Thrift to Triumph: The story of United Wardrobe

How three students founded a fashion marketplace with 4.5 million users and got bought by their unicorn competitor Vinted.

PREFACE

I was with Sjuul, my co-founder. On Sundays, we often ate dinner together to discuss the week ahead.

I remember it clearly.

That night, Sjuul said, “It won't be long now, will it?”

''What won’t?” I asked.

“Until the money runs out.” 

I felt myself turn pale.

“What do you mean?” I asked naively.

Sjuul looked at me. “We only have a few months left.” 

I knew our bubble was going to burst. I just didn't know it would happen so soon. Run out of money? But how? 

For months, I had been so busy growing our business in the French market that I had hardly looked at our finances. Apparently, everyone else did the same. We had buried our heads in the sand, continuously hoping that everything would work out somehow. 

In less than a year, we had created a monster.

This book is for anyone who wants to know what entrepreneurship really looks like. For those who want to know the truth behind those flashy headlines praising startups with millions in investments. For those who want an insight into the complicated yet fascinating world of start-up entrepreneurship. For those who want to understand how to become financially independent with just two thousand euros in starting capital.

However, don't read this book if your goal is to get-rich-quick. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to getting rich, and I do not have some standard lessons to offer you. There’s no roadmap to success, wealth, or both. The lessons in this book consist of trial and error, messing around, falling, getting back up, and getting lucky. So, all I can do is share my own story with you. This is a story filled with ups and downs, tears, euphoria, shame, joy, fear, and sadness, with surprises, secrets, bizarre twists, painful moments – oh, and a tattoo or two, just like life itself.

All I can do is share my story with you. 

The rest is up to you.

THIJS VERHEUL

TAKING A GAMBLE

 A foreword by Sjuul Berden, who, in 2013, came to me with the idea of United Wardrobe.

September 2011.
Wageningen, the Netherlands.

During the first lecture of the new academic year, everyone sat quietly in the lecture hall, embarrassed. Nobody responded to the teacher's questions except for one restless, overconfident teacher’s pet, who only wanted to show off.

His name was Thijs Verheul, and although I found him a bit much, he seemed like an interesting guy. As the semester progressed, I realized that his strengths complimented my weaknesses and vice versa. When given group assignments, I would write the theoretical framework, and Thijs would head to the streets to collect first-hand data. Thijs’s confidence and resourcefulness convinced me he would help make United Wardrobe a success.

I never expected that after six years of doing business together, I would write the foreword to his book on how three boys from Wageningen, a small town in the Netherlands, founded and sold the largest fashion marketplace in the Netherlands. We were not special, incredibly smart, or charismatic, and didn’t come from money. What connected us was a desire to prove ourselves — to prove that it’s possible to set up an entire company from your dorm room, to be smarter than your competitors, to establish a brand that is nationally known to combine sustainability with commercial success, and to become financially independent at such a young age.

After all of that, these are the lessons I learned. First, you can't control the future. You can, however, maximize the chance of a certain outcome. Keep looking for the next step and take it. That’s how you get closer to your goal. 

Second, don't be afraid to fail or that someone will steal your idea. Write down your plans, talk to friends, research your competitors, and get insights from potential customers. 

Third, look for co-founders. No one has all the skills it takes to take an idea and turn it into a successful company. Our company would have never gone beyond some pretty Excel sheets and slick presentations if we’d stayed with just Thijs Verheul and myself as the founders. It was only when Thijs Slijkhuis joined that our team was complete. 

Last, without a ticket, you will never win the lottery; without taking the first steps, you will never become an entrepreneur. You just have to go for it.

United Wardrobe was our winning lottery ticket. Through six years of hard work, we maximized this opportunity, but we also got lucky. Since the time we started United Wardrobe, the second-hand fashion industry has grown from a niche to a mainstream business. We saw a need, and we filled it.

Don’t be afraid to seize opportunities. This book is yet another lottery ticket for Thijs. As a true entrepreneur, he once again takes a leap of faith to see where opportunities take him. I hope our story inspires you to start your own business and to keep chasing your dreams. As well, for my buddy Thijs, I truly hope he can win the jackpot again. 

SJUUL BERDEN, Co-founder United Wardrobe, Product Director Vinted

DRIVE AND DISCIPLINE

I was born in 1992, the year of the first popular web browser and Bill Clinton's first year as president of the United States. Although, of course, I was not aware of either event. My parents lived, and still live, in Moordrecht, a small village of a few thousand inhabitants and a twenty-minute bike ride from Gouda. In the Netherlands, Moordrecht is best known for being Memphis Depay's, a famous Dutch soccer player's hometown. When I was young, the neighborhood kids would play soccer and other football games with him. I once lost a game of ‘kontje kick’ to him, a game where one person bends over, facing a wall, and another kicks a football repeatedly at their butt as hard as he can. Needless to say, I couldn’t sit for days.

