director, but founders who open doors themselves

In my conversation with Nicolas from FiftyFivePlus, this surfaced immediately: he makes the calls himself. He starts the conversation himself. Not because he cannot afford a sales team, but because personal contact is his strongest lever. His target group, people 55 and older, value direct contact. They want to talk to someone who understands them, not to someone reading a script.

At BiometriQ it is no different. The data-driven nutrition platform grew to 300 dietitians in Belgium and the Netherlands through direct relationships. No marketing automation. No lead generation campaigns. Just founders who start the conversation themselves, co-create and build trust. The flywheel runs on personal contact.

You see this pattern across the entire WAW list. Not a single startup talks about hiring a VP Sales in year one. They talk about founders winning their first ten, fifty, one hundred customers themselves. HighSail? The co-founders brought in the first customers themselves. Maurice & Nora? The founders spoke directly with seniors and young families.

This is not a “because they have no budget yet” story. This is strategy. Founder-led sales creates authenticity, direct feedback and speed that no sales team can match.

Rackham’s research on consultative selling has shown this for decades: the best salesperson is the one who truly listens to the customer, not the one who follows a script (Rackham 1988).

What mature companies can learn:
Let your leadership sell again. Minimum one customer conversation per month. Not for show, but to learn. Christensen’s jobs-to-be-done theory is built on understanding what customers are really trying to solve (Christensen et al. 2016). You do not learn that from a dashboard. You learn it by sitting next to your customer.

Action:
Schedule a customer conversation next week. Not via sales. Just sit, listen and feel where the friction is.

Lesson 2: Bootstrapping is not poverty. It is discipline

72% of WAW startups report no external funding

In my conversation with Borro, this hit hard: every euro counts. They grew out of cash flow, not funding. That forces choices. No features no one uses. No team of twenty before you have your first customers. No projects that continue “because we already invested in them.”

Of the 119 WAW startups, 72% report no external funding. That does not mean they have no money. It means they earn it themselves. Beego makes 335,000 euros net profit. Ray Care 0.7 million euros. Souvereyns 0.8 million euros operating profit. They grow from cash flow, not funding.

Vanacker’s research on bootstrapping shows it clearly: companies that grow from cash flow stay lean and pragmatic (Vanacker et al. 2011). They build what works, not what looks cool.

What mature companies can learn:
Introduce a “bootstrap mindset” in one business unit. Give them a limited budget and ask: grow from this. No extra resources until they show traction. It will discipline, focus and accelerate.

Action:
Pick one project. Three months. Limited budget. Prove it works or stop.

Lesson 3: Sharp focus on who you do serve (and who you don’t)

Uncompromising choices create trust

Nicolas from FiftyFivePlus made a choice that feels radical: he serves only people aged 55 and over. Period. No attempt to be “for everyone.” This sharp choice requires courage but creates trust. With customers and with the target group itself. Nicolas shared how difficult it can be to say no to projects outside his target group, but how that clarity is a lever. If you try to be everything for everyone, you end up being important to no one.

Belgotap shows the same pattern: local drinks in reusable packaging. Not for everyone, but for a specific group that values sustainability and local products. That focus makes their story powerful.

This aligns with Morris, Schindehutte and LaForge’s research on entrepreneurial marketing: successful startups win through customer intimacy and proactive opportunity recognition, not by pretending to be bigger than they are (Morris, Schindehutte and LaForge 2002). They choose a niche, serve it excellently, and only then grow further.

What mature companies can learn:
Stop with “we serve everyone” or “we focus on SMEs.” Start with “we serve this specific group, and for them we are the best choice.” That clarity builds trust and strengthens your story.

Action:
Identify your ideal customer. Not in broad terms, but in sharp criteria. And dare to say no to the rest.

