 So, what did you do when you were five years old? What did you do? So most children by the age of five have developed their own personality by then. And when inside it, my company officially became five years old last year, it was time for us to also discover our own identity. So we sat together with the entire team, which was about 50 people at that time. And then we brainstormed with the team on issues like, what really defined us? What were the day-to-day practical examples within the company, which were typically inside it? And what did we expect from new people joining the team? So the team held a few sessions, apart from me, just with the entire team together. And they came up with a list of five core values, the five things which really defined the company. And guess what? This list was exactly as I imagined it would be. This list was exactly as I hoped it would be. And this list of core values was exactly what also defined me as a founder and CEO of the company. So apparently, my entire team had developed and discovered the same core values as I had in running the company. So for today, I want to tell you my story. I want to tell you the story of inside it along the lines of two of these core values. But before I kickstart, let me get you guys in the mood on my company inside it by showing you a quick video. The challenging part of my job is really finding how a community can deliver value to a specific company or business. What I really like about my job is not only working with customers, but also with the teams internally. Well, I really like all the people that work at inside it. We really have enthusiastic, ambitious, hardworking people here, and it's really great environment to work in. What I really like about inside it is that there's a lot of great people, there's a big diversity, and that you always get to be yourself. What I most like of my job is working with very diverse customers. So different company cultures, for example. And besides that, the very dynamic environment inside it is, so there's never a dull moment. The most challenging and actually also the most fun to do is get all the different ideas from the different team in that project converging to an awesome product. Our big, hairy, audacious goal is that in 2025, inside it communities are an essential part of 1000 brands worldwide. In 10 years from now, inside it will be a global leader in community engagement, with an even greater platform than today. The sales team will grow tin-fold over the next two to three years, primarily through international expansion. And one of our core values is do it together, and we really want to bring on board people who embody that spirit. Inside it is growing, so the implementation team needs to expand. Well, we're looking for roughly double the size of our development team within a year. We are looking for eight players, the top 10%. Personally for me, an eight player is someone that re-changes the game. We are people that love to win, and really like working together. I'm looking forward to welcoming you on this team. I'm happy to welcome you to our team. We will be proud to be your guest on our team. We need to provide an opportunity to join inside it. I'm looking forward to welcoming you on this team. I'm looking forward to welcoming you on this team. Translations by YouTube, by the way. So, one of the first core values is about ownership makes it happen. I was actually the first person from my family to go to university. So it was not common to do that. And already in the first month of being here, I broke my knee. I had to go to surgery and I couldn't walk for three or four months. So I couldn't attend any colleges. I was sitting at home and after a week of watching television, I got kind of bored. So I turned to the computer and learned about how other people were creating websites, which later turned out to be instrumental in my professional career. After that, when I got back on my feet, I moved to Tilburg to a student's house. Well, actually, it was not really a student's house. It was above a shelter for homeless people and former drug addicts. And there weren't even other students living in that house, by the way. I really felt a bit alone. I was a shy boy, hardly had any friends. And my girlfriend, which I had from high school, broke up with me. So things were not really looking very good for me at that stage. Then I decided it needed to change. I needed to make something happen and decided to join Study Association Top Down, which I heard no longer exists, but this proved out to be one of my best decisions ever. I learned about organizing conferences. I actually organized a big conference also in Tilburg. I made lots of friends. I partied a lot and really understood the value of being a student here in Tilburg. Apart from that, I also became the first chairman of the Academic Business Club, which is the Student Association for Entrepreneurs. There was basically nothing when we started, only a few guys who were discussing each other's business plan on a Monday evening here in Building B. And we turned that association to a thriving part of the university with weekly monthly events, a big symposium, and we really became a business partner for the university on the topic of entrepreneurship. And we also helped with starting the incubator here at the university. So making these choices, my life was immediately completely different. Also in my professional career, a lot of stuff happened. I am now currently CEO of Insighted, co-founded the company six years ago. But there was basically nothing when I started. There were no employees, no revenue, there was no product. There was only an ID, which was in my mind and in my co-founder's mind. An ID which we thought could change the world. There wasn't even a market for it. Companies were not using a solution like we offered. So we really had to educate and create the market and after that also selling our software solution. So what we do is that we provide a solution for bigger enterprises like