0:01

In this conversation , we'll cover how

0:03

a passion for travel turned into a business

0:06

, growing to 10

0:08

million users and knowing

0:10

when it's time to hand over as a CEO . Welcome

0:13

to Start to Scale , the podcast where we

0:15

explore the journeys of remarkable founders . I'm

0:17

your host , lars Kramer . From

0:20

a young age , koen built websites

0:22

for clients , leading up to his first startup

0:24

called Company Spot , which is the Dutch version

0:26

of Glassdoor . Koen later played

0:28

key roles at platforms like Hives , relatieplanet

0:31

and Dumpert , and co-founded Upcoming

0:33

, a news and entertainment platform , until

0:35

in 2015 , together with three co-founders

0:38

, he founded Polar Steps , and

0:40

today over 10 million travelers from all

0:42

parts of the world use the app to plan

0:44

, track and relive their adventures . In

0:47

fact , so does my wife , as I found out

0:49

this summer . She is a user of Polar

0:51

Steps . Welcome to the podcast , koen . Thank you

0:53

Cool . I checked

0:55

your own Polar Steps profile , of course , and

0:58

I saw you visited 70 countries

1:00

from

1:02

way back , so what has been the most memorable

1:05

trip for you so far ?

1:08

Oh , good question . I

1:10

think one of the best was well , you just

1:12

mentioned CompanySpot . It's one of the companies that I

1:14

founded and we miserably failed , but

1:16

in the end we did make a little bit of money

1:18

with it , I think well , like 2000 euros , and

1:20

, together with my partner , that's a good exit

1:22

. It was a very , very good exit

1:24

. If

1:27

you count it back by the rate per hour that we made , it must have been

1:29

under 1 euro . So it was not good . But

1:32

we decided to go on a trip to Indonesia

1:34

for diving and we went to Rasja Ampat

1:36

, which is a very remote part of Indonesia and it's

1:39

still one of my one of my favorite trips , both

1:41

because I really love diving and it's a really , really

1:43

beautiful part of the world , and also it was a

1:45

nice symbolic thing after six

1:47

years of trying and actually failing , to still do

1:49

something nice . Right , and then you spent the 2000 euros

1:52

on the trip we had to pitch in a bit more

1:54

actually to make it there , but it

1:56

was fine , cool , it was a good time .

1:57

Nice . So you're also a diver , right ? Yes , you like diving

1:59

as well . Cool , very nice

2:01

. Well , first of all , welcome , koen

2:04

. Great to have you here . This is a very special episode because

2:06

we're recording this episode today at

2:08

Slusht in Enschede , twente , and

2:11

I think you have a link to Twente , right . That's why you're here

2:13

.

2:13

Yes , I'm born and bred in Twente , actually Born

2:15

and bred in Twente . Small town of Albergen is

2:17

where I come from .

2:18

Cool , perfect . We'll put in the show notes where Albergen

2:20

is because I didn't know it but , um

2:22

, we'll dive into your founder story , entrepreneurial

2:24

story , the highs and the lows , uh . But as always

2:27

, we start with four statements that you can answer with , true

2:29

or false . You're ready , bring

2:31

it on at polar

2:33

steps . We rely on paid media

2:36

for our growth . False we

2:39

should have taken on in international investors

2:41

sooner . False

2:45

my burnout

2:47

has made me a better leader . True

2:51

. And then a final one

2:53

I've enjoyed working with cows

2:55

just as much as working with UN diplomats

2:58

. True . Okay

3:01

, there you go . We'll leave that as a cliffhanger for after

3:03

the break Cows and diplomats , let's

3:06

go into your origin story , because today Polar

3:08

Steps and maybe I didn't know it , but apparently

3:10

one out of every four Dutch people uses

3:12

Polar Steps it

3:14

connects travelers across the globe , but

3:16

it started as a hobby project of your co-founder

3:19

, nick right . So could you maybe take us back

3:21

to that origin story ? How did it all begin ?

3:23

Yeah , sure , the initial idea was

3:25

conceived by my co-founder , nick , who

3:29

also happens to be from Twente , actually , originally , and

3:31

he went sailing across

3:33

the Atlantic Ocean with his dad about

3:35

15 years ago and it was before iPhones

3:38

and everything were big and existed , and

3:42

he figured out it would be really cool if his friends and family could follow his trip live

3:45

while he was sailing across the Atlantic . So

3:47

what he made ? He brought on a boat , he brought a

3:49

little GPS tracker , which nowadays we

3:51

don't know that as much anymore , because

3:53

it's in your phone these days . Yeah , it's in your phone , but it

3:55

was like a device where you could read off your geocoordinates

3:58

of where you are right now . And a satellite

4:00

phone that had SMS functionality

4:02

and

4:06

every day he would read off his geocoordinates on that little tracker and then he would type these coordinates

4:08

in an SMS message together with a short text

4:10

update , and he would text that through

4:12

satellites to a server that was positioned

4:14

close to here , actually in Deventer

4:16

, and that server would

4:19

plot on a map , live on the web , where he was sailing

4:21

across the Atlantic every day .

4:22

Okay , so that is like a very sophisticated experiment

4:26

. Yes , Cool nice .

4:30

And , yeah , he did it once while he was sailing across

4:32

the Atlantic and it was just for himself , as a hobby . But

4:34

then a lot of people really liked it and started following

4:37

him online and then he did

4:39

more . He's a very adventurous traveler , so he went

4:41

, he rode from Amsterdam

4:43

to Cape Town , he

4:46

did a Jeep Cherokeeerokee drive from amsterdam to kyrgyzstan , and

4:48

every time when he would do one of these big overland trips

4:50

he would , yeah , build like a little

4:52

bit more advanced version again of that hobby project

4:55

of his . And every time people on the web

4:57

, people who are into travel , they would follow him back

5:00

then on travel forums and these kind of places where

5:02

people were talking about travel and

5:04

I was one of these travelers , you

5:08

were an early adopter . Well , I was reading on these

5:10

travel forums and I just ran into his project

5:12

and I thought it was really cool . But I also

5:14

thought , hey , this , actually this is a

5:17

nice hobby project , but by that time

5:19

the iPhone started coming up and Android and everybody

5:21

had a GPS tracker and

5:24

a satellite phone .