Lesson 4: Pivot based on customer contact, not strategy sessions

Adjust within weeks, not after months of boardroom debate

In my conversation with Nascent, this became clear: they test, receive feedback, adjust. Within weeks. Not after months of strategy meetings. They are in the cockpit with the customer. They feel the turbulence in real time.

Of the 119 WAW startups, 7.6% explicitly pivoted. But what stands out is how: within weeks of customer feedback, not after months of internal analysis. Beego shifted from consumers to governments to companies. Qontact.ai emerged because the founders noticed that contact center agents barely receive feedback. Maurice & Nora discovered that young families have just as much need for flexible care as seniors.

Research on customer intimacy underscores that organisations prioritising direct customer feedback adapt and innovate faster (Moenaert and Robben 2022). Mature companies often have too many layers between leadership and the customer. Feedback arrives filtered, summarised, translated. By the time decisions are made, the market has moved on.

What mature companies can learn:
Make direct customer conversations mandatory for the leadership team. At least once per month. Not via reports. Just sit, listen, feel.

Action:
Stop projects that do not produce customer feedback within three weeks. No debate. Just stop.

Lesson 5: Purpose as DNA, not PR

Sustainability is their business, not their marketing

Belgotap is the perfect example. They make local drinks in reusable packaging. That is not their marketing layer. That is their business. Sustainability is in the DNA of their product, their story, their choices.

Of the 119 WAW startups, 14.3% explicitly focus on sustainability, climate or health. That seems modest, but the impact is bigger. These founders build purpose-driven companies where impact is as important as profitability. Yokuu makes probiotic cleaning products. ClimateCamp helps companies collaborate with suppliers on CO2 reduction. Loop Earplugs, Brauzz. All built on sustainability as business model, not marketing.

Recent research shows Gen Z and millennials weigh environmental and social criteria more strongly in purchase and investment decisions than older generations (Advane ESG 2024, SGAnalytics 2025). Morgan Stanley predicts Gen Z will surpass millennials by 2034 (Morgan Stanley 2024). ESG is not a nice-to-have. It is a business necessity.

What mature companies can learn:
The new generation of customers expects you to take a position. Neutrality is no longer an option. Companies that take climate action, diversity and transparency seriously win talent, customers and market share (Greco Services 2024, BearingPoint 2025).

Action:
Choose what you stand for. Impact over neutrality. Build it into your DNA, not your marketing.

Lesson 6: Ecosystem as growth accelerator

Network opens doors, trust closes deals

BiometriQ is a textbook example. They built an ecosystem of more than 300 dietitians in Belgium and the Netherlands through personal contact and co-creation. The flywheel runs on trust. Every dietitian becomes an ambassador. Every customer a reference. No mass recruitment but ecosystem development through relationships.

Granovetter’s “strength of weak ties” theory fits here: new opportunities often come not from your closest contacts but from broader, weaker ties that open other circles (Granovetter 1973). These founders understand that networking is not about handing out business cards. It is about real relationships, mutual value and trust.

Prahalad and Ramaswamy’s research on co-creation shows that value does not emerge in the factory but in use with the customer (Prahalad and Ramaswamy 2004). Co-creation with professionals ensures the product evolves with the market, not behind it.

What mature companies can learn:
Map your network not as contacts, but as relationships. Who would actually help you if you asked? Invest your time there. The rest is noise.

Action:
Bring your twenty best customers together for product development or market validation. Not as a test panel, but as co-creators.

Lesson 7: Six months from idea to customer

Speed comes from clarity, not haste

In my conversation with Borro, this was clear: they knew what they solved, for whom, and how. No long business cases. No year-long strategy. Just build, test, launch. Within six months from idea to first customers.

Maurice & Nora tested for a few months, launched, and had one hundred families and seniors as customers within months. Qontact.ai was founded in 2024 and is already running a pilot with Eneco. Eagl was founded in April 2025, immediately raised 825,000 euros and already has seven employees.