T-Mobile, Sonos, Philips and TomTom to create our own community as part of the website. In the first year, I guess we did around 400, 500K in revenue. We had around three or four big enterprise customers. So it went really well. And I believe that if you have a company and you're able to grow it to at least 400, 500K in revenue, you can grow it to one million. And if you have a company with one million in revenue, I believe you can grow it to five million in revenue. The only thing is you need to put the effort in. And a lot of people underestimate that. And a lot of people don't want to do that. In fact, I read by coincidence this morning in the Dutch financial papers, F-Day, a story about Airbnb. They already existed for five years. They were almost at the point of quitting, stopping the company. They were three months ahead of that decision. And now the company is worth over five billion because they put the effort in. So after the first year, the company progressed. We currently have about 70 employees. This year alone, we're going to hire 60 additional We have offices in Madrid, in Berlin and London. And we have around 50 or 60 large enterprise customers. So things have really changed in the first six years. A year ago, we were at a crossing point. We doubled in size the first couple of years in terms of revenue, in terms of people, in terms of customers. The last two years, we grew about 80% year over year. And we realized that if we would continue this way, probably our growth rate would be anywhere between 30 and 40% year over year. And we were thinking, is this enough for us? And we realized it was not. Because in the end, we did not want to build a good company. And why not? Because I believe good is the enemy of great. And we had far more ambition than growing 30% year over year, which was mainly due because of working capital constraints. Because we needed to invest. We needed to have salespeople all across Europe. We needed to set up a marketing machine. And all these costs were already flowing out of our pocket, while revenue would probably take one or two years. So that's why we were only able to grow 30% on average. And that was not good enough for us. So we were at the crossroad. And then we decided to look for external capital, mainly to fuel the next step of our company growth. So we created a presentation, a PowerPoint presentation of about 20 slides, which basically indicated how our vision and how our ambition looked like. What did we want to build from an insider perspective towards the future? And along with the PowerPoint, we created a big financial excel sheet, which had all the assumptions for the upcoming four or five years, which people that we're going to hire, what were the salary rates, which countries should we conquer, how many customers are we going to get in each individual country? And we had shut-loads of assumptions put in the model, but it was our thoughts of conquering the world and becoming a global market leader in this area. So together with my PowerPoint and my excel sheet, I created a list of 40 big investment companies, a long list, and in the end we spoke with about 25 of them. And actually running a funding process, an external venture capital process, is just a typical sales process, where you start off with a big list and then in the end it will go down. So in the end I think we had about 10 proposals from different venture capital companies and we selected one. And actually it was a combination of three investors, which we've picked, two international investors and one Dutch investor. And in total we've raised 6 million in external capital, which we closed around 12 weeks ago. With that transaction the company was valued in tens of millions of euros and since last week the magazine of Quote got me on the list of their top 100 millionaires below 40. And with that I hope to give some inspiration also to other entrepreneurs, who are also in the same spot, who are also looking to expand their business. And we'll also like to have, just like me, some inspiration going forward, really achieving that world domination. And this maybe looks all happy and fun, but actually being an entrepreneur is quite hard. Because you have to give up a lot, especially time. When my friends or family are in the weekend, when it's sunny, just like last week's, when those guys in the weekend are having fun, are doing a barbecue, are walking in the park with their kids, are doing great stuff, enjoying the beach or whatever, I'm at home replying to emails which my employees sent to me this week because they need to have an answer. I am preparing a board meeting which I'm having coming week. I am creating a presentation on business development, how to conquer the next world. And it all takes time. And you have to put the effort in. You have to have the ambition to do it, else it will never work. But in the end, I truly believe that if you take ownership, either your own personal life or your professional life, your life will be so much better. Many people dream, but few execute. And I also say to you, take the ownership, walk the extra mile, get it done. I'm sure you will not regret. The second core value is all about improved by learning. When I was two years old, my father left. And my mother had to run the family. And although she got remarried, that also didn't work out. So growing up was quite a challenge. I always had the idea that one day I would trace my father and we would reconnect again. And about two years ago it was about time. Also because my girlfriend was pushing me that it was about time. And then it happened. It was a normal Wednesday morning, I guess. I was sitting at the office doing some regular work and my mother called. I sat down and she immediately said that my father had passed away. The father which I knew nothing about. The father which I had never spoken to. And up until this day, I regret that I didn't trace him or visit him earlier. I learned the hard way that sometimes in life you need to move fast. Personally I'm doing this