5:25

And by then that was 2013, .

5:26

When you met , this was around 2012

5:28

, I would say we , uh , it's when I , I think

5:30

we did our first coffee in 2012 . Um

5:33

, when I , yeah , approached

5:35

him and said , hey , this is really cool , can we do something

5:37

? And in the end , um , yeah

5:39

, we clicked and we decided let's , let's do it together

5:42

and let's let's turn this from a hobby project into

5:44

an app and see if we can get

5:46

some traction with it yeah , in in an actual business

5:48

.

5:48

And it's interesting because if you look at your history

5:50

and we often look at kind of you know

5:52

, when do you build a successful company ? And then what

5:54

have you done before ? It seems like

5:56

you've built a lot of experiences

5:58

, both entrepreneurial experiences , but also , you

6:01

know , with hives and those kind of platforms from

6:03

back in the day that would help you to build a platform

6:05

right . So how do you think what has

6:07

helped you most in that journey

6:09

up until that moment that made you successful

6:11

with Polar Steps ?

6:15

Yeah , I think yeah , since I started quite

6:17

early . It's also when you learn a lot about

6:20

UX and online products

6:22

basically , and that I

6:24

think , think , helped me a lot just in learning all the basics

6:26

of how do you build a good online product and

6:28

a good UX and what is good design and how does all

6:30

of that work . Also , of course , the basics around technology

6:33

. In the early days I would do

6:36

PHP myself and code myself the websites

6:38

that I was selling . And

6:41

then at Hives , I

6:43

worked on a specific platform called Upcoming and that

6:45

was really kind of a new spinoff when Hives , as

6:48

most Dutch people will know , at some point on Facebook

6:50

came in and ran over . So this

6:52

part we have to explain to people who have no idea what Hives

6:54

is because we're a bit older , but

6:56

it was the social network before Facebook

6:58

and I was never really deeply involved in Hives itself

7:01

, but I came in kind of at the moment

7:03

when it already started going down , because Facebook

7:05

was just like they did in every market around

7:07

the world . They just pushed out all the local social

7:09

networks that existed up until that time

7:12

, and the same happened

7:14

in the Netherlands . But there was a lot of very talented

7:16

people , of course , at Hives , because at that time Hives

7:19

was kind of the epicenter of the Dutch internet industry

7:21

and it was by far the largest website

7:23

that had ever existed in the Netherlands . So

7:25

, as you can imagine well the the

7:27

technology behind the scenes of how they were dealing with

7:29

all that traffic and but also the way they were

7:31

working they did like product management and

7:34

well , lean startup kind

7:36

of methodologies and that kind of stuff . They

7:39

were already doing a lot of that stuff , while

7:41

it was kind of unknown to the rest of

7:44

the companies here in the Netherlands . So

7:46

there was just a lot of talent and for me that was a really nice

7:48

place to learn a lot from a lot

7:50

of really skilled people around me and

7:52

also where I found , because we have four co-founders in total

7:55

at PolarSteps . Job and Maxi

7:57

are the other two people and Maxi was

8:00

my yeah , the technical lead

8:02

of this upcoming website that I built . Ah

8:04

, okay , and he then

8:07

continued and became the CTO of PolarSteps

8:09

. So it's also where for your network , of course it's

8:11

also really interesting to be in

8:13

a high-talent environment .

8:15

Yeah , that must have been really interesting times . I think I was

8:18

with the first thousand users of Hives , so

8:20

I'm a big Hive adopter

8:22

from the beginning . Actually , I saw you're

8:24

also involved in Relatieplanet , but actually it was a dating site

8:26

for me mostly . Hives back in the days

8:29

Anyway , but cool story and also nice that you now

8:32

work together with Max , which came from that , I

8:36

think . In Intraset you've grown to 10

8:38

million users , which I think for

8:40

I mean , maybe people listening

8:42

from the US go like , okay , what is 10

8:44

million ? But that's a lot of people , actually a lot

8:46

of users in the European space . That's

8:49

impressive . I looked on Dealroom and

8:51

I've seen that your revenue has grown with around

8:53

30% per year . I'm not sure if the numbers are correct With

8:55

one year where it was a bit lower . Maybe we'll touch on that

8:57

in a moment . Maybe

8:59

in general , what has been the strategy behind

9:01

the growth of your company ? What has been kind

9:03

of from the start to where you're now ? What has been the strategy behind

9:07

driving that growth ?

9:08

Yeah , it's kind of funny because a lot of often

9:11

when people ask about the story of

9:13

Polar Shaps and how it came to be , people always use

9:15

that startups and scale-ups . There's a lot of pivots in the

9:17

story where they , yeah , we went out to

9:19

discover X , but

9:26

then we saw y and we became a y company . Um , but with us it has really not been the

9:29

case , and it's quite funny that even the very first pitch deck that I built for

9:31

polar step back in 2014

9:33

, before we even were live , it's kind

9:35

of the same basics as the pitch deck that we still have

9:37

today if we go out really around and

9:39

it's really um based around this vision , because

9:42

what we already saw is that

9:44

you know , of course , the core of our app

9:46

is the travel tracker , where people can track

9:49

their trips and share it , live with friends and family

9:51

back home and plot their adventures

9:53

, live on a map . But we already saw in the

9:55

early days that what we are actually doing there is

9:57

you're building a whole history of how

9:59

people travel , what are all your own travels , but also

10:01

all your friends and how they travel , and

10:04

there was a lot more in the data that is

10:06

behind them than just tracking a trip

10:08

. So already in the first

10:10

vision also because we are travelers ourselves we

10:12

were looking at the travel space and we were looking at hey

10:15

, if you go on an Everest trip , you use 30

10:17

to 40 different apps and websites to

10:20

plan , book and experience and remember

10:22

that trip , and that's

10:24

just a really broken experience with a lot

10:26

of information scattered all

10:28

over the place and a really yeah

10:31

messy story actually from the traveler perspective

10:33

.

