Shows
Podcast | BNRWereldspelersHoe run je een bedrijf in een land waar oorlog of politieke chaos heerst? In deze aflevering van Wereldspelers hoor je hoe Nederlandse ondernemers zich staande houden in crisissituaties wereldwijd. Boerenbedrijf in Oekraïne onder vuur Kees Huizinga runt al twintig jaar een landbouwbedrijf in Oekraïne. Terwijl kruisraketten over zijn velden vliegen en vijftig van zijn medewerkers naar het front zijn gestuurd – van wie zeven zijn omgekomen – blijft hij zijn bedrijf draaiende houden. Met 400 personeelsleden, 2500 koeien en 15.000 hectare tarwe, soja en zonnebloemen is stoppen geen optie. Oorlog of niet, het werk m...2025-07-1723 min
That One Thing#24 The Netherlands: Changing the world one (homecooked) meal at a timeEntrepreneur #24 out of 100: Mahmoud El Wakil from Egypt, building Homemade in the NetherlandsWhen Mahmoud told me, “I want to change the world,” I laughed. I thought he was joking. But I owe him an apology, because he was completely serious.Mahmoud believes he can build a better world by creating a short and sustainable food supply chain, sourcing meals from people nearby. In doing so, he creates opportunities for those home cooks to support their own livelihoods. This idea has the potential to make a meaningful difference in the Netherlands—and an even bigger impact...2025-06-2632 min
That One Thing#23 Netherlands: Keeping your founding team (of 6!) together untill the exit (Robert-Jan Verheggen)Entrepreneur #23 out of 100: Robert-Jan Verheggen, co-founder of KlippaBuilding a startup is hard. Staying in it for almost 10 years is even harder. Doing it with six co-founders—and successfully exiting together? That’s rare.In this episode, I talk to Robert-Jan Verheggen, co-founder of Klippa, a Dutch tech company that recently made a successful exit after nearly a decade of building. He started Klippa with six technical co-founders, and together they navigated the full founder journey: from idea to team formation, through cashflow stress, competing job offers, motivation dips, and finally, to the finish line. Two...2025-06-1235 min
That One Thing#22 Poland: Why every founder needs a hobby (Konrad Pawlus)Entrepreneur #22 out of 100: Konrad Pawlus from Krakow, PolandKonrad Pawlus didn’t grow up with early access to tech: he got his first laptop at 17. But that didn’t stop him from co-founding SALESmanago, one of Europe’s largest and most influential marketing automation platforms, and successfully exiting the company as CTO.As I mentioned in the last episode, I recorded this conversation in Krakow, where I was hosting a congress. I asked around for local founders to meet, and someone recommended Konrad. Her previous boss, she said, had exited his company and no...2025-05-2929 min
That One Thing#21 Poland: When and how to pivot (Dominik Swadźba)Entrepreneur #21 out of 100: Dominik Swadźba from Krakow, PolandAs part of my journey to interview 100 entrepreneurs around the world, I recently found myself in Krakow. I was there to host the World News Media Congress, but I never travel without my podcast gear, hoping to meet founders wherever I go.That’s how I met Dominik Swadźba, founder of uPacjenta.pl: a startup that connects patients and nurses for services like at-home blood tests. (And no, this is not a Theranos story. Their success is built on stro...2025-05-1550 min
That One Thing#20 France: Building a start-up around a new innovation (Sacha Morard)Our next guest in episode # 20 of That One Thing: Sacha Morard, co-founder of Edgee. I have said it before: I am a bit hesitant to interview only tech entrepreneurs, as this is the anti-bullshit podcast and well: let’s say tech founders are not always the most humble and realistic entrepreneurs out there. But: am I glad I talked to Sasha. I almost TRIED to get him to brag about his business, but without any success. With Edgee he is not only building an entire new technology, he is doing it scalable and fast: him and his co-founder raised 3 mi...2024-12-1943 min
That One Thing#19 Thailand: Starting nearly 30 restaurants within 5 years (Min Poramin)In this final episode of my journey through Thailand and Singapore, I find myself in Bangkok—my favorite city in the world. My goal? To meet Min Poramin, a visionary entrepreneur who launched his first restaurant just five years ago and now owns nearly 30.
Originally planning to visit one of his restaurants near the bustling Siam shopping district, I pivot to his office after a quick message from his assistant. Bangkok’s 40-degree heat makes even a short trip on foot unbearable, so I hop into a Tuk Tuk and head to our meeting.
2024-12-1238 min
That One Thing#18 Singapore: Inventor turned entrepreneur (Dennis Yap)In this episode of That One Thing I find myself in the hub for start-ups of Singapore: Launchpad. A location where start-ups, incubators, accelerators and venture capitalists form an ecosystem that spurs innovation and collaborations.
One of those Start-Ups is AI Seer - founded by Dennis Yap, my guest for today. I wanted to talk to him because I think his invention, Facticity.AI, a live fact checker, is more relevant than ever. And it is not only me who seems to think so: Facticity was named one of Time’s 200 best inventions of 2024.
