On Monday night, at the 1st of November, our second ABC Night of this year took place. Two inspiring entrepreneurs shared their lessons with us: Loes de Volder, founder of MamaLoes and Rico Clark, co-founder of Scrumble. Loes de Volder started her company 12 years ago with the aim of making people happy. She shared some of her interesting ideas about developing as an entrepreneur. After a small break, Rico told us the story of Scrumble. Scrumble is founded by four friends, who wanted to build personalized software for their own clients. The stories of these two entrepreneurs, combined with the curiosity of the audience, made it an inspiring evening.
MamaLoes
Even before Loes started her talk, she already gave us an insight in the entrepreneurial mindset. “I’m used to talk to big groups, but not in English,” is how she started off. For some people, this might be a perfectly good reason to not do a talk. But soon enough, we learned that Loes thinks differently. Like Pippi Longstocking, her motto is: “I’ve never done it before, so I think I can do it!”
As an experienced mother of five children, Loes wanted to contribute to the world by advising clients about the best baby products. After 12 years of growing her company, Loes and her team now sell baby products both online and offline – at five physical stores. Making people happy; that is the mission of MamaLoes. An interesting example of how she runs her business is that Loes wants to give everyone a chance to get a job, by hiring without job interviews. “I think it’s not important what a person did before, but it’s important what the person wants to do in the future,” she explained.
‘You need to grow as a person first, before you can grow your company’
According to Loes, being an entrepreneur is not what you do between 9 and 5, but it’s what you are all day long. It’s important to see new chances everyday and to stay inspired. When your intention is right and your business is distinctive, the money will follow. One of the takeaways she gave us? You need to grow as a person first, before you can grow your company.
Scrumble
After learning about the DNA of MamaLoes and a small break that followed, Rico told us the story of Scrumble. This company builds personalized software. Rico started by showing us a super small piece of how programming works. His passion for programming was the starting point for Scrumbe. But soon enough, he and his co-founders found out that running a business goes beyond ‘just’ programming. He told us about their first clients and the first struggles. Communicating well with a client about their needs and wishes is very important, because you want your client to spend their money well. A good lesson for everyone owning a business in the service industry.
‘Failing is actually learning’
And next to doing the work for clients, Rico and his friends were asking themselves how to do sales, marketing and recruitment. Their business was growing: they started in a living room of one of their friends, and eventually they were hiring their first employees and got an office. There were some exciting moment in this development. Deciding to quit their jobs and work on their business full-time, for example. And, as many entrepreneurs had to deal with as well, the consequences of COVID. As a result, they decided to focus on a niche. “You shouldn’t be scared to experiment. Failing actually is learning!” was one of the messages Rico shared with us.
The night ended with a happy announcement of The Entrepeneur House. Their first house is opening soon, and you can still register here if you would like to live and work with other entrepreneurs. After that, we had some time to network. Students and entrepreneurs had the chance to meet each other, Loes and Rico, and the people of ABC. Would you like to get inspired by experienced entrepreneurs? Attend our next ABC Night on the 6th of December! You can already subscribe to our next event on our homepage and more information about our next speakers will follow soon.