10:33

It's interesting because if I now think back

10:35

over the past 10 years of my trips indeed , I

10:38

probably have parts still on my own blog I

10:40

probably have a part on Facebook back in the days

10:42

which I'm not using anymore Exactly

10:44

. So yeah , it's everywhere and it's scattered

10:46

.

10:47

And you're entering the same information everywhere you know , because

10:49

you start planning and then you enter okay , I want to

10:51

be in this city , you look for a hotel

10:53

but then you enter the same data again somewhere else

10:55

. So , yeah , so already at the first

10:57

version , what we said is hey , we want to build

11:00

in one platform where you have a unified

11:02

experience as a traveler , from the very

11:04

first inspiration into planning your

11:06

trip , then

11:08

during your trip to track it and share it , real time with your friends and family back

11:10

home , and after your trip to remember it for the rest of

11:12

your life . And these four pillars we're

11:14

already in that first pitch deck that we had before

11:16

we went live and are still the core

11:19

of the company that we have been building .

11:21

But then still you grew from early

11:23

days a couple of users to now 10 million , so

11:25

then maybe also linked to that paid media

11:27

. So how did that growth then happen ? Because

11:29

the strategy and the pillars have been the same , yeah , but

11:31

how did you then maintain that growth ?

11:33

Yeah , our growth has been very organic

11:35

. I would say 99, . It was one of your questions

11:37

at the beginning here . Actually , 99% of our

11:40

users have signed up because they got recommended

11:42

the app from a friend . Yeah , um

11:44

, and that has always been the core of our growth strategy

11:46

. It's also a bit of the knowledge that we brought on from previous

11:48

places . We worked like hives

11:50

, of course , which is very social , and other upcoming

11:53

other platforms that we have worked on , um

11:56

and uh , yeah , this is just a

11:58

very um , attractive way to grow and

12:00

basically the core of the strategy is to build a really good

12:02

project and really knowing what your people want and knowing what

12:04

your people want and knowing what is in need with

12:06

people and make sure that you

12:08

put your user first and if you do that , then

12:11

over time you see that people

12:13

start loving your product and if they love your product , they start

12:16

recommending your product . So , for example , one thing

12:18

that we really used always , as

12:20

of the first days that we were building the app , is NPS

12:22

as a key metric . As of the first days that we were building the app is NPS as a key metric . It's funny

12:24

because there's quite a bit of it's debated .

12:26

Yeah , there's a lot of skepticism about it nowadays

12:28

.

12:28

We'll put in the show notes what NPS exactly is , but

12:31

it's kind of how Net promoter score to a

12:33

bit more expensive and

12:36

there's a lot of criticism about it , but I actually think

12:38

that if you want to build a company that is based on

12:40

organic user growth , that NPS

12:42

is one of the best metrics that you can use , because

12:44

, in its essence , with

12:46

NPS , the question is how likely are you ? to

12:48

recommend this app to a friend or family member and

12:52

that basically means that if you ask that question

12:54

and people say yes they give a 9 or a 10 , they

12:56

will recommend your app to a friend

12:58

or family .

12:58

So in your case it really links to yeah , exactly

13:01

Cool . To yeah , yeah , exactly cool . So you've tracked that over time

13:03

. Yeah , it's just been what's your because we always actually we

13:05

do an mps upstream festival as well . Uh

13:07

, I used to work in telcos before banking

13:10

, who have usually a negative mps what's

13:12

the best one that you uh ?

13:13

what are you used to ? What is your benchmark on that , on

13:15

banks or ?

13:15

uh , well , in general , like you see , he

13:18

said do you still know the mps ? It was 59 , I

13:20

think , for upstream this year . Yeah

13:22

, so , uh , and , and the goal for us is to go

13:24

, go higher every year . And I think that's the , that's

13:27

the challenge , the real challenge for us . What's

13:29

yours ? Do you , can , you can ?

13:31

you mention Towards the year . Usually it's

13:33

around 60 , 65 . Yeah , and then during

13:35

the travel season , it

13:45

goes down a little , but usually it's around 60 tracking

13:47

NPS . It's a good strategy to

13:50

grow and making product decisions based on it . So

13:52

for me that's really the essence , you don't only track it

13:54

but you look , why are people not happy ?

13:56

and you fix it , and then people become

13:58

more happy and let's

14:00

talk investors , because you started out with a business angel

14:03

Talk about that and later added investors

14:05

and quite a few we know or even had

14:07

on the show Nalden I saw on your list , launus

14:09

Groenendijk , inkev later on . There

14:13

might be founders out there thinking like do I raise , do

14:16

I not raise ? Do I need venture capital ? When

14:18

did you realize you needed venture capital and

14:20

how did you approach the fundraising process

14:22

and then maybe cross those different stages ?

14:27

Yeah , we realized very early on that we needed to

14:29

raise money for this , because we were

14:32

not coming from rich families or whatever , or we

14:34

had not previously found companies that we could take

14:36

on 2,000 euros . You had , yeah

14:38

, literally 2,000 euros , which we spent in Indonesia

14:40

on diving . So that is back to zero . So

14:43

we realized quite early on that , hey , if we want

14:45

to build the proper product

14:48

, then we need to be able to work full time on it , and if

14:50

we want to work full time on it and being

14:52

able to pay our mortgage , then we need to raise an investment

14:54

. Yeah , um , especially because

14:56

polish has . From the beginning , we really believe that

14:58

it was it's and it's quite . It's quite . It's more

15:00

of an american way of doing it , not so european

15:02

. But our idea was , hey , we

15:04

should not focus on making money in the early years

15:07

. We should focus on bringing

15:09

a lot of value for users and then , if we do that

15:11

, we see plenty of ways to make money later on , which

15:13

is an especially hard pitch to make to European

15:16

investors because they're not used to that . So

15:19

, yes , also , if that is your strategy , you need

15:21

money even more . So

15:24

, yeah , it was really clear from the beginning

15:26

. So , over time and once you go on the track

15:28

, of course , then you also need to keep raising money in

15:30

the early years until you actually make enough money to

15:32

fund yourself , which luckily

15:34

nowadays is the case , so we're not dependent anymore on

15:36

investors . But yeah

15:39

, we raised quite a few rounds .