Teece’s dynamic capabilities framework emphasises that successful firms in uncertain environments do not keep planning, but use sensing, seizing and transforming quickly (Teece, Peteraf and Leih 2016). These startups read the market in real time and act immediately.

Mature companies are slower. Projects take eighteen months. Approvals go through four layers. By the time something is live, the need has changed.

What mature companies can learn:
Create one project with a three-month deadline from idea to market. Force decisions. Remove unnecessary checks. Give autonomy.

Action:
Choose one project. Three months from idea to market. Force choices. Remove checks. Give autonomy.

From WAW to your WOW

These seven lessons do not come from theory but from conversations. Real conversations with founders who start from nothing, make choices, win customers and grow. BiometriQ, Belgotap, Nascent, Borro, FiftyFivePlus. They sit in the cockpit to share their story. Not to impress, but to learn. And they can inspire us.

Because that is the point. Many companies have resources, teams, budgets. But they often lose urgency, customer focus, courage. They end up in standstill. These startups show that focus, speed and customer proximity do not depend on size. They depend on choices.

Smith and Lewis’ research on organisational paradoxes shows that successful companies do not choose between stability and flexibility. They embrace both through “both/and” thinking (Smith and Lewis 2011).

These startups combine discipline (bootstrapping, focus) with flexibility (pivoting, adjusting). Mature companies can do the same.

Want to know how your company can apply these seven lessons?
Book a Take Off Briefing with Add Business. We analyse your situation, mirror it against WAW patterns and build an action plan you can use tomorrow.

No theory. No reports. Just action.
Contact: www.addbusiness.be

Sources

(Exact replication of your original list, now in English)

Data:

De Tijd WAW section, analysis of 119 startups (2024–2025)

Cockpit conversations:

Add Business conducted in-depth cockpit conversations with BiometriQ, Belgotap, Nascent, Borro and FiftyFivePlus on customer development, growth and commercial choices.

References

  • Advane ESG. 2024. “The Rise of Gen Z: Shaping the Future of ESG Investing.” Accessed November 15, 2025.
    https://www.advaneesg.com.
  • BearingPoint. 2025. “ESG and the Future of Corporate Strategy.” Accessed November 15, 2025. https://www.bearingpoint.com.
  • Christensen, Clayton M., Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David S. Duncan. 2016. “Know Your Customers’ ‘Jobs to Be Done’.” Harvard Business Review 94 (9): 54–62.
  • Edvardsson, Bo, Bård Tronvoll and Thorsten Gruber. 2011. “Expanding Understanding of Service Exchange and Value Co-Creation: A Social Construction Approach.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 39 (2): 327–339.
  • Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360–1380.
  • Greco Services. 2024. “The Business Case for ESG: Why It Matters.” Accessed November 15, 2025. https://www.grecoservices.com
  • Moenaert, Rudy and Henry Robben. 2022. The Customer Leader: A New Model for Creating Growth and Value. London: Kogan Page.
  • Morgan Stanley. 2024. “Gen Z Investment Trends and ESG Priorities.” Accessed November 15, 2025. https://www.morganstanley.com.
  • Morris, Michael H., Minet Schindehutte and Raymond W. LaForge. 2002. “Entrepreneurial Marketing.” Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice 10 (4): 1–19.
  • Prahalad, C.K. and Venkat Ramaswamy. 2004. “Co-Creation Experiences.” Journal of Interactive Marketing 18 (3): 5–14.
  • Rackham, Neil. 1988. SPIN Selling. McGraw-Hill.
  • SeedBlink. 2024. “Belgium’s Social Enterprise Ecosystem.” Accessed November 15, 2025. https://www.seedblink.com.
  • SGAnalytics. 2025. “Gen Z and ESG: The New Generation of Conscious Consumers.” Accessed November 15, 2025. https://www.sganalytics.com.
  • Smith, Wendy K. and Marianne W. Lewis. 2011. “Toward a Theory of Paradox.” Academy of Management Review 36 (2): 381–403.
  • Social Innovation Factory. 2023. “Belgium’s Impact Ecosystem.” Accessed November 15, 2025. https://www.socialinnovationfactory.be.
  • Stokes, David. 2000. “Putting Entrepreneurship into Marketing.” Journal of Research in Marketing and Entrepreneurship 2 (1): 1–16.
  • Teece, David, Margaret Peteraf and Sohvi Leih. 2016. “Dynamic Capabilities and Organizational Agility.” California Management Review 58 (4): 13–35.
  • Vanacker, Tom, Sophie Manigart, Miguel Meuleman and Luc Sels. 2011. “A Longitudinal Study on Financial Bootstrapping and New Venture Growth.” Entrepreneurship and Regional Development 23 (9–10): 681–705.

