Published in Timeseer·Jan 6Ciao 👋 Venture Capital (for now), Hello Timeseer.AIGet Ready to Roll — My New Startup Is on Its Way After the TrendMiner (acquired by Software AG) exit, I worked in Venture Capital for 3 years as one of the partners of Smartfin Capital, a Belgian B2B technology fund investing across Europe with nearly 400M€ AUM. During this…Time Series Analysis6 min read
Apr 17, 2021Why Every Founder Should Take on the Role of Sales Development Rep (SDR) at Least OnceI’ve seen it multiple times — companies are post-P/M fit, and suddenly the amount of generated leads decline or the marketing engine sputters. But did it ever really work? Because however neglected, the fact is there were higher priority areas to solve. …Startup8 min read
Feb 4, 2021NDA’s in Venture Capital are uselessI typically don’t have extreme positions on things but I seriously doubt the effectiveness of NDA’s in venture capital. My general advice to startup CEO’s is not to ask a VC to sign one and just don’t share confidential information before you engage deeper (Due Diligence). Venture capital is a…Nda2 min read
Dec 20, 2020My changing view on 10X EngineersThroughout my life, I’ve had the opportunity to witness a few 10x engineers — both early in life and also while running my own company. It was initially my perception that a Rockstar engineer was doing 80% of all the work anyway. So, in essence, following the Pareto rule, I…Startup4 min read
Nov 3, 2020AI SoberingA recent Tweet / LinkedIn post where I used the term AI sobering caught some attention and a request for more details on my thoughts and research. …AI7 min read
May 6, 2019Jurgen Ingels launches a 150 million euro fund.Smartfin Capital, the investment group built around Jurgen Ingels, launches a second fund. With a capital of 150 million euro, double as much as the initial fund, it will be solid enough to support larger participations. Last year, Jurgen Ingels already noticed that the pull of the first Smartfin Capital…Startup3 min read
Mar 3, 2019Selling your company and Exit: A goal on itself?I was asked as opening keynote speaker on the Big Squeeze; The Tech Startup Day. It is the key event in Belgium on time squeezing for startups, scale-ups, corporates and investors. I had to talk and give my opinion on two topics: Is an exit the goal of every startup…Startup4 min read
Feb 28, 2019Is Dead Equity crippling your company?By Bert Baeck (Entrepreneur and ex-CEO TrendMiner) and Pieter Capiau (Partner @ CRESCO law). This article is triggered by a keynote at SaaStr this year by Ryan Smith, CEO and founder of Qualtrics who recently sold his company to SAP for 8B$. A holding by Ryan Smith (CEO) and his…Startup9 min read
Feb 13, 2019Scaling a SaaS business: 8 keys to successThe Software-as-a-Service market is growing exponentially. The Forbes Cloud 100 List alone is valued at $175+ billion. Ambitious start-ups and scale-ups are flooding the market in the hopes of becoming the next SaaS unicorn. Do they have what it takes? After the rollercoaster ride that was founding, building and selling…Saa S4 min read
Oct 5, 2018Don’t let Venture Capital be the bottleneck of your scale-up, neither the goal in itself.Don’t let Venture Capital be the bottleneck of your scale-up, neither the goal in itself. Belgian scale-ups cannot compete with the over capitalised American scale-ups. According to a local financial magazine this would have been the reason why TrendMiner was sold earlier this year to the German public trading SoftwareAG…Startup4 min read