15:40

Yeah , and how did you then ? Because it

15:42

started with an angel or some like rounds , yeah , and how did you then

15:44

? Uh , because it started with an angel or some like yes , we call the friends , fools and family , somebody

15:46

who believed in you . And then how did you decide what

15:48

kind of investors you needed when ?

15:50

yeah , it was funny because the first investor really was

15:52

really through the friends and family circles

15:55

of somebody who really he thought it was a cool

15:57

idea and he'd also seen nick's prototype . And we

15:59

didn't even have a product or anything yet , we just had a few really

16:01

slick designs that job my co-founderfounder

16:03

made . He's an amazing designer

16:05

, so whenever he would design my pitch

16:07

deck then certainly investors would have interest in us and

16:11

basically we went on an evening to this guy

16:13

and we showed him a few of his designs and he was , oh , that's

16:15

really cool , I want to invest

16:18

, I'll

16:20

wire , wired the money tomorrow , the the day

16:23

after , without even having the whole contract and everything settled

16:25

but you did negotiate the terms

16:27

, yeah actually the funny story around

16:29

this we negotiated terms but

16:31

we we didn't even know what to negotiate because we didn't

16:33

know anything and we gave away in the end way too much to

16:36

him . But then years later , when we had to

16:38

raise more , further

16:40

rounds , we realized , oh my god , we gave

16:42

this angel way too much . And

16:44

he actually came back to us and he said hey guys , that's

16:46

okay , I'll hand in quite a significant

16:48

portion of my shares to make it happen again . And yeah

16:51

, for me that's really it's such a good example of

16:53

because if you wouldn't have done that , I

16:56

don't know if we would still have been on the pad where

16:58

we are now . And

17:05

for him in the end end , of course , it really paid off also to to be flexible and to understand that

17:07

it's not about the exact percentage , it's about together making sure that it works .

17:09

I think that's a really important lesson for any

17:11

angel investor or aspirational

17:13

angel investor out there to really get an understanding

17:15

on what it is that you should be asking

17:18

for in the beginning and also how you make yourself attractive

17:21

for follow-on investment . Exactly so , but you , yeah

17:23

, yeah . That seemed to have gone really , really , really well

17:25

, and then later you had the other investors

17:27

. So did you find them ? Did

17:29

they find you no ?

17:32

we had to find them . So I really literally because

17:35

the first round was just Angel then we did a few seed rounds

17:37

of tickets , you know like 100k

17:40

stuff

17:46

like that , um , and for that we really had to go out and just I think I sent around out of literally

17:48

hundreds called emails because I also didn't really have a network or anything , um

17:50

, and then some people started replying , and then

17:52

some people and but , and then what I found out is , once

17:55

you're in with when a few people start believing you

17:57

, then they start recommending you to their fellow investors

17:59

and then it's yeah , then it went really quick

18:01

and then at one point we even had a round

18:03

that was oversubscribed and then we could literally choose

18:05

who would invest .

18:06

So that's yeah , and then my question in

18:08

the intro was no international investors , because

18:10

obviously your proposition you already have

18:12

a lot of international customers , but obviously you

18:15

know , going to big markets . Was

18:18

it intentional not to choose for maybe

18:20

, an international investor ?

18:22

No , it wasn't intentional , it

18:26

just happened to be like that , also because you

18:28

know when we did not ? Our last

18:30

round was in 2019 , so that's quite a while ago

18:32

already , and especially back

18:34

then 2017 , 18 , 19 , we were still quite

18:36

Dutch and , of course

18:38

, we always had international ambitions from day one

18:40

. The first version of PolarStars was not even available in

18:42

Dutch . It was always built in English . But

18:46

over time , yeah , I

18:48

think if we would do rounds again in the future , it

18:50

would be way more likely to be international investors

18:53

. But yeah , it's been

18:55

okay for us . It's also easier and lower barrier to

18:57

have a Dutch investor on board , because they can reference you

18:59

easily .

19:00

It was just easier . Cool , before

19:02

we go to your

19:05

leadership experience , maybe the team is now more

19:07

than 60 people .

19:08

Yeah , around that size yes .

19:12

You mentioned . We always talk about how do you attract and retain the right

19:14

people , and you

19:16

have something really interesting on your website . Maybe talk

19:19

about what that is and how that works .

19:21

The teleporter .

19:21

I mean the teleporter . Yeah , that's a job

19:23

benefit .

19:24

we actually have already from quite early on the teleporter . I mean , the teleporter , yeah , that's a job benefit we actually have already from quite

19:26

early on and the teleporter

19:28

is basically a teleport machine that we built . It's actually

19:30

public . You can look it up at polarstrapscom slash

19:32

teleporter and

19:34

what we basically do is all of our employees

19:37

on the annual anniversary of their employment

19:39

so basically once per year they get

19:41

to use the teleport machine and basically we make a big

19:43

event out of that at the company , usually at

19:45

the quarterly drinks or something and people get to push

19:47

the teleport button and then on

19:50

this side you'll see Big Map of the World and it randomly

19:52

selects three locations

19:54

around the world that have been visited before by

19:56

Polarstrap users , which is basically every location around

19:58

the world and then people can pick one of

20:00

these three and then we give them a flight

20:02

ticket to that , or train ticket if

20:04

they choose for the eco-friendly option , which

20:07

is also in there , or train

20:09

tickets to the destination . And

20:14

the idea behind it is really that we really believe in that people who work with us . They

20:16

should really experience our product like our users do

20:18

, because when you're a developer and you're sitting in our

20:20

Amsterdam glass fiber connection

20:23

testing the app , it will always synchronize your photos

20:25

as well .

20:25

Sure , yeah , it will work really well .

20:28

But if you're in Thailand in a hostel on a shitty internet connection , it might

20:30

not work as well . So , yeah , that's

20:32

brought us . Of course , our

20:34

people really like it and it's really nice

20:36

to test the product and to go out there and also really

20:38

to get the vibe of , okay , what do

20:40

travelers run into and to make sure that everybody always has

20:43

the use cases of the real travelers Really cool

20:45

strategy .