totally different now. I have a great girlfriend, I have a son of about one and a half years old and we're expecting a newborn, a new guy or girl at the end of October. And I learned to cherish my family. And I'm really committed on getting and keeping everybody together in that. Also in my professional career I learned a lot. And I believe if you are an entrepreneur one of the most important things is growing as a leader. You continuously need to redefine yourself as a leader. Being a CEO of a company which only has like three, four or five people is totally different compared to the company size which we're currently at. But I'm still the same person. I was the CEO of the five person company and I'm the CEO of the 70 person company. And in 12 months I'm the CEO of the 150 person company. So I continuously need to redevelop myself, challenge myself to grow as a leader. And apart from that it's also really important that with that I also grow the entire leadership team. So all my management team members but also the entire organization. I think that is really, really key to growth. We are a software company so we use a lot of technology. We're currently at the forefront of these technological possibilities. We run a platform in the AWS Amazon cloud but we learn new techniques every day. We learn how to service our customers on a completely different way compared to a year ago. A year ago we had some consultancy hours which we sold by the hour. Today we have standardized success packages to offer to our customers. Our organization chart changes every six months because a new department pops up, because other people get a promotion or because the business or our customers demand it. So you have to be agile enough in order to do that. And you have to grow as a person but you also need to get people on board who also have that attitude of growing. Who also understand that if you step into the company today in six months it will be totally different. And you need those people in order to survive. This is a quote from the CEO of Microsoft. I am defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning. I buy more books than I can finish. I sign up for more online courses than I can complete. I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things you are stop doing great and useful things. Nice quote. And this guy by the way is an Indian guy who is now the CEO of Microsoft. And the recently appointed Google CEO is also an Indian guy. So we see a real trend towards these more personal and humble leaders in this world. But that aside, did you know what? Target Mark Zuckerberg set for himself last year to read 24 management books. Warren Buffett reads 500 pages a day and contributes his success to that fact. And he says that's how knowledge works. It builds up like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee that not many of you will do it. In fact, many studies show that not your personal or economical or even university background, but reading books is key to growth. So I believe that probably the best career advice you can get as an entrepreneur but also as a person working at a company is reading and learning books. And with that obviously, we don't mean the Donald Duck. It's about things which bring you knowledge, things where you can improve, where you can learn from. Personally, I read about 12 books or so a year. And without, for example, this book, Scaling Up, Rockefeller Habits, but also books like Top Grading or The Goal or Predictable Revenue, I wouldn't be as far as I am today. Apart from this, I also want to speak a little bit about personal training and development. I mentioned that I was once the first chairman of the Academic Business Club, which I'm really proud of, that it still exists and really growing and organizing lots of events. Currently, I'm part of the Entrepreneurs' Organization, EO, which is a global organization of around 11,000 members worldwide. And every month, a peer group of entrepreneurs comes together, and I'm also part of APA Group of 10 entrepreneurs, and we share experiences month after month on topics we bring in as a team. We don't give each other advice. We're only there to share experiences, and that really helps me to put stuff in perspective. I also have a few advisors, people who really contribute on some specific strategic subjects. You know, and we're all smart people here in the room, right? I mean, everybody, or probably everybody, has followed a university degree, has a university degree. So probably, you know, you guys have all the answers. You know, you guys have all the answers to the problems you encounter in your personal lives or in your professional lives. You know, just give it some time, think about it, you will find an answer. I'm not too worried about that. The thing is, it's not the answer you don't know. It's the question. Which question do you need to ask yourself as a person, personally or professionally, in order to grow? Find the smartest who and learn from that. Don't do everything by yourself. There are many people who have already experienced it. That's what I've been doing with the Academic Business Club, and now with EO. So, a month ago, I was in San Francisco for a conference, a software as a service conference, so exactly the space I'm in. And it was a conference of about 800 people or so. It had regular, you know, sessions during the day, some workshops, and in the night, obviously an open bar and lots of drinking. That's how conferences go. And in the early evenings, I went to the bar trying to grab two beers, one for me and one for my co-founder who joined me in the conference. And I got, you know, a conversation with somebody who was also ordering beer. And we got into a conversation and he was explaining that he really felt bad about his company. He felt he was a bad manager. He felt he didn't have the right vision in order to grow the company. He felt that he had lots of operational problems inside his company, and he felt responsible for that. So, yeah, you know, I was