Jorn Eiting van Liempt from ROM InWest, a regional development company, discusses how startups should validate problems before building solutions. He emphasizes the importance of finding urgent customer problems, structuring founding teams effectively, and maintaining focus on solving real market needs rather than pursuing entrepreneurship as a lifestyle.
What we learned
1Talk to customers and show an honest interest about the topic; don't start selling from day one, start asking questions instead. If you have found a customer audience, you need to be intrinsically motivated to make that solution succeed and stick to that problem.
About the guest
J
Jorn Eiting van Liempt
Business Developer and Venture Developer · ROM InWest
A publicly funded regional development company that invests in and supports transitional companies in North Holland across five sectors: energy transition, circularity, digitization, life science and health, and food sciences.
Challenge
A lot of startups start with a solution in mind and develop that solution, but they never properly challenge whether the problem is urgent to solve and whether customers would be willing to pay for it.
Lesson
Talk to customers and show an honest interest about the topic; don't start selling from day one, start asking questions instead. If you have found a customer audience, you need to be intrinsically motivated to make that solution succeed and stick to that problem.
Looking for
Be open to be helped, and we need a politician who can remove interference and understand that it is actually a problem holding startups back.
Hello. What's what's your name and what do you do? >> Jordan and I'm working at the regional development company uh predominantly as business developer and venture developer. >> What does a venture developer and business? >> That means helping startups to develop according to a pathway and yeah helping them set up for success. >> Okay. Which uh kind of projects have supported in in the past? >> That's numerous. So I have a regular call on Thursdays that I for one hour I do a session everybody can call in from the region or or about uh or outside of it and I just tell the talk about the structure on how to get set up for success. >> Did you mention it's called regional development? >> Yeah regional development. Yeah. So we are investor in for the region. Okay. >> Uh we are public publicly funded and what we do is we try to enable transitional companies uh within the region that support uh yeah higher aims. So that's energy transition that's circularity uh digitization that's my personal one uh life science health and then it's food and uh and uh uh food and and sciences around the food. And which kind of sectors startups in these sectors have you seen that progress more? Is there any specific favorite sector for the region? >> Um not not necessarily a favorite. These are actually the our five main. Yeah, these are the five main one and we have uh perh one of those transitions we have people working on the specific topic to develop within the region. So that means uh connecting a lot of people uh connecting entrepreneurs with with institutes that can help them to set up shop or improve their their business. Uh and then the venture development part is where I I particularly work in uh and help my colleagues um but also themselves they will do some some of the work uh to help those companies and startups to set up for success. >> What is the scope of a regional? Does it have a minimum ticket size, maximum ticket size or is it the scope only for the region or can also look? So, so the region, so that's an interesting one, of course, because the region here is uh uh the the province of North Holland excluding uh Ferste. So that's that's a little bit of a cutout carve out for the regional development at Utre, but also it includes the Emiran region of Amsterdam. Uh and that is Leto and Almir also are included in that for some of the transitions. Uh and then when when it comes to the investment part, we do up from 300K up to 5 million. Um and we are always a co-investor. So we do maximum 50% out of out of a round. >> Which kind of partners do you invest with? >> Um multiple. So we can do with any private investor. Uh so that's um that's VZ capital particularly uh but also angels or syndicates. Do a lot of international investors invest in regional uh startups as well? >> Uh yes, well a lot. There's always also international investors that are interested. I mean it's it's up to the startup where they want to find the money. Uh but also sometimes it's strategically interesting to already have a link with with investors from from abroad uh because it helps them also to get entry in that market. And what are the main challenges you see the regional startups have when they start? >> Um I think this is the dominant for every startup. So no matter the region uh and that's the just having that uh the the a proper um what is it a proper definition of the customer uh so a lot of them they start with a solution with a solution in mind and they start developing on that solution. So they like to build uh but in the end I mean you need to sell it to someone. So the way to go is first find a problem to solve and then uh develop a solution for it. And there's [snorts] 95% out of all that start with develop development of a solution. They have an idea in mind. They found a problem