20:45

I wish I had a teleporter for

20:47

that reason . Super cool , maybe

20:50

before we go to the break . I

20:53

talked about well staying

20:55

sane as a founder , or your mental health , and I

20:57

think your own journey has also been a tough one , right ? Yes

21:00

, there was a tough year Corona year , I think

21:02

, also for the business you . There was a tough year , corona year , I think , also for the

21:04

business . You faced a burnout . I think it's important to talk about this

21:06

for other founders , so maybe can

21:08

you explain how did that happen and

21:11

, in hindsight , what for you were

21:13

actually the early warning signs that you ignored .

21:15

Yeah , that is a good question . So

21:18

basically what happened was I had quite a heavy year in 2019

21:20

with my mother passed away and my relationship

21:23

ended , so I already came from a bit of personal

21:25

uh back um well

21:27

, things not going so well . And then in 2020

21:30

, covid happened in march 2020 and

21:32

, especially being in travel business , we literally

21:34

, you know , for five , six years

21:37

you're building and building , working around the clock

21:39

to make this thing happen yeah and in two weeks

21:41

, basically 80 of our users disappeared

21:43

and no traveler anymore no traveler

21:46

anymore . Um , and

21:48

yeah , it was , of course , and just a really stressful

21:51

period , just both because of , um

21:53

, what to do for the company and to make sure

21:55

that the company survives and all the people

21:57

going , working from home and back to the office and all the

21:59

decisions you need to make around that while

22:01

not being in the same room together , but

22:03

also personally . I was sitting on a kitchen table

22:05

for a year just working and working

22:08

and working by myself

22:10

and then

22:12

eventually it went quite well , I think for the company . We actually

22:14

managed . We got through COVID really well . There's

22:16

few . We didn't have to fire anyone because we actually

22:18

had . We were making quite some good money already

22:20

before that and we had a good bank account . So

22:28

we some good money already before that and we had a good bank account . So we and we had a long-term vision that we're building on . So for us we already realized early . You know the company

22:30

actually will be okay . But for me personally it was still a very stressful

22:32

period and in the course of 21 I really felt stress

22:35

building up in my body . I was literally at some point sitting

22:37

at my kitchen table just working on normal

22:39

stuff , yeah , and I really felt the stress flowing

22:41

through my how do you feel that ?

22:43

because that , Because there might be founders who go like maybe

22:45

I have it , but what does it feel like ?

22:47

Yeah , it's hard to describe . I think for me

22:49

it was . I think for everyone it's different a bit , but

22:52

for me it was . I had a lot of unrest , I

22:54

was sleeping less well during the night and

22:57

I just felt I felt really the stress

22:59

in my body . I felt tensed all the time . I felt tensed all the

23:01

time even when I was kind

23:03

of not really into something that should cause tension

23:05

. Of course , everybody experiences tension . If

23:08

you need to go on a big stage , maybe you'll feel

23:10

it a little bit in advance , but

23:17

it's not supposed to happen when you're just sitting on a kitchen table

23:19

doing some normal work , for example . Yeah , and I noticed I couldn't get to

23:21

sleep . I

23:26

was quite often awake at night and felt quite distressed also and not relaxed

23:28

anymore . And , yeah , at some point I really

23:31

decided like I was thinking about it and

23:33

I realized that , hey , this is not going

23:35

well . So I had to go to my co-founders

23:37

and say , hey , I think I need to prioritize

23:40

my mental health

23:42

over the company at the moment . And

23:44

maybe that's the hardest moment in the whole process

23:46

, that you really need to go to your colleagues and co-founders

23:49

and saying , hey , I cannot deal with

23:51

it anymore , I need to stop , also because I was in the CEO

23:53

position at that time , of course

23:55

. And then it really feels like , oh

23:58

, wow , will it be okay and can

24:00

the company do without me ? And

24:02

if I actually was in the middle of starting

24:04

to raise an investment round again , I'd

24:07

already mailed the first what is it ? 50

24:09

cold emails to investors and if you want , wants

24:11

to start up this round , and

24:14

then you really feel like , hey , wow , stepping out

24:16

will be like a major setback for this company

24:18

that we've built . And , yeah

24:20

, that makes it really , really tough to say that

24:22

.

24:22

Yeah , to acknowledge it for yourself and then to say

24:24

to your co-founders .

24:25

This is the moment when I step in and how did they respond

24:27

? Well , I was very lucky

24:30

to actually have very understanding . I have

24:32

great co-founders in general , but

24:34

also around this personal

24:36

phase of me they've been really supportive

24:38

. One of them had gone through a burnout

24:40

himself before , so

24:42

that also helps , of course , for them to have

24:44

a bit of understanding . The other one took over the CEO-ship

24:47

of the company when I went out . And

24:49

well , the three of them actually led the

24:51

company well , took over the leadership of the company

24:53

when I went out . I

24:56

was out for a full year . It really took me a while

24:58

to , yeah , feel kind of normal again

25:00

. And that's also when

25:02

you learn that actually in all again , um , and that's also

25:04

when you learn that actually in the end it will always be okay , because you kind of feel when you're

25:06

in , when you're fully in it , like , oh , I cannot do this and I

25:08

cannot get out . And of course it doesn't mean that it was

25:10

nice they've had a . Really it was really tough

25:12

for them actually to take over and to step in and

25:14

, um , yeah

25:17

, to do that , but in the end it's

25:19

also , you know , if you look at where we are

25:21

today , I think i'm'm really proud of how they have

25:23

taken over and where the company is today and

25:25

how we've done that with actually

25:28

the whole team and also the four of

25:30

us as founders .

25:30

Yeah , and it's an important and a beautiful story because

25:33

that's also the power of a business and having multiple

25:35

people working together in a business on a shared

25:37

goal or purpose whatever , and then if one has

25:39

to step out , then the rest needs to take over

25:41

.

25:42

I think step out , yeah , then the rest needs to take over . I think it's one of the right reasons

25:44

why investors don't want to invest in a single person team because you want

25:46

to be sure there's you know more people to

25:48

to back it up .