like, okay, you know, I think I'm doing okay. I'm, you know, up and running for five years. I have a pretty good team. So, I explained him some of the stuff I was working on, on the meeting rhythms which we implemented inside the company, the one-page strategy plan which we implemented. So, I felt really proud, you know. Oh, cool. You know, I can really, you know, give him some tips and some stuff I am working on and share my experiences. And then I asked him some more detailed questions and it turned out that his company only existed for two and a half years. Right? So, not a very long time. And then I asked him some more questions and it turned out that this guy in these two and a half years already had 400 people working for him. So, this guy in like half the time where I founded my company, he was like four times the size and I felt such a loser, you know. I was like, oh, I just explained all these things, you know, to you. But why, you know, I mean, you have a great company. It progressed really well and you're doing a great job. And then I felt, whoa, why are we not moving faster, you know? What's happening with us? Like after that moment, my co-founder, every week he comes to me saying, Robin, we're not going fast enough. What can we do to increase the speed? But it got me thinking, you know, a lot of the people also in the Netherlands, which mainly in the Netherlands, which I talked to, they think really small. What we now see, you know, traveling all across Europe but also to the U.S. You know, these guys, they think, you know, way bigger than what normal people in the Netherlands, what normal entrepreneurs usually do. And I was really shocked by that. And we now have another vision, you know. We want to be this global leader in this industry. But it really helped me putting stuff in perspective and also seeing, you know, what other entrepreneurs worldwide are doing. And now I see the Netherlands mainly as our test market. You know, it's only a small country. So we try out new propositions, new products, and if that works, we scale that on an international level. But it's really hard if you, you know, cycle from your home to university or to your office. And it's only 15 minutes and you do that right every day, every single day. And you come to the office and you see the same people and that's it. You know, if you don't read any books, if you don't go outside, if you don't talk to other people, if you don't travel, then you have this limited vision, this limited idea of the world. So that really helped me going there to this conference in San Francisco. And talking to this guy, I felt quite a loser. But it really helped me after that saying, oh, shit, I need to speed up. I need to do something. And if I look back now at my time here in Tilburg University, I'm away for 10 years now. And when I was studying here, you know, we had lots of colleges and we had to read all kinds of books, you know, lots of books. And I was here in the library reading all these things, you know, and I was, oh, man, do I really, why do these teachers need to, you know, pick this book, you know, for their college? Why can't they just do it like a 10-page summary or so? And I was really feeling, you know, oh, why do we need to do that? But only now I see the value of that. Only now I see that, you know, if I hadn't done that, that knowledge was not compounded as the interest as Warren Buffett talked about. And it also now, looking back, I see now that it's really, really important that you also keep it up, you know, don't start, stop learning when you are done here. Get that management book. Go out. Read about it. You've been doing it here, so you're able to do it. Don't stop there. Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning, a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. So in the end, it doesn't matter whether you're a lion or a gazelle, when the sun comes up, you'd better be running. And before I finally wrap it up, there was one final video which I want to show you on Insighted. I love the improved by learning because I truly believe that we need to reinvent ourselves every six months to keep up with the growth we are experiencing. I also love the We Party because I believe if you spend lots of time in growing the business, you better make it a fun ride. I'm really proud of the fact that we work for big brands and that we can actually make a measurable impact on how these big brands interact with their end users and how they are able to step into the collective knowledge of their end users. The first five years have been amazing and I'm really proud of the entire team here at the Insighted office in Amsterdam but also at our satellite offices worldwide. We currently have over 15 different nationalities which all bring value and diversity in the team and I'm really looking forward to expand that even more. In 10 years from now Insighted will be a global leader in community engagement. We have even greater platform than today but also an ecosystem where external parties like customers and partners can build applications on our architecture. This means we still have a long journey to go. In 10 years we will be the market leader worldwide, have lots of great offices around the world and also work with an awesome team. We keep our international teams aligned by having a monthly town hall meeting here in Amsterdam where we keep everybody updated on what's going on in the company and every quarter we dive in even deeper on a strategic level. Here in Amsterdam as well where we fly everybody in from the other countries so that everybody can actually work towards the same big hairy odacious goal. Our big hairy odacious goal is that in 2025 Insighted communities are an essential part of thousands brands worldwide. So with that a message for everybody. Start running or keep running if you already have the right pace. Improve, learn, speak to others, speak to peers, start reading books, take ownership but most of all stick to your own core values and boldly go. Thank you very much.