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by sander

From Ice Hockey to Warm Client Conversations in Professional Services

I spoke with him from a shared DNA: sport as the foundation for who we are as business partners. My own journey began in 1976, as an 11-year-old boy with Olympic dreams inspired by Ivo Van Damme’s achievements.

Although I never became an Olympic champion, intensive sport shaped my career and mindset. It is probably no coincidence that my motto today is: “If better is possible, good is not good enough.”

The leap from the runway

“I stopped professional hockey in 2020 and started my own coaching practice,” Lasse explained. “In the beginning, it was uncertain. I didn’t have a large network outside the sports world, but I had my reputation and the skills I had built.”

His first clients came through warm contacts and from people who valued him as a person, not only as a former athlete. Authenticity proved decisive. This emphasis on trust and relationship is essential in professional services like business development, leadership coaching, and strategic advisory—fields where no law mandates our engagement.

Unlike regulated sectors like accountancy or audit, our work is entirely discretionary. Morgan and Hunt (1994) show that trust and relationship drive long-term client loyalty, surpassing even price or product.

Navigating complex airspace: one person, big ambitions

“The hardest thing as a solo entrepreneur,” says Lasse, “is doing everything yourself. Sales, administration, coaching, invoicing—each day only has 24 hours, and you want to maintain your standards.”

I immediately recognize that tension. In non-mandatory professional services, you have big ambitions but limited resources. You must choose: where do you invest your energy?

At Add Business, the principle is clear: focus on clients with the right DNA and dare to say no to those who don’t fit.

Lasse adds: “Nick Rubin from Nordic Business Forum said: you don’t have to know everything before you start. That gave me peace. Learning is part of the process.” Humility combined with perseverance is what elite sport teaches us. You lose more often than you win, but progress depends on showing up.

From cold contacts to warm conversations

I asked Lasse how he finds new clients today. His answer was clear:

“First and foremost, I’m more active in meeting people. That’s why I was at the Nordic Business Forum. I need to go where new people are; otherwise, I’ll never meet them.”

He also reactivates his existing network: “I call former clients and ask: is there something we can do together? Even one new introduction can make a difference.”

No cold campaigns—only personal meetings, lunches, and warm introductions. Bhatia and Yetton (2020) confirm that in professional services, personalized outreach and referrals deliver significantly higher conversion rates. In fields where no one feels an urgent need for our help, building trust and visibility is the essence of business development.

DNA-match: recognizing the right client

“I look for clients with a learning mindset,” says Lasse. “People open to growth and change. I avoid working for clients who just want someone to come and shout at their team. That’s not my approach.”

Both of us know not every potential client fits our philosophy—and saying ‘no’ to mismatches proves as important as saying ‘yes’ to the right ones. In non-mandatory professional services, this selectivity becomes a necessity.

Research shows that focusing on ideal clients—rather than mass marketing—yields the strongest long-term results.

Sport as metaphor: teamwork and connection

Lasse learned on the ice what collaboration really means: “You don’t have to be best friends, but you can respect and value people for what they bring.”