25:49

Yeah yeah , maybe in the startup phase it's more difficult

25:51

, but by that time you already had , you know , quite

25:53

a substantial team , and and then it changes

25:56

a little bit . Um , yeah , good

25:58

, and I think it's important that we share this because actually I I

26:00

talked about this on an earlier podcast as well I had

26:02

a burnout in 2008 , although it was not a year

26:04

. I was out for a full month and then took

26:06

time to recover . But

26:08

that's why I asked you about the feeling .

26:10

How was it for you ? What did you experience ?

26:12

It was actually so . It was

26:14

tough , like you mentioned , with your mother

26:16

and your relationship . In my case it was the birth of my

26:18

daughter , which for me was a really beautiful

26:20

but also very stressful thing

26:23

, because my wife was expecting all kinds of things

26:25

of me and a really , really busy job and

26:27

not being able to let go . And

26:29

for me it was the fact that I drove to the office

26:32

one morning and

26:34

as I waited in front of the office I

26:36

couldn't get out of the car and I started sweating

26:38

and crying and I felt like I had a fever

26:40

and

26:43

I couldn't move anymore . So

26:45

I had no idea what to do and I just

26:47

turned around and went home and went to bed and

26:50

slept for two days and

26:52

also felt really sorry for that , because there was a lot

26:54

of stuff happening in the company that I needed to attend

26:56

. But I called in sick . I said I don't know

26:58

, and this is also a lesson the good response

27:01

that I got was first understanding Same

27:03

thing also a lesson . The good response that I got was first understanding same thing . So people who

27:05

have had it before understand what you're going for , and I think the

27:07

smartest thing is um , I went into with

27:09

a personal coach back then who really helped me to

27:11

understand my behaviors and to figure

27:13

out how to change them , um , so that's why

27:15

it was only a month , um

27:18

, but obviously the , the real recovery

27:20

takes longer . Yeah , I guess

27:22

, and I still .

27:23

I'm still learning today . I also started coaching

27:25

as of that time . It's something I would really recommend

27:27

now , especially after this experience . I

27:29

think it's uh , yeah , that helps to keep the

27:31

same yeah , no , true , and actually make you sane again

27:33

.

27:33

If you don't feel that's the thing , and use a coach while you're

27:35

doing well yeah , that's the other part , they can help you

27:38

uh , help you move out . Cool , I love this story . We

27:40

can talk much more about this , but we'll go to a quick break and

27:42

then we'll be back .

27:44

You're listening to the podcast of Up Rotterdam

27:47

. We help startups scale and grow their

27:49

business by offering access to talent , access

27:51

to international markets and access to capital

27:53

. Curious how we can make

27:55

the network work for you ? Go to uprotterdamcom

27:58

. This podcast was made possible

28:00

by the city of Rotterdam .

28:03

And we're back . We're talking to Koen from Polar

28:06

Steps and I think we've touched so many things . First of

28:08

all , about your insane company and

28:10

the app that you're building , which I think is really nice and used

28:12

by many , but also your lessons in fundraising

28:15

and dealing with your own

28:17

mental health . And coming back , actually , before

28:21

we go to listeners' questions , what

28:23

is on top of your mind ? What's your biggest challenge ?

28:27

Oh , good question . I

28:30

think one of the things that we are really focused on at the company now

28:33

is our international growth , because in the Netherlands we're

28:35

even seeing the growth kind of capping off yeah

28:38

there's no more people yeah there's kind of a

28:40

cap to what you can do within the country and

28:42

we feel we are getting quite close to that . But

28:45

in a lot of other countries like Germany

28:47

, France , United States

28:49

, Great Britain , we're really seeing

28:51

it taking off at the moment . So

28:54

for us , yeah , it's just a really exciting time . We just

28:56

have a new CEO who started for us

28:58

, who took over from

29:01

us as founders on the CEO role , and

29:03

there's just a lot of exciting stuff on our product roadmap

29:05

that we feel will both help our

29:08

international growth but also really bring the company

29:10

in a whole different phase .

29:16

She's an external right she didn't come from inside the company from next . Okay , yeah , how did

29:18

you find her ? Did you do recruitment or yes , we worked with a headhunter and we did , really

29:20

did well .

29:21

We first started looking in the netherlands with a dutch headhunter

29:23

. It was actually really hard because we yeah

29:26

, we have really big ambitions . We really see ourselves

29:28

as being , in a couple of years , one of the top travel apps

29:30

worldwide and

29:32

it means that also the talent . We're really , really

29:34

critical in hiring in general . But

29:36

then when you want to hire a CEO , that bar

29:38

is even higher and

29:41

it actually took us over a year to find someone and in the end , people actually our

29:43

staff was singing Christmas carols , making

29:46

fun of us as founders , having not found a CEO

29:48

yet at some point . So

29:55

then you really feel the pain like , oh yes , it's taking a lot of time and should we lower the

29:57

barrier ? Should we take shortcuts and stuff like that ? Um , but in the end we're really happy that

29:59

we have not done that and that we just kept kept that bar

30:01

high , kept searching . At the end we expanded the search to

30:03

truly international , around the world and

30:05

, yeah , we found an amazing candidate .

30:07

We're really happy with claire , who has yeah

30:16

, started with us uh quite a few months ago already . Nice , yeah , and then off for the international expansion

30:18

. Really cool , really nice . Uh , we'll go to listeners questions , which we always do . So , uh , keep an eye on the

30:20

next guest and send in your questions and they might be , uh

30:23

, asked here . Um , the

30:25

first one is actually a really important uh

30:27

question for anybody . Any founder that

30:29

has to do a has

30:32

to find a midnight snack in a big city . The

30:36

question is from Rory . She says in

30:38

Groningen we have eierballen , in Rotterdam

30:40

we have a kapsalon . What

30:45

?

30:45

is the ultimate midnight snack in Twente . Good

30:47

question .

30:48

Have you tried eierballen ?

30:52

What I remember from my youth is a sausage sandwich you that we

30:54

would get at a local bakery of the discotheque where we went , but I would

30:56

not really call it a local delicacy no it

30:58

is delicate maybe the krenten , maybe the krenten

31:00

.

31:00

I would say let's see , let's keep it to that . Yes , maybe

31:03

not at midnight . Right , you eat these things .

