In this 11th episode of Building the Dream, my co-host Gideon van Kleij and I had a conversation with Bart Lubbers, co-founder of Fastned – Europe’s fast-charging network for electric vehicles, fully powered by 100% renewable energy.

Bart shares the full story: from bootstrapping Fastned with 200 highway locations and zero capital, to growing it into a 350+ station network across Europe with €100M+ in annual revenue.

We talked about:

• How Bart and his co-founder turned a bold idea into reality – starting with nothing but timing and belief.
• Why infrastructure is really about location, and how they secured public land along highways.
• Building a mission-first company culture that prioritizes kindness, vision, and accountability.
• Raising capital from everyday investors through bonds instead of traditional VC.
• How Fastned navigates grid congestion, public regulation, and geopolitical headwinds.
• What’s ahead: scaling to 1,000 stations by 2030, entering new countries, and staying focused on long-term impact.

Bart also reflects on his earlier ventures, including Metro Holland, and lessons learned from his father – former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers – on leadership, dreaming big, and building trust.

An inspiring and pragmatic episode for any founder building infrastructure, impact, or both!

 🎧 Listen now. This Episode is recorded in Dutch.

Jorn Eiting has carved out a unique path in the world of entrepreneurship and business. With a career spanning diverse industries, Jorn eventually co-founded Seenons, a groundbreaking company dedicated to making waste streams more sustainable. After leading the company to success, Jorn decided to take a step back, entrusting Joost to steer the business as he transitioned to a new role. Today, Jorn continues to make an impact as an advisor and investor at ROM InWest, where he supports innovative startups and ventures.

In this episode, Jorn shares his journey from a varied career to launching and scaling Seenons, the lessons learned in letting go as a founder, and how he’s channeling his passion for innovation into helping others achieve their dreams. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or a seasoned founder, Jorn’s story will inspire and offer valuable insights!

I’m thrilled to continue our podcast series with Rob van Straten, CEO of Skytree, a leader in Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology. 🚀

Skytree, originally founded by Max Beaumont started as a spinoff from the European Space Agency (ESA) and is leveraging its space-inspired tech to revolutionize carbon capture here on Earth. In this episode, Rob shares his remarkable career journey, from his leadership experiences to his passion for innovative technology. We also dive into the cutting-edge DAC system Skytree is building, designed to capture CO₂ directly from the air at an efficiency level that’s putting them on the fast track to becoming a market leader. 🌍 Apart from that he explains why the business case especially in the Netherlands in so interesting since the greenhouse/horticulture needs added CO2 to grow their products well.

Rob offers a behind-the-scenes look at the engineering challenges, the vision that keeps Skytree moving forward, and what it takes to lead a groundbreaking startup - initially for many years without any revenue... Whether you’re fascinated by aerospace innovation or curious about his opinion on the controversy that also exist around DAC technology; this conversation provides a deep dive into the intersection of innovation and leadership. 🎙

Thanks Rob for all your insights! I learned a lot. All the best positioning Skytree for long-term success!

As we gear up for the Climate Tech Summit on October 22 in Amsterdam, I’m excited to launch a special podcast series featuring five incredible entrepreneurs who are driving real impact through their ventures.

In this first episode, I had the privilege of sitting down with Lenny van Klink, the visionary co-founder of Salacia Solutions. 🧜‍♀️

Is ESG data or the CSRD just a compliance burden for your organization? 💡 Think again! Lenny explains how rethinking these insights can actually unlock massive business opportunities. 🌱📊

We dove deep into his career journey, spanning consultancy and governmental roles, which eventually led to the founding of Salacia, the first ESG tracking & reporting platform capable of handling big data at scale. Their bootstrapped success story is a great inspiration for many other founders.

Businesses like Salacia Solutions are transforming the way companies approach sustainability. What’s often viewed as “compliance” can become a powerful competitive advantage for future growth. 🌿💼

Thank you, Lenny, for the inspiring conversation and for sharing your invaluable insights. Keep pushing!

Michel did everything to nurture his start-up for > 5 years before it could pay him a first salary. 

Another 7 years later (+- 3 million ARR, + 175 clients and +-3,8 million end users) he did a massive textbook exit.

• No external startup capital
• No sales & marketing
• Pure focus on building the best product
• And waiting for the momentum…

Listen to my latest podcast with Michel Visser, the co-founder of Eesysoft (now Instructure).

We talked about his career full of commercial roles that led to the foundation of his first compant Eesysoft together with his partner Jan; how they built that and sold it to a strategic buyer (Instructure) in the middle of the Covid crisis when their business skyrocketed.

• His time in Purmerend & Barcelona
  
• How to use your “golden handshake bonus” from your last job to start a business
• Taking a job next to your startup to give it time to grow
• Waiting for the momentum to scale
• How to build a great company culture
• Being ghosted during an exit process
• How Covid helped Eesysoft to grow and bring exit opportunities
• How life changed after exiting
• His new AI adventures!
• His biggest failure and best advices (hint; don’t invest in boats)
• And much more!

Eesysoft is a wonderful example of a company that has grown quietly, has made a few small pivots by carefully looking at the needs in the market and has managed to take action at the right time. 

And all in a very pleasant and controlled way.
For me, Michel has always been the epitome of control itself. 

Much respect for these achievements; and I am very curious to see how Michel's comeback in Edtech will turn out during the current AI revolution.

Thanks so much Michel for your time and a highly interesting conversation! 