I me...2024-11-2832 min
That One Thing#17 Singapore: Getting leads from LinkedIn as a founder (Keith Teo Jie Kai)Today in That One Thing, as I am on my mission to interview 100 entrepreneurs around the world, I am talking to Keith Theo. We meet each other in a beautiful old townhouse in the east of Singapore. Keith is a serial founder, who has just started his new business CClarity. His platform helps you to get more leads on LinkedIn - something I find very interesting, and I bet you do to. We talk about the need for founders to be the face of their own business - and how they can do it efficiently. As I am a...2024-11-2038 min
That One Thing#16 Thailand: Disrupting the video production industry with a 40,000 square foot digital production studio (Linda Lim)Today in That One Thing, I talk to Linda Lim in her phenomenal studio in Bangkok. I find myself in a cab that starts driving off one of the main roads of the city, and while I am taking a few back roads, I find myself all of the sudden in front of a door branded Studio X. Behind it—a 40,000 square foot compound with a Hollywood-style virtual studio. As she says, “10x bigger than we planned it to be.” When she met her husband Thom, she decided to leave her corporate career behind and become an entrepreneur. A journey tha...2024-11-1443 min
That One Thing#15 Zwitserland: Why you have to be an enterepreneur to be an independent music producer (Al Hug)Today in my mission to interview 100 entrepreneurs around the world I travel to Zurich (Switzerland) for episode 15 with producer Al Hug. A multi-talented producer that has worked with some of the biggest rappers in the world. When I thought of doing a podcast with him I was a little bit in doubt: I was wondering if he would consider himself an entrepreneur… luckily, his answer was: YES, DEFINITELY and we ended up having maybe one of my most interesting conversations so far. We talk about what his business looks like: what type of revenue you have, how you network an...2024-11-0746 min
That One Thing#14 Global: Building a remote business (Ties den Dekker)Today in episode 14: Ties den Dekker, founder of Staxxer and Spy-Fi. I think he is the type of entrepreneur that succeeds because he has a great sense for business ideas that are spot-on. On top of that, he has a very forward thinking vision on building teams in a new way. At Staxxer - he is building a fully remote team, creating the job of his dreams for himself AND for all his employees. And with global CEO’s backtracking on their promise that staff can work from home, I want to know: how does Ties do it? We ta...2024-10-3135 min
That One Thing#13 Spain: Deciding when it is time to close your business (Enric Gabarró)To record today's episode, I flew to Barcelona - a city now known for many entrepreneurs to move to. Who doesn’t want to work by the beach and eat tapas all while building a successful business? I wanted to talk to Enric because he has a story that I think is too often not told. His business Picker, an online platform that allowed influencers to easily sell products for vendors, had 1 million Monthly Active Users and sold over 1.5M EUR worth of merchandise every month until their main partner, Amazon, canceled their contract. A 60% drop in those numbers ove...2024-10-1732 min
That One Thing#12 Myanmar: How to find the resilience to re-build your business after a military coup (Lachmi Baniya)Now, today’s episode might just be my most personal one yet. You see, my guest and I go way back—we were neighbors in downtown Yangon during the Military coup on the 1st of February 2021, both of us trying to navigate our businesses through the aftermath of that awful day. Today’s episode is about resilience, and let me tell you, if there’s anyone who embodies this quality, it’s her. Forget Elon Musk, forget Bill Gates—when it comes to learning real, hard-earned lessons in entrepreneurship, she’s the one to listen to.
From growing up in...2024-08-2947 min
That One Thing#11 The Netherlands: How to lead digital transformations that stick (Marieke van Gent)Today in That One Thing, Marieke Van Gent, Founder of IT Efficiency. Her mission is to digitize the cultural sector, by helping organizations with strategic IT project management: think about everything from ticketing to workforce planning, to implementing Microsoft Office 365. All in a very interesting sector: Arts and Culture. Interesting of course because of the beautiful art, but also because it is an industry that is traditionally leap years away from the progress other organizations have already made.
A perfect match for this podcast: as we talk about the no-nonsense approach Marieke has to...2024-07-1128 min
That One Thing#10 Portugal: Creating clarity (Hugo Pereira)
Today, we're joined by Hugo Pereira, who has dedicated his career to working with start-ups and has now founded his own business, Ritmoo. We talk about That One Thing that so many of us seem to struggle with getting: clarity. Find out why Hugo loves to work in start-ups, how he creates clarity in his own start-up and where he often sees management teams fail to provide clarity in their business.2024-06-2728 min
That One Thing#09 The Netherlands: Innovation in healthcare (Bob Verhagen)Today with Bob Verhagen, founder of Buurtdokters and an entrepreneur that is working in a space that is known to be difficult to innovate in, Healthcare.