31:04

No , that's true

31:07

, but uh , yeah , I would eat one if I would come

31:09

home drunk . I think there we go there we go

31:11

.

31:11

Very good , great Rory , you bring

31:13

us all these information , these things really

31:15

nice . Colleen asks a

31:18

user of your app how do

31:20

you build and implement new product improvements

31:22

? You touched on it already a little bit with the NPS , right

31:24

? So then , how does that work ? How do you choose between

31:26

what to do first ?

31:32

Yeah , basically there's three key things that we use as input . We look at

31:34

, actually , all the from the mps scores . We look at all the feedback that we

31:36

get through that feedback channel from users . And

31:38

then , secondly , we look in the , in our statistics

31:40

, so really the hard data as to what's happening , what are people

31:42

using and whether we see potential for what's

31:45

going on . And the third part is basically

31:47

our fishing for the product , because when we

31:49

really , when we started building the company quite a few

31:51

years ago , we had this vision that is like a 10-year

31:54

vision and by now I could even say 20-year

31:56

vision maybe , because we still see ourselves what

31:58

do we want to move towards ? How are we going to

32:00

change the travel landscape ? So

32:03

a lot of the feature choices that we make is also really driven

32:05

by , yeah , this all-in-one traveler product

32:07

and a specific problem for the traveler that we want to solve

32:10

and making sure that you don't have to use 30 to 40

32:12

different app sites and your data and information

32:14

is scattered everywhere , but you can just inspire

32:16

, plan , track and relive all in one app . Yeah

32:20

, and that's basically what then decides our roadmap

32:22

. And it also changes a bit over

32:24

the years because early on it was also quite you

32:27

know . You know the founder's intuition that was really driving

32:29

a lot of the decision . But founder's

32:31

intuition is not really scalable , of course , because at some

32:34

point you need to yeah , people need to

32:36

make product decisions without

32:38

having to ask as founders . So

32:40

nowadays , for example , we also have a user researcher who

32:42

is working for us , who really is full-time working

32:44

on doing research with our

32:46

users and finding out what are

32:48

core needs and solutions that we

32:50

could build .

32:51

And then there's only so many changes you can make

32:53

, right , because in essence , people don't

32:55

want to have an app that changes constantly , but they probably

32:57

want to have improvements over time . Yeah

32:59

, yeah .

33:00

Sometimes you should also not be afraid , I think , because otherwise

33:03

you're going to be the next Hyves if you don't change

33:05

fast enough . But it's a very delicate

33:07

thing between where do you need

33:09

to change and where do you want to go aggressive

33:11

, maybe even in changing core aspects of what you do , and

33:14

where do you want to be more gradual .

33:16

And the one thing we didn't touch up upon

33:18

in the earlier part of the conversation is how

33:20

you actually make money . Important

33:22

part I think people know it by now , but it's

33:24

your biggest revenue stream is actually the photo

33:26

, right ?

33:27

yes , yes , okay yeah , so when people are done

33:29

tracking the trips with our app , so some people

33:31

actually some user app really

33:34

for the social aspect , they like it that their close friends and

33:36

family can , yeah , follow

33:38

them and share with them their adventures . But we've also

33:40

quite a few users who use this just to create

33:42

these photo books . Yeah , so basically during your trip

33:44

you add all your photos and your text and your travel

33:46

stories and then when your trip is over

33:49

, basically within two , three minutes , you can

33:51

order a printed photo album of that and uh

33:53

, yeah , we're selling a lot of so .

33:54

Did that already start in the beginning , or was that one

33:56

of the product improvements you made ?

33:58

um , no , we , before we launched , we already

34:00

had the idea of , hey , okay , one of the

34:02

photo books could be one potential revenue model

34:04

in the future . Um , and then , after

34:06

we launched , we actually started getting user requests

34:09

yeah , okay , travel stories

34:11

yeah but so that was a for us

34:13

and we decided to build it . Actually

34:15

, two , three years after

34:17

we launched- Two , three years

34:19

after launch .

34:19

Yeah , it took us a few years .

34:20

So the first few years , the first two

34:23

years we were live , we did not make any money . Okay

34:25

, yeah , okay .

34:26

Two years , yeah , and that's why you had the fun . Okay , cool . Um

34:29

, on your

34:32

website it says uh , we're guided

34:34

by our polar steps moral comp . Elizabeth

34:36

asked this . On your website it says we're

34:38

guided by our polar steps moral compass

34:40

. Rather than profits , we want to

34:42

make the world a richer place , not the other way around . How

34:45

do you keep this balance while also maintaining

34:47

growth and competitiveness ? Can

34:49

you give an example ?

34:50

yeah , and that's a good question . I

34:53

think that the way that we've grown is

34:56

always by putting the

34:58

user first and developing valuable

35:00

features for users , and then

35:02

you know the . For

35:04

example , making money isn't just a result . So

35:07

for us , you know what . What guides us

35:09

a lot in our decision , I think , is really focusing

35:11

on , okay , what are needs

35:14

that users ask for or that we

35:16

ourselves , as travelers , see in the travel landscape

35:18

. Hold it up also

35:20

against a moral compass , because you want to be forced

35:22

for good in the world rather than forced for bad . So

35:25

, for example , we will never promote going

35:27

on yet another tour in the overcrowded

35:30

canals of Venice , for example

35:32

, in our travel guides that we have in the app , but

35:34

instead our travel editors will try to look for

35:37

alternative destinations that are maybe

35:39

a bit less crowded and where maybe a bit less of that

35:42

bad tourism is going on . So

35:44

, yeah , in a lot of the decisions that we take , we

35:46

try to balance

35:48

out user value with the

35:50

moral compass . Cool .

35:51

Very nice , great

35:54

question , and I think it's for talent . It's also important , right

35:56

People joining the company more and more asking

35:58

these kind of questions . Final question

36:00

is from Lieke , and her question is

36:02

what behavioral habits

36:04

have you

36:06

formed since your burnout ?