In business development, endurance, self-discipline, and resilience are just as critical. Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) describe this as relational capital: the ability to create value through respectful, professional connections, across differences.

This is invaluable in professional services where engagement is always a choice, never an obligation. Building bridges is what grows a market when demand must be created, not fulfilled.

Cultural intelligence: Finland, Belgium, and the power of modesty

We also talked about cultural differences. Lasse described how Finns often doubt their ability to succeed abroad—they’re modest, sometimes too much so. In Flanders, we see the same paradox: pride mixed with constant self-questioning. By working together, we transform modesty into confidence.

He gives me insight into Finnish business culture—honesty and teamwork—while I help him navigate the Belgian ecosystem. Together we build Networks Beyond Borders: human bridges between economies.

Earley and Ang (2003) identify this capacity to work across cultures as a real competitive advantage—especially in professional services with global, voluntary clients.

Helping each other as solos: why 1+1=3

We discovered that solo entrepreneurs can go further together. Not by selling for each other, but by sharing networks and supporting mutual growth.

Granovetter (1973) argues that weak ties—distant or secondary contacts—are vital for unlocking new opportunities. For professionals whose services no client truly ‘needs’ until they choose to, collaborative ecosystems multiply your reach and credibility.

Lessons from this conversation with Lasse

  • Authenticity trumps credentials. Clients choose people who inspire confidence and growth.
  • Warm relationships beat cold outreach. Events, introductions, and networks create fertile ground.
  • DNA-match matters more than volume. Serving clients who truly fit brings satisfaction, even if the pool is smaller.
  • Patience and perseverance are essential. Progress is slow, but real.
  • Demand must be created, not waited for. In a world where our services are never ‘required,’ visibility, credibility, and relationship-building are the core of business development.

Conclusion: charting a course with sport in the DNA

From Olympic dreams to ice hockey careers, sport shapes both mindset and method. In discretionary professional services, nobody is waiting for us, and that makes our work both challenging and rewarding. Succeeding here depends on creating genuine demand: through connection, insight, and continuous proactive engagement—everything sport has taught us.

If better is possible, good is not good enough.

References

  • Bhatia, Amit, and Philip Yetton. 2020. “Personalization in B2B Sales Outreach: Effects on Engagement and Response Rates.” Journal of Business Research 116: 375–86.
  • Earley, P. Christopher, and Soon Ang. 2003. Cultural Intelligence: Individual Interactions Across Cultures. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
  • Granovetter, Mark S. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78 (6): 1360–80.
  • Morgan, Robert M., and Shelby D. Hunt. 1994. “The Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship Marketing.” Journal of Marketing 58 (3): 20–38.
  • Nahapiet, Janine, and Sumantra Ghoshal. 1998. “Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage.” Academy of Management Review 23 (2): 242–66.

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by sander

Art, Craftsmanship and Entrepreneurship: Connecting Generations

In the halls of KMSKA, you walk through the stories of entrepreneurs written in paint, sweat and vision. Each work is a chapter in the great book of transfer and renewal. Art isn’t just a backdrop, it’s a cockpit. Rubens, Smits, Ensor—names that move systems and generations.

Rubens: Master of Scaling and System

Picture Rubens in 17th-century Antwerp. Not a solitary figure in an attic, but a director in the heart of his workshop. His studio hums like a production house. Helpers mix pigments, young talent emerges. Rubens paints the finishing touch. Quality is never diluted. Everything revolves around control, reputation, and transmission. His palace functions as cockpit and as branding. Luxurious ultramarine? Not just colour, but statement. The market is segmented: exclusive masterpieces, solid team works, accessible sketches. Even his will breathes strategy. Art is only sold when successors hit the required level. Legacy remains in the cockpit. After his death, his system lives on.

