There’s by no means been a greater time to do enterprise within the thriving Dutch tech business, the place a sturdy digital infrastructure and nationwide entrepreneurship initiatives have created fertile floor for innovation.
Within the Netherlands, there are female-led firms within the fields of fintech, training and healthcare expertise, agritech, and AI – although there’s nonetheless a protracted approach to go to realize gender equality within the tech sector. The Range & Inclusion Taskforce, a part of the Netherlands’ Ministry of Financial Affairs and Local weather Coverage, discovered that solely 18% of IT professionals within the Netherlands are feminine, with solely a fraction of that quantity holding high administration roles in tech firms. The Dutch authorities hopes to lift that quantity to 50% by 2030.
Even inside a thriving Dutch entrepreneurship ecosystem with greater than 4,000 startups, ladies are struggling to get funding: European startups based by ladies received only one% of funding final yr, and 5.7% of complete funding within the Netherlands in 2019. Within the Netherlands, there’s a noticeable lack of ladies main funding rounds, with solely 6% of companions at enterprise capitalist funds being feminine — far beneath the European common of 12%. With VC companies and traders largely dominated by males, one can solely marvel what number of feminine tech entrepreneurs’ concepts and improvements by no means come to fruition.
Nonetheless, there are additionally encouraging indicators of assist for ladies in tech within the Netherlands. The Dutch Chamber of Commerce discovered that the variety of feminine entrepreneurs is on the rise, rising 62% between 2013 and 2022. The share of ladies holding high positions is regularly rising, too.
From skilled communities resembling The Subsequent Ladies and She Issues to organisations that advocate for gender-diverse funding resembling Fundright and Borski Fund, there are an unprecedented variety of sources for Dutch feminine entrepreneurs. We Rise, an Amsterdam-based organisation created to assist ladies in tech, obtained an funding of €750,000 final yr to assist ladies within the tech sector, together with the creation of a three-year program together with mentorship, networking, and coaching programs.
Simply as necessary is the function of mentors and function fashions in fostering feminine tech entrepreneurship, to share experiences and classes realized on the trail from startup to scaleup and past. These 4 founders share their suggestions and recommendation for skilled ladies following of their footsteps.
Diane Janknegt
Diane Janknegt
Janknegt is the founding father of Wizenoze, a cloud-based, AI-powered EdTech platform that makes use of knowledge and machine studying to make digital studying extra accessible and personalised.
On the significance of staying curious:
“With out curiosity and eagerness to be taught, Wizenoze would have by no means been there. I believe that these are two primary elements for each entrepreneur. Should you lack these abilities, don’t even take into consideration beginning your individual firm. For me, curiosity and studying are at all times on!”
Recommendation for leaders who’re starting to make use of rising expertise resembling AI:
“The phrase ‘AI’ is very overrated and misused. It’s not a Holy Grail, it’s a software that helps you progress in direction of a objective. I’d advocate that they dive into the fundamentals of AI earlier than contemplating utilizing it. It doesn’t depart a robust impression should you point out AI as a part of your proposition.”
On variety and inclusiveness in tech within the Netherlands:
“Range for me is rather more than a gender dialogue. It’s about totally different ages, colors, religions, beliefs, introverts vs. extroverts, and many others. In the long term, a very various group will at all times outperform a group with out variety. So, it’s not only a modern subject, it’s a lifeline in direction of success. Sadly, we’re removed from having a balanced variety of various entrepreneurs in tech within the Netherlands, which is actually alarming. One huge cause for that’s the lack of capital invested in various founders. That’s shockingly low: only one.3% of the VC capital is invested in feminine founders, and even much less in founders who’re folks of color.”
On encouraging extra ladies to start out tech firms:
“With the intention to stimulate feminine entrepreneurship, we’ve to repair accessibility to progress capital by getting extra feminine enterprise capitalists and selling an open mindset with all VCs and showcase the enjoyable facet of being an entrepreneur.”
Bernadette Wijnings
Bernadette Wijnings
Wijnings is the founder and affiliate associate of Het Strategiekantoor, a Dutch consultancy agency, and beforehand based Blanco, a fintech firm that develops expertise and digital providers for the wealth administration business.
Her management philosophy:
“Crew is all the things. As a pacesetter, you must fastidiously choose your group members and make it possible for they reside your organization values. Every particular person contributes most to the group after they can use their strengths and work in the way in which that matches them greatest. On the identical time, it’s extraordinarily necessary that tasks are clear. For my new enterprise that I’m establishing proper now, I’ve began with writing the ‘design rules’ – what makes the optimum SaaS firm? Many design rules are centred round folks, the remaining across the setup of the firm itself. Everybody becoming a member of my new enterprise, be it new colleagues or traders, must subscribe to the design rules. This protects a variety of dialogue and considering energy when scaling up.”
On cultivating innovation:
“For a tradition of innovation, it’s important that errors are allowed and even brazenly mentioned and celebrated, so everybody can be taught from them and really feel protected to experiment.”
On bettering ladies’s illustration in tech management:
“Gender variety within the Netherlands nonetheless has a protracted approach to go; the overwhelming majority of startups and scaleups are nonetheless arrange and managed by white males. Ladies’s illustration in tech management may be improved in some ways, although some of the necessary steps is for traders to turn into extra open to investing in additional various founders, not solely when it comes to gender, but additionally ethnicity, sexual orientation, incapacity, and socio-economic background together with training. Moreover, extra inclusive cultures should be constructed, not solely accepting however really embracing variety. Half of what’s wanted is educating the ‘non-diverse’ on the constructive affect of and societal have to create various groups.”