With his company Buurtdokters he is focussed on keeping a personal GP for everyone in the Netherlands. With his previous experience - and failure - in the start-up world that tries to bring innovation in healthcare, I think he has a great view on do’s - and absolute don’ts. We discuss his love hate relationship with technology, the key to prevent innovations from dying in vain and...2024-05-1618 min
That One Thing#08 The Netherlands: Using CrossFit to improve health (Michiel Trouw)Today in That One Thing – Michiel Trouw. Michiel is a specialized physiotherapist that did his masters in manual therapy. He has his clinic in Hengelo, Netherlands and treats people with headache, neck pain, tinnitus,
dizziness, jaw-dysfunction and other problems. He teaches these topics for the CRAFTA organization to doctors and physiotherapists in the USA, Turkey and
Spain. Apart from his work as a healthcare provider, he is also an entrepreneur. Since 2021 he has a CrossFit box, together with friends. His One Thing? Crossfit Health. We discuss how sports can contribute to prevention in an overloaded healthcare system and his ent...2024-05-0124 min
That One Thing#07 The Netherlands: How to make strategy easy (Dorit Roest)In this episode of That One Thing we talk with Dorit Roest - serial founder and entrepreneur. Dorit and I walked similar paths - while mine was in Asia, hers was in the Netherlands and San Francisco. When she realized that her food blog was a great way to do sponsored content deals back in early 2012, she was one of the first people in the world to start an influencer marketplace: The Influencer Movement (or TIM). Within a few years, her company had over 4.000 influencers on their platform and ran more than 500 campaigns. Of Course a great success: but...2024-04-1720 min
That One Thing#06 India: Self-publishing a book (Milla Rae)Today in That One Thing, a personal one: my guest Milla Rae and I know eachother from Myanmar where we both spent a large chunk of our lives and careers before the Military Coup in the 1st of February 2021. We talk about her career in marketing and communications that that led her to Myanmar, and how Myanmar became home not only to herself, but also to her husband Dylan and her newborn son Jasper. How that story went? Well, not quite as planned. Her exceptional story of becoming a mother shortly before experiencing a military coup in Myanmar led...2024-04-0337 min
That One Thing#05 Australia: Plain good leadership (Vanessa Monsequeira)Today on that one thing: Vanessa Monsequeira. A starting entrepreneur, that I would say has had an entrepreneurial mindset for quite some time in her corporate career, since she co-founded the Agility Advisory practice for PwC in Australia. While learning some - sometimes harsh - lessons about leadership in that role, she further deepened her knowledge on what a good leader is when she was the Head of People design at Miro. While Miro was in a period of hyper growth, she built internal products that helped to empower teams through agile coaching, onboarding people in the right way...2024-03-2028 min
That One Thing#04 Germany: The realistic story on what it takes to build a profitable Youtube business (Kai Weissman)Today I talk with Kai. Someone that I believe can give us a realistic perspective on a business model that seems all the hype: being a youtuber. With his background in a stable corporate job, Kai decided he wanted to become an entrepreneur. He started providing Powerapps and VBA training online - first as a freelancer, while building a business on the side. What he believes is the difference between those two (freelancing and building a business) is something we will discuss today. Of course I want to know more about his realistic take is on being a youtuber...2024-03-0722 min
That One Thing#03 England: Understanding your customer's reality (Mark Hadfield)Today in That One Thing, Mark Hadfield. A seasoned marketing professional, he spent a big part of his career as the regional head of planning for global advertising agency Iris. He led some of the largest marketing campaigns in the region for companies such as Shell, Philips, Samsung and Guinness and managed teams in multiple Asian markets. After he and his wife decided to move back to the UK, in yet another agency role, he realized: this is not it.
He started working on an idea around an issue that he saw many of h...2024-02-1931 min
That One Thing#02 Indonesia: What it is really like to be an entrepreneur in Bali (Koen & Lion)Today we have 2 founders that walked similar paths - both with roots in the Netherlands, strong business backgrounds from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and both with extensive experience building startups across South East Asia. Together they built 6 ventures, across 9 countries in Asia raising several millions of funding. The problem? They always did this for other people, and were ready to take the step to become founders. They built their business on a realization they had during their jobs: every founder has 10 things they want to work on, and only time to execute 3 (if so much). One thing Lion...2024-02-0133 min
That One Thing#01 Expanding your business across borders - Erwin SikmaToday, we are talking about something many entrepreneurs dream of: expanding your business internationally. What better way to learn than from someone that has done this twice, in 2 very different ways: once heavily funded, and once bootstrapped. Today we talk to Erwin Sikma, entrepreneur, interim CEO and management consultant. During his experience leave at McKinsey, he joined the heavily funded Rocket Internet, where he built four online classifieds businesses in more than 10 countries. Erwin caught the entrepreneurial bug and started his own Agriculture Tech business: Impact Terra. Once he had found product market fit, it was time for international...2024-01-1740 min
That One ThingIntroWelcome to That One Thing! The anti-bullshit entrepreneurship podcast. Learn from the best of the best how they nailed that one thing - and I am taking you along for the ride.
2024-01-0400 min