Smits: Reflection and Rebellion

Smits grows up in a decorative family business. But tradition for him isn’t a destination, it’s a launchpad. He travels the world, collects layer painting technique, and returns with a new perspective. His portraits are direct: no sugarcoating, real light and character. Clients face their true selves—a business lesson in authenticity and positioning. In his later years, Smits changes course: bold light masses, more courage. Evolution rooted in respect for the craft, never stuck in fossilized repetition.

Ensor: Mask, Marketing and Provocation

Ensor starts among the masks of home and carnival. He transforms them into weapons of critique. Behind every mask is a story: identity, hypocrisy, fear. His surrealism provokes juries and the public. Rejection? He flips it into visibility. First shut out, then discovered by collectors, eventually embraced in niche markets. His provocation isn’t coincidence—it’s commercial cunning. The cycle of tradition, confrontation and transfer repeats itself.

Art and Capital: The City’s Dance

Bruges, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent. Each city draws art, but only when capital and infrastructure align. Artists follow money, elite, networks. The rise of creative hubs in the renaissance proves business and art aren’t separate worlds. Art only matters once it’s allowed to play in the economic cockpit.

Managing Generations: Cockpit Thinking Avant la Lettre

Rubens, Smits, Ensor don’t build sacred traditions—they manage dynamic systems. Respect for the past, provocation against the present, readiness for the future. Their methods are sharp, sometimes ruthless: talent is selected, opportunities shared, knowledge transferred. When generations truly collaborate, resilience emerges. You don’t build a museum, but a flying cockpit.

Craftsmanship and Provocation as Premium Strategy

Innovation lives not only in modern techniques, but in the guts to use and break tradition strategically. Those who use the best pigments and dare to confront set the market. Art and entrepreneurship are each other’s catalyst. You’re visible because you’re sharp, not because you keep repeating.

Segmentation, No Dilution

Rubens set the standard for portfolio management without anyone realizing. He offered multiple lines for different target groups, never losing his top level. His model still inspires design, fashion and luxury brands today. Smart scaling isn’t about volume, but about protecting—and broadening—quality.

The story doesn’t stop here. In every cockpit, in every creative company, the dynamic of these artists lives on. Connecting generations is a craft. Art and entrepreneurship mirror each other. Dare to steer, to confront, and to build legacy.

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by sander

The Flywheel of Digital Health: How Biometriq Builds an Ecosystem

How much courage do you need to slow down before you speed up? That question lingered after my conversation with Pieter Josson, co-founder and CEO of Biometriq. What he and his team do may seem obvious at first—helping dietitians with technology. But beneath that lies a rare combination of strategic discipline, ecosystem thinking, and the bravery to make different choices than the crowd.

From Analog to Digital

In 2019, Pieter Josson and Tijs Engelreist started Biometriq. They saw what many missed—a crucial health profession still working as if it were 30 years ago. Dietitians drowned in administration, lacked data insight, and could barely measure their impact.

Pieter: “It’s still an underdigitized profession. We fully invest in integrating the latest technologies into our platform, so dietitians can work more efficiently.”

The platform integrates DNA analyses, wearables, sensors, and questionnaires into one coherent picture to help professionals provide personalized advice. Today, over 330 dietitians in Belgium and the Netherlands use Biometriq, together guiding about 24,000 people.

Reflection

New technology only breaks through to the masses when it is integrated into existing routines. Rogers (2003) calls this the leap from early adopters to the early majority. Biometriq proves how crucial this connection is—the success lies not just in data and algorithms, but especially in how dietitians can use them in daily practice.

The Strategic Choice That Changed Everything

Where many digital health startups chose B2C, Biometriq consciously went B2B.

Pieter: “Many companies in digital health take a B2C approach from the start. Our luck was that we didn’t do that. That gave us a solid base.”

That choice provided stable income and time to refine the product. A simple database query yielded a sharp datapoint: 92% of end users are women. Such insights force segmentation and choices reaching beyond the first ring of customers.