On figuring out when it’s time to transition to a brand new enterprise:
“I knew it was time to transition as a result of I seen that I used to be getting much less power from the challenges Blanco was dealing with going forward: much less constructing from scratch and extra into professionalising processes, extra operational optimisation, extra rising supply capability. Whereas my power lies in constructing firms, and I felt I wished to start out over, I wished to really feel the push of a contemporary startup once more the place each motion mattered and each alternative has large affect.”
Classes realized from founding a fintech:
“As a small choice: automate all the things proper from the beginning, from shopper onboarding to reporting. Make all the things data-driven, by no means ever construct any tech and not using a well-thought-out consumer story and useful design. Choose your traders completely and make investments money and time in training and your group.”
Willemijn Schneyder
Willemijn Schneyder
Schneyder is the founder and CEO of SwipeGuide, a efficiency platform for the manufacturing business that captures, scales, and automates important operational information throughout groups and websites.
On driving new concepts:
“SwipeGuide is a younger expertise firm. Each Swipee is an knowledgeable and an innovator. They be part of as a result of they’ve one thing to contribute to our mission. We’ve rituals that assist to unlock the concepts like hack days, innovation challenges, and many others. We stimulate our group members to look exterior the field, get impressed in numerous industries and occasions. However on the core, we attempt to apply the identical rules inside that we promote to our prospects: unlock untapped potential from inside by ensuring everybody has a chance to contribute to product improvement.”
On staying targeted on the consumer’s wants and ache factors:
“We speak rather a lot to different expertise firms to find out about totally different approaches to make sure that as you develop everybody on the group is laser-focused on fixing actual consumer issues with affect. There are three core ideas SwipeGuide has embraced since its founding and that we hope to foster and evolve as we develop: a deep understanding of our customers, open innovation collaboration with prospects, and bringing collectively totally different areas of experience.”
“SwipeGuide has been creating the answer in open collaboration with customers since founding. Initially, we used a buyer board to confirm issues and options. As we grew, we shifted to a system open to all customers. They’ll make ideas to a public innovation board and upvote issues they want the answer to resolve. Ideas we design and develop get verified and examined with our customers, in fact, as many organisations do. However the bottom line is to get behind the query, to design and develop what they want as a substitute of what they’re asking for. In that sense, we’re essentially the most human-centred software program resolution. Each incoming Swipee that joins the group, whether or not in advertising, gross sales, product improvement, or engineering, is requested to spend a while on the entrance line with our prospects and customers. How are you going to develop sticky digital instruments that resolve actual issues should you don’t know the effort of a mean manufacturing facility operator or upkeep engineer? Lastly, you will note that our product is constructed by consultants in laptop science, mechanical engineering, behavioural design, and academic sciences. Fixing huge puzzles with totally different hats on brings worth.”
On her expertise as a feminine founder:
“My challenges as a feminine founder have been no totally different than a feminine entrepreneur, supervisor, innovation advisor, or no matter function I executed as a lady earlier than founding SwipeGuide. Entry to finance is 10 instances tougher within the tech world as a result of it’s all an old-boy community. So for positive, we needed to – and nonetheless must – break by bias limitations as a various group, however I consider we’re extra resilient due to it. I additionally see rather a lot has modified already within the final couple of years. Folks turn into increasingly conscious of their bias, their privilege. However we have to make sure that we tackle it intersectionally, not binary males/ladies. I’ve a number of privilege as a extremely educated, western European white lady, so really, am I the proper individual to speak to this subject? Not totally. I consider we will make actual progress once we develop consciousness of the prevalence of unconscious bias.”
Marieke de Ruyter de Wildt
Marieke de Ruyter de Wildt is the founding father of The New Fork, which makes use of blockchain to assist agrifood companies optimise their provide chain, cut back danger, and enhance meals integrity.
Marieke de Ruyter de Wildt
On financing what you are promoting:
“In software program and new applied sciences, essentially the most troublesome half is to get your first paying buyer. What is commonly seen as a superb factor to do is to first get finance, then develop your concept, and discover your prospects. I’m a robust believer within the reverse order: get a paying buyer first after which get financing to upskill and enhance the product.”
My management philosophy:
“Good leaders are system thinkers: they see the sturdy and weak factors inside programs and may see the larger image, fairly than particular bits and items. The capability to have the ability to see a system as an entire is crucial to making the most of new alternatives. Leaders get nice minds to work collectively and put folks in positions the place they will maximise their particular person energy.”
On introducing complicated expertise to a consumer for the primary time:
“Once we pitch one thing, it’s obtained by the primitive a part of our brains, which have a quite simple response menu. Usually, we attempt to clarify complexity by unpeeling complexity, however that doesn’t work. You simply have to seize your viewers’s consideration and maintain them engaged. So don’t speak expertise: clarify the consequences that expertise can deliver however don’t go operational. Fairly than speaking expertise, we goal for experiencing its affect and have a PoC as rapidly as doable.”
Recommendation for younger ladies following in your footsteps:
“Be self-confident, have thick pores and skin, and assume huge and daring. Construct a group from Day 1, and hearth anybody who doesn’t look like an A participant. When you’ve got B or C gamers, they will actually take a toll on everybody else. In expertise, the important thing useful resource continues to be folks. It’s essential to have good individuals who can construct the proper expertise.”