themselves or they talk to people who claim to have a problem uh but they never properly challenge that those those people about whether how yeah how urgent that problem is to solve and whether they would be willing to pay for it. How do successful startup sell and distribute their products or services? >> Uh so if you if you know who you're doing it for, then it's relatively easy to find them. So the hard work is first finding that problem uh getting a definition from the target audience that you're looking for. Um [snorts] because it's it's actually you're building a lead list, but you want to make sure that you built um a product for a group within that lead list. So say so it's not a lead list in the beginning. So it's just a group of people you've been talking to. Out of that group you found a group that has potential because they all have similarities in in the problem that they're facing. Uh there's an we call this early evangelist group that's a very small group that has an exactly sim similar problem. Uh they are aware of this problem. They have looked for a solution to solve that problem. They even experimented with with solutions to to solve that problem. Uh and they still have money to spare. And that's another point actually a lot of startups are tempted to give away their product for free in the beginning just to get some traction going but uh this is not traction. >> I know myself. >> Yeah. Well, there there you go. I know myself as well. So I I made the same mistakes over and over. >> What's the typical successful team that a startup can have >> team? Yeah. So yeah, it's it's a minimum of two like Mox actually said today. So he's very happy with the two. two also can generate a little bit of a problem because making a decision that you are confronted with then yeah who who is right. Uh so to have a team of three is helpful. Uh but it also comes at a cost right. So you because you dilute >> yes regarding the team do you think if there are two founders >> do you think one founder should have more equity how much and why when when he's accepted to have more equity? Um so for one if you do a 50/50 then uh and you are just the two founders then it it's problematic. So actually you want to have 51 on 49 and this is something to discuss and of course from a very early stage from the beginning. Um and if you cannot find agreement then yeah probably you're going to be in arguments at a later stage as well. So it's it's either the one with the idea that kicked it off that reached out to the other that already said so somebody else started with it or it's the heavy weight or maybe sometimes you need to acknowledge that someone is way better than you than you are or is better than you are then you know why not grant them the extra percent because I think but this is my personal belief uh you eventually as a founder are working for the company that you started and a lot of people think they work for themselves but you work for the company that you started. It's even formally written in in all the paperworks after you started it. Uh and I think it's super important that that is sort of a personality that you start working for from day one and you should do everything possible to have that person. So the BV or whatever the inc survive >> okay what challenges does the regional development find right now? Um, so there's a lot of initiatives that are trying to kick off entrepreneurship. Um, but there's also a lot of, yeah, pardon my French, but crap to be totally frank. There's a lot of entrepreneurs. Uh, so there's a lot of people who who think it's a lifestyle, just a lifestyle. I think this is a problem. Uh, because it's not a lifestyle. It's a you need to have something in mind that you really want to make make a success and you need to stick to that uh to that sort of the problem. um and not sticking by uh I don't mean like just just have a core focus on it purely because you can only focus on it purely if there's a customer audience but you need to be intrinsically motivated to make that uh get that solution out there in the world >> which is one lesson that you would like to give to the entrepreneurs watching this >> yeah I know that's the the basics talk to customers and if you have if you found and customers I don't mean already starting selling so that's that's actually the that's maybe the they listen. Uh don't start selling from day one. Start asking questions and show an honest interest about the topic. If you have that honest interest, then you will get people to talk. Um because people ask questions uh you know they are interested in you. So you're tempted to give an answer. Uh and if you are uh genuinely interested, people will be will open up and you you get a lot of information that will help you set up a business in the end. >> Nice. And one ask to the viewers, one connection that you as a person or as a partner. >> Yeah. So, so uh please uh be open to be to be helped. >> One connection. >> Maybe it would be a politician that can actually uh remove a lot of the the interference and understand that the interference is actually a problem that is holding it back and just generating more agendas, more researchers, etc. on a topic that's already been researched over and over. So, one person that can move this into action. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for the interview. Pleasure, man.