Reflection

Christensen (1997) states that successful innovation starts from the job-to-be-done. Biometriq illustrates this: it’s not about software per se, but about making the dietitian’s job easier and more valuable. The insight that 92% of end users are women highlights how important segmentation and a sharp ICP are for sustainable growth.

From First Customers to Ecosystem Leverage

The early years were about cold calling and one-on-one sales.

Pieter: “We come from a very manual one-on-one sales approach. Now, we’re switching to much more event-led growth.”

It became clear that dietitians are just one link in a larger system of companies, mutual funds, and insurers. Instead of growing one customer at a time, Biometriq sought leverage in that broader network.

Reflection

Blank (2013) emphasizes proving product-market fit before scaling systematically. Biometriq did this via intensive one-on-one sales, then shifted to scalable, event-led models. Their story also shows effectuation (Sarasvathy, 2001): by leveraging unexpected connections along the way, they discovered growth potential in the broader ecosystem.

From Platform to Ecosystem

The answer is a two-sided marketplace: software for practitioners and a digital gateway for organizations.

Pieter: “On one hand, we offer dietitians software to work efficiently. On the other, we build a marketplace enabling organizations to digitally refer employees or members to the ecosystem.”

This creates value for companies—well-being, motivation, employer branding—and for mutual funds and insurers—prevention and referral.

Reflection

Platforms are more than products; they are infrastructures enabling interactions. Hagiu & Wright (2015) describe how multisided platforms generate value by connecting distinct groups. Shapiro & Varian (1998) add that network effects strengthen as more parties join.

Pioneering between Chaos and Structure

Pieter Josson: “I think we made a billion mistakes.”

The European market is still “immature” compared to the U.S., where consolidation and acquisitions are further along. Precisely there, Pieter sees opportunities: those who build wisely now could become the core of an integrated ecosystem.

Reflection

Entrepreneurship often means balancing mistakes and progress. Sarasvathy (2001) calls this effectuation: starting with the means you have and learning by doing. Biometriq also shows how co-opetition (Brandenburger & Nalebuff, 1996) opens opportunities: partnering with potential competitors can speed up ecosystem growth.

The Flywheel in Action

With a recent funding round and a modest profit last year, momentum is building.

Pieter Josson: “We want to expand to France, but always with respect for the ecosystem.”

This is what Jim Collins calls the flywheel—consistent, reinforcing actions that accelerate over time.

Reflection

Collins (2001) shows that growth rarely comes from a single big leap, but from repeated efforts that build momentum together. Moore’s Crossing the Chasm (1991) confirms why Biometriq first anchored its niche before rolling out more broadly.

Lessons from the Biometriq Cockpit

  • Slow down before you speed up. First understand, then build, then scale.
  • Ecosystem over competition. Position yourself as a facilitator, not a replacer.
  • Scale through segment focus. Start with a niche, then broaden.
  • B2B as a bridge to B2C impact. Organizations often reach more end users than direct B2C channels.

Conclusion

Biometriq shows how entrepreneurs win their first customers through personal contact, perseverance, and validation—and then break through by thinking in ecosystems, making sharp choices, and leveraging network effects.

First conquer the niche, then leverage the network, and eventually set the flywheel in motion.

The story of Pieter Josson and Tijs Engelreist proves that sustainable growth emerges when you start small, learn from mistakes, and have the discipline to reach beyond your first network.

References

  • Blank, S. (2013). The Four Steps to the Epiphany. K&S Ranch.
  • Brandenburger, A.M., & Nalebuff, B.J. (1996). Co-opetition. Currency Doubleday.
  • Christensen, C.M. (1997). The Innovator’s Dilemma. Harvard Business School Press.
  • Collins, J. (2001). Good to Great. HarperBusiness.
  • Edvardsson, B., Holmlund, M., & Strandvik, T. (2008). Industrial Marketing Management, 37(3), 339–350.
  • Hagiu, A., & Wright, J. (2015). Multi-sided platforms. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 43, 162–174.
  • Moore, G.A. (1991). Crossing the Chasm. HarperBusiness.
  • Porter, M.E. (1985). Competitive Advantage. Free Press.
  • Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations (5th ed.). Free Press.
  • Sarasvathy, S.D. (2001). Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 243–263.
  • Shapiro, C., & Varian, H.R. (1998). Information Rules. Harvard Business School Press.