Ever wondered what those VC’s, business angels or Private Equity guys are looking for and how they operate? Then listen to my latest podcast with Frank Appeldoorn, managing partner at Arches Capital.

Arches Capital is a fast growing group of business angels that is bridging the gap between Venture Capitalist (VCs) and Business Angels, by joining the best of both worlds

What an honor to steal some of his time and learn more about the dynamics of such financing companies!

We talked about his career that led to the foundation of Arches Capital, an initially completely bootstrapped company that is building up a pretty successful portfolio of fast growing b2b tech businesses using a deal-by-deal setup. Recently they announced another 20 million fund.

• His motivation to start this business
• Why he feels more like a psychologist and coach than a financial expert
• What exactly they are looking for in potential founding teams
• How to scout a great new deal
  
• How the selection process works
• How to build a reputation in the market
• The biggest challenges that startups face
• His thoughts on the current economy
• His biggest mistakes
• Finding a balance between family and growing the business
• Books that inspired him
• And much more!

Thanks for providing a little more insight into how investors like Arches work. In this series of podcasts, almost every founder that I talked with - at some point in their growth - found reinforcement on the capital market and almost every day I speak to entrepreneurs who are still looking for funding.

Focusing on a good product and great traction is one thing; but playing the financial game well remains challenging for many; especially in the first years of a startup! Investors like Arches Capital are truely vital for a healthy tech ecosystem.

Thanks so much Frank for your time and a highly interesting conversation! 

Link to Frank’s book recommendations for startups: Check them here!

I had the honor to sit down and interview Feike Groen, VP of Product & Tech at Channel Engine and former IT-director at Bol.com 🎙️

This podcast is a MUST listen for every serious scale-up. 

We took a deep dive into his story, from growing up in a small village to becoming a key leader in the Dutch e-commerce industry! 

Our conversation covered insights you don’t want to miss:

• His time at the University of Twente.
• How he skyrocketed Bol.com headcount from 100-1k and > 1 billion revenue.
• The lessons of rebuilding the complete Bol.com webshop and switching to a new data center.

• Joining Channel Engine in 2021 to scale the organization and making it a true iconic brand.

• His leadership philosophy

• Lessons learned from his biggest mistakes.

• Visionary take for the future of e-commerce.

• How Channel Engine connects brands and retailers to marketplaces worldwide 🌍

You can truly see Feike’s commitment to driving progress within the industry. I can't wait to see where he steers the company next!

This podcast was recorded in English.

Link to the book about building Bol.com that Feike recommended.

and if you want to know more about Foppe de Haan: click here.

What a pleasure to learn this time from Mees van Velzen, founder and CEO of MrWork.

MrWork, based in Rotterdam, is the nr1 Recruitment Marketing Automation platform.

We talked about his very inspiring journey of the last twelve years building MrWork and dealing with all the ups and downs:

• His motivation to start a business
• What to do when 90% of your traffic evaporated 
• Pitching only once; and scoring an investment deal!
• Hiring your first team members
• How being an entrepreneur makes him feel alive
• How covid killed their pipeline but then boosted their business a lot
• How to create an amazing company culture
• His ideas on scaling an organization
• The feeling of being in control
• People that inspire him
• His future plans
• And much more!

As a spectator of their journey I have seen in recent years that the road to the top is not always a straight line. The perseverance, resilience and strategic insight of Mees and his partners are truly admirable! Each time they managed to adapt their company to the new market and economic situation and formulate a response to new competition in the market that eventually turned MrWork into a market leader in their segment.

This podcast was recorded in Dutch

This time I had the honor to dive deep with Martijn Beumer, co-founder and CPO of Producthero!

Producthero currently serves >10.000 webshops and + 500 online marketing agencies, has an Ad Spend of a staggering +1.5 billion (!!) euro over their platform and works for brands like Nike, Ikea, Wehkamp, Praxis, Etos and many more.

They already have + 280 million products in their database; so big chance you see their name under a Google Shopping Ad when you search for a product (anywhere in Europe)!

We talked about how his career of freelancing as an online marketeer led to the foundation of Producthero together with his partners Wouter and Hans.

• How he deliberately picked a job that didn’t require any studies
• His years of becoming an absolute expert in his field
• What EU regulation led to the foundation of Producthero
• How to make your first steps with your founders
• Why Producthero is 20% cheaper than advertising on Google itself?
• The flywheel effect of Producthero
• What motivates him
• How covid boosted their business
• Their goals for the future
• How to keep the founding team aligned when the company explodes
• How to say no to interested investors as a team
• His advice for other founders

Tune in to hear all about how his career of freelancing as an online marketeer led to the foundation of Producthero together with his partners Wouter and Hans.

Ruben scaled Ticketscript to over $100 million in revenue; earning the title of Europe's nr1. online ticketing site before he and Frans sold it in 2017 to Eventbrite. Now he spends his time as an investor and also works as the CEO of LeadingCourses

We delved deep into his wild ride into the world of entrepreneurship. 

Some of the things we’ve discussed👇

• How his love for coding and house music led to the birth of Beatfreax.
• The crazy highs and lows of building a startup.
• The feeling of selling your company and becoming financially independent.
• His time in the buzzing tech scene in San Francisco at Eventbrite.
• Life after exit and his transition to LeadingCourses.
• How to make your work from your passion.
• His rolemodels
• How tech can (potentially) make this world a better place
• His honest sharing of failures and some nuggets of advice in business.

Tune in as Ruben speaks on his successes, failures, and the wisdom he’s gathered along the way!

This episode is recorded in Dutch language!