36:09

That's a good question . I'm

36:14

actually still in the process , I would say , of forming behavior , because it's not like you have a

36:16

burnout for one year and then it's over and suddenly

36:19

you're fine . I mean , to the day of today . I still have

36:21

periods where I'm actually quite okay and periods where I still

36:23

start feeling a bit stressed again and and that's especially

36:25

when this kicks in um

36:27

. But , for example , what I've started to do quite

36:30

a lot is meditating . Specifically

36:32

, I do yoga nidra . There's some I use

36:34

a house of deep relax . It's called yoga nidra

36:36

. Yoga nidra , yeah , it's a kind of meditation

36:38

where you just lay down on your bed and it's for

36:41

me , it really helps to make my body rest

36:43

again . And this house of deep

36:45

relax app it's specifically in dutch , which really works

36:47

well for me , because if , if I listen to a meditation

36:50

in english and I get distracted because I'm

36:52

translating it all the time , and if it's in dutch , then

36:54

I somehow feel more relaxed and , for

36:57

example , that has been one of the top things that I've discovered

36:59

that for me really works . Another thing that really works is

37:02

walking in nature . So I already always

37:04

used to like that quite a bit , but now I do it even

37:06

more systematically . I make sure that I

37:08

get my nature time and that's just where

37:10

, because my head is always very busy with

37:12

ideas and everywhere , all over the place , and

37:15

also I'm very eager and driven , especially

37:17

when it comes to the company for what I want

37:19

to build and that's taking a lot of energy and I really

37:21

need to make sure that I balance it out , for

37:23

example , with yoga nidra or with

37:26

taking enough walks in the forest , but

37:28

also , for example , I try to go on a big holiday

37:30

two times per year . It doesn't need to be the

37:32

other end of the world , it can also be relatively close , but

37:35

then I can really turn my brain off for

37:37

two weeks in a row . Yeah

37:40

, for me that works well . To make sure that

37:43

it's not always 110%

37:46

on .

37:46

I think it's a great strategy . Meditation

37:49

, travel and being in nature and that combination

37:51

For me , meditation just never works . My simple

37:53

meditation is I count the steps to

37:55

the coffee machine . So that's the one

37:57

thing . I built in because you can do it all the time

37:59

. So wherever ? I am . If I walk to the coffee machine

38:02

, I'll count my steps , because

38:05

the guided meditation didn't work for me . I tried it , so apparently

38:08

I started dog walking for that same reason . Ah nice

38:10

, we have a pet B&B just for that reason , so

38:12

I can walk out and go everywhere . That's nice .

38:14

Smart . My girlfriend is a psychologist

38:16

and she challenged me to try

38:18

doing stuff at 50% . So the whole day you

38:21

cycle to work at 50% , you walk up the stairs

38:23

there at 50% , you walk to the coffee machine at 50%

38:26

. Wow , and when you're like me

38:28

, that's a really interesting one to

38:30

try out , because then you're really forced to

38:32

slow down and it actually helps to your

38:34

brain and if you put your body in that mode , your brain

38:37

also starts slowing down a bit which yeah

38:39

for me helps when I'm too busy .

38:41

I'm going to try and drink wine at 50% tonight

38:43

at Slusht . I guess Something

38:46

tells me , but I'm going to try . It's

38:49

been awesome , Koen . I think we've touched on so many

38:51

topics . Thank you for sharing your story

38:53

with us here , with us at the podcast , but

38:55

also with the people here at Slusht . You'll be

38:57

on the stage later . So

39:00

sharing your story , Every

39:02

link , everything we talked about , we'll put the link in

39:04

our show notes so you can find those there

39:06

. But as always but as always we

39:09

close off with a song that you have selected . So would you

39:11

like to explain which song and

39:13

why you chose it ?

39:14

yes , I chose the Pirates of the Caribbean theme

39:16

song and I liked it from a few perspectives

39:18

. First of all , when we played a teleporter at Polar

39:20

Steps . This is always a song that we have in the background when people

39:22

need to press the button and see where they go

39:24

, so it's a bit of a and I also like

39:27

the team of pirates , because for me , pirates is also what

39:29

entrepreneurship and building startups is

39:32

about . You go a bit against the stream , you go do

39:34

things different than other people do it . So yeah

39:36

, for me it was a nice combination of things

39:38

, cool .

39:40

I can only say R . We'll

39:42

close out with that . Thank you to all our listeners

39:44

and viewers today for tuning in to the Start

39:46

to Scale podcast . If you enjoyed this episode

39:49

, don't

39:51

forget to subscribe and leave a rating Until next time . Keep it up .

39:53

The

39:58

. I'm

40:00

a

40:05

, I'm

40:08

a , I'm a

40:10

, I'm a , I'm

40:12

a , I'm

40:14

a , I'm a , I'm

40:17

a , I'm

40:21

a

40:23

, I'm a

40:28

, I'm a , I'm

40:33

a , I'm a

40:35

, I'm

40:38

a , I'm a , I'm a , I'm a , I'm a , I'm

40:40

a , I'm a , I'm a , I'm a , I'm a , I'm a , I'm

40:42

a . I'm not sure

40:45

if I can do

40:47

this . I'm not

40:49

sure if I can do

40:51

this . I'm not sure if I can do this . I'm

40:54

not sure if I can do this . I'm not sure if

40:56

I can do this . I'm not sure if

40:58

I can do this . I'm not sure if

41:00

I can do this . I'm not sure if I can

41:02

do this . I'm not sure if I can do

41:04

this . I'm

41:07

not sure

41:09

if I can

41:12

do this

41:16

. I'm

41:18

not sure

41:21

if

41:23

I can

41:25

the the

41:28

. I'm not

41:31

sure

41:35

if I should

41:38

be doing

41:40

this . I'm

41:43

not sure

41:45

if I should be

41:47

doing this

41:51

. I'm not sure if I should be doing this . I'm not

41:54

sure if I should be doing this . I'm not

41:56

sure if I should be doing this . I'm not sure

41:58

if I should be doing this . I'm not

42:00

sure if I should be doing this . I'm not sure if I

42:02

should be doing this . No-transcript

44:56

. I'm

45:55

sorry . The , the , the , the

45:58

, the

46:02

, the

46:39

, the . Thanks

46:44

for

46:46

watching

46:50

.