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by sander

From Tallinn to Antwerp: What Estonian companies need to know for a safe landing

In the cockpit of the NBB HUB this time: Pieter Poppelsdorf. For more than 4 years, he has been responsible for promoting Estonian investments within the Benelux, based in Amsterdam. He operates at the intersection of government and entrepreneurship, moving smoothly between policymakers, scale-ups, and investors. What makes Pieter unique is his linguistic talent and cultural compass. He speaks Dutch, Estonian, English, and French. This is not a luxury—it’s his essential work tool. From the Netherlands, he connects with Benelux stakeholders, building bridges between hyper-digital Estonia and the multi-layered decision-making of the Benelux.

He’s a networker with sharp insights and always to the point 😊.

“Forget the Estonian market. For Belgian investors, it’s all about the ecosystem and available talent. You don’t go to Estonia to sell to Estonians. You go for the environment, the network, the people.”

The route is not one-way

What Belgian companies are looking for in Estonia fundamentally differs from what Estonian companies seek in Belgium. That “flight direction” defines everything.

  • Belgian companies move to Estonia for tech capacity, agility, and ecosystems.
  • Estonian companies want to touch down in Belgium for market share, customer growth, and scaling.

It may seem trivial, but it’s crucial. Belgian companies don’t need to understand the Estonian customer. Estonian companies must understand the Belgian customer. And that’s where it can go wrong.

The challenge is cultural, not technical

Estonian companies are technically strong—brilliant, even. Commercially? That’s often the challenge. Pieter puts it directly:

“Estonians are product-oriented but sometimes lack marketing and sales knowledge. They build something and often think: this speaks for itself.”

In Belgium, nothing speaks for itself. Decision-makers want case studies, comparisons, and preferably a reference from someone they know. A CEO who says, “They really helped us,” opens more doors than ten technical demos.

Communication can also create friction. Pieter explains:

“Estonians expect you to follow up. For Belgians, that can be difficult. In Belgium, if you request a meeting, we expect you to also do the follow-up.”

At the same time, Estonians find Belgian decision-making slow, ambiguous, and tiring. What they perceive as indecision is, for Belgian companies, simply getting everyone on board. It requires guidance and translation—not just of language, but of pace and expectations.

Why Rethink does land in Belgium

The difference between stumbling and landing? DNA and preparation.

Rethink, a digital service design and innovation agency from Tallinn, takes a fundamentally different approach. They follow the entire NBB HUB DNA trajectory. Not a quick pitch, but a thorough process around positioning, value proposition, and cultural translation.

We align their DNA with the Belgian ecosystem, with clear entry points in education and the public sector.

“The quality of the landing depends a lot on the precision of the preparation. Rethink realizes you need to know the landscape before you land in it.”

Belgium a country?

A frequently underestimated obstacle. Companies see Belgium—and by extension the Benelux—as one market.

Pieter laughs:

“The Benelux isn’t a country. Belgium alone is three markets: Flanders, Wallonia, Brussels. Each with different rules, networks, and expectations. And that applies to the Netherlands too.”

That’s why local guidance isn’t a luxury. It’s the only way to avoid months lost to misunderstandings, cold contacts, and false assumptions. The NBB HUB isn’t an intermediary, but a navigation partner. Not “we’ll do it for you,” but “we’ll teach you to land as it works here.”

Ready to land in Belgium?

Discover how your company can land smoothly in Belgium — with a co-pilot who knows the terrain, the networks, and the fastest route to success.

Discover the NBB Hub

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by sander