What happens in the startup scene in The Netherlands right now? Find out in another Dutch startup news update!
News & Updates
Prince Constantijn remains Dutch Startup Ambassador
Prince Constantijn, the younger brother of the current Dutch monarch, King Willem Alexander, has decided to invest his time and energy for another 18 months in supporting the Dutch startup ecosystem by going for a second term leading StartupDelta. Constantijn a long time supporter of entrepreneurship and startups and is the second ‘special envoy’ for startups within government StartupDelta2020 program. Constantijn about the news: “The Dutch startup ecosystem has a lot of potential and there still a lot we can do to help startups.” For instance by increasing the access to capital, shorten the time to market of startup products and improve collaboration between countries. The initiative was launched by the Ministry of Economic Affairs in 2015 with Neelie Kroes as the first special envoy until July 1, 2016. Here is an earlier interview with we did with Constantijn van Oranje.
Jouk Pleiter and Danique Wiltink win LOEY Awards 2017
Jouk Pleiter, founder of Backbase, has won the Dutch award for best online entrepreneur, the LOEY Award. Danique Wiltink, founder of the private tutor startup Nimbles, has won the LOEY Talent Award in the presence of special guest of honour Queen Maxima. Pleiter is especially celebrated for his knack of building Backbase into an industry leader that now servies financial institutions such as HSBC, Citibank and Goldman Sachs after a couple of tough pivots. Danique Wiltink is awarded the LOEY Talent Award for how she has built and grown Nimbles into a successful company and how she inspires others as a role model.
Growth Tribe launches first A.I. for marketing and growth course in Europe
Growth Tribe does it again: In 2015 it launched the first growth hacking academy in Europe. After a successful 2 years, 2000 growth hacking graduates further, the agency launches a 2-day crash-course in AI for marketing and growth. The company claims to be the first one in Europe. The program is launched in collaboration StartupAmsterdam, Dataiku and Microsoft.
Funding
Fastned receives 4,1 million euro from the German government to build 25 fast charging stations
Fastned was awarded last Wednesday a subsidy of 4.1 million euro by the German Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure to build 25 fast charging stations each with multiple chargers across Germany. The stations will be enable people to charge their electrical cars for a 250 km range in 20 minutes. Fastned expects to open the first stations in the first months of 2018.
Monday Morning Read
Technology is emotion
What do Apple’s ‘Think Different’ commercial and more recently Under Armor’s Michel Phelps ‘Rule Your Self’ commercial have in common? While both companies intended to increase product sales and brand awareness with these commercials they focused on their brands purpose and not the products they sell. They communicated on Daniel Kahneman’s system one level or emotion. Human beings are not rational. Powered by our emotions the majority of decisions we make as human beings are on the basis of mental shortcuts or so-called heuristics. As a result, when developing technology, a website, app, etc. it critical to take emotion into account. Technology is emotion. Darius Contracter, growth engineer at Dropbox, has developed a great framework for understanding the emotions that drive people to use your product or bounce immediately after starting your onboarding flow. Read and apply Contractor’s Psych Framework to understand the emotional dimension of the technology you’re developing and drive massive user growth. As Andrew Chen details in his introduction the Physic Framework: every UX interaction is an emotional event. Treat them as such.
Photo by Milad Alizadeh on Unsplash