The 7 moments that shaped my year

“Let’s quit and move back to Amsterdam and start a business,” she said after we finished the second bottle of wine. It was 2016 in Berlin. Little did we know how much sweat, blood and tears was needed to build the business we have today, almost 3 years later.

2018 was a tale of almost 800% growth and sales in 98 countries and lots of chaos.

2019 was different. We still grew, but slower, while trying to get the supply chain under control. It has been a tough, but good year.

So here they are, my favourite moments of 2019:

1. Went to Bali with the whole LABFRESH team

Do you think this looks like a vacation picture? It's not! To celebrate a great 2018 our team of 13 went to Canggu in Bali for a month. The first week we were nervous. Will people get their shit done? Will the intern crash the scooter? In the end we made it work through fixed working hours and an ambitious schedule with hard deadlines.

Details: The cost of 1 month in Bali was equivalent to what we would have spent on 1 long weekend in a Dutch hotel with 3 meals per day and open bar. We spend 900€ per employee.

2. Opening a showroom & office on our favourite Amsterdam canal

After the viewing Lotte made it clear that this space was our new home, no matter what the lease looked like. I closed my eyes, signed the lease, and transferred 5 months of deposit.

Details: Showroom revenue averaged €8,000 per month and the rent is €2,200, which means we basically make money from sitting in the most beautiful office I've had in my entrepreneurial life. It's btw the 5th office lease I've signed in my 7 years in Amsterdam!).

3. Getting public funding to do some real R&D

Until 2019 we were not in a position where we could do a lot of in-house product development. That all changed this year. We are working on so many new products and treatments I can barely keep up. In The Netherlands we were lucky to receive funding from both WBSO (for a textile engineer hire) and MIT Holland. And we also hooked up with an amazing partner in Switzerland, which developed our generation 3 tech.

Details: There is so many different types of public and EU funding available if you dabble in tech. I wish we had earlier. We use an agency to write the applications for us. Hit my DM if you want an intro.

4. Attracting women

I've sold to more than 150,000 customers since I launched my first business The Cloakroom in 2013. 94% of my customers have been men. This all changed because this December women represent 75% of our revenue. What is going on?? I tell you what. We went all in on gifting, including shooting amazing content with female influencers and their husbands and kids. And we made the most sexy ad in LABFRESH history, check it out

5. Wildcard of the year: Japan

So we always try to do a few fun growth hacks during the year. The most fun one this year was to launch a crowdfunding campaign on the Japanese platform Makuake. We ended up only raising €23,000, but hey we at least had a photoshoot with 7 charming Japanese business men.

6. For the first time ever we launched 2 products in 1 year

We are eternal optimists. When we first started ordering pants from 22 brands and sampling new tech we thought it would be easy. But pants are hard. Just nailing the perfect fit took hundreds of hours of fittings and prototypings. This year we launched polos and pants. Next year we hope to launch at least 2 new products too. But we realise by now that it’s not possible to obsess about all details in a product and also finish the development within 12 months.

7. Cofounder engagement

The word “engagement” hold a lot of meanings. In this case it literally means I’m going to marry my cofounder. These are the craziest of years - if we can survive the early stages of a startup we can survive anything. So before Bali I started harassing my friends until one of them had introed me to a diamond wholesaler.  

How did your year go? Any big life or business changing events?