Well, I wasn't good at sitting still anyway. I was a hyperactive child with ADHD. Honestly, I was an annoying little boy, always arguing with everyone. In school, I was teased for having ginger hair. My classmates would call me “the Lighthouse,” and if you wanted to piss me off, all you had to do was whisper “lighthouse,” and I'd come running. As a result, I often got into arguments and fights, and many kids I grew up with hated me. Looking back, I can't blame them.

I needed a way to calm down and escape. I don't know if it was because of Memphis's impressive and literal butt-kicking, but I didn't like soccer or any other team sport. I opted for a calmer hobby: fishing. Sitting by the water for hours with my friends Maarten, Sven, and Gianni was a kind of meditation for me. I’d go out into nature, isolate myself from the hustle and bustle, and work together with my friends to catch a really big fish. If you’ve ever fished, you know you don't focus on anything else. All of your attention is brought down into this moment where you can let go of everything else going on in your life. In a way, fishing is a team sport. You have to concentrate together to catch the perfect fish. Fishing taught me many lessons that would help me as an entrepreneur later. I was only concerned with catching the biggest fish when I was younger.

When I was in school, I wasn’t very motivated. I was always battling my lack of discipline, problems with authority, and drive to work independently towards my ideas. I think I came out of it pretty well, but I often see young people struggling with the same kinds of issues.

It’s important to think about why you’re doing what you’re doing. Who are you doing your best for? Who do you want to work for? Yourself? Or a boss? 

For me, it was an easy question. I always wanted to work for myself. Handing in homework assignments just because you had to? I found that difficult. The only thing that motivated me was that if I got my work done as quickly as possible, the sooner I could do what I wanted.

In high school, Gouda became the epicenter of my life. I cycled up and down the Schielands Hoge Zeedijk and the Sluisdijk hundreds of times – a round trip of 10 miles. After school, I couldn't sit still. With Maarten, a childhood friend, we bought small boats and would fix them behind my house to resell them for profit on the Dutch version of eBay, Marktplaats. 

I was constantly thinking about my future. I had no idea what it would look like, but I was sure it would be great. I was determined to be the best at something. I was going to be successful. 

When I turned eighteen and graduated from college, I had no idea what to do with my life. Should I keep studying? What would I study? I knew I wanted to do something myself, and the idea of being an entrepreneur seemed cool, but where the f*ck do you start when you're eighteen and really don't understand the world yet? 

Law school.

I thought that going into law would make me successful, so I applied and got into Utrecht University Law School. 

I had a wonderfully carefree time last summer before my studies started. Hans, one of my friends from Gouda, and I moored a boat by the Reeuwijkse Plassen; sailing, drinking beer, listening to music, and ordering pizza were all we did. It was one of the best summers of my life. I wanted so much back then, and yet, I really didn't know anything at all, which made life quite simple.  

My time in Utrecht started with the UIT, the Utrechtse Introductie Tijd, an introduction week for all first-year students. We were told to gather at Wilhelmina Park and form small groups. My high school friend Joost and I joined a group together. We explored the city and hopped around different bars. We spent the entire day out. 

In the evening, we’d needed a place to stay – both of us were still living at home to save money. One of our mentor mothers suggested we take a look at the student corps, the Utrecht Student Corps. She figured this would suit us well and said it was possible to stay there during UIT,  so Joost and I joined a frat house for the week. 

It was an insanely beautiful house on Frans Halsstraat, right between the city center and Utrecht Science Park; in my short week there, I was completely shocked by what I saw. A house full of boys, most of them only wearing bathrobes, sitting around gaming and drinking all day, for days on end. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, but I couldn’t see myself fitting in. It just wasn’t my kind of crowd. At that time, I was too young to fully understand what being in a student association entailed. I would find that out later, the hard way. I felt immediately uncomfortable around these boys. I had never known anyone who wanted to be a part of a student association and wanted to leave as soon as possible. 

So, I did. 

It’s never worth it to be in a situation that doesn’t feel right. If something does not feel right, just bounce. Don't think about it too much. Leave and start over. 

Even today, I still live by this strategy.

IN & OUT

I took exactly two law classes. Immediately after my introductory class, we had our first seminar, where we started by going through the Dutch code of law. We weren’t even allowed to introduce ourselves to each other. We had twenty minutes to read the code and discuss it together. I still remember the panic that was pulsing through my body. Was this how I would be spending the rest of my life? Spending hours staring at a list of laws? It didn’t take another thought – I got up and told the lecturer I was going home and that I wanted to quit my studies. 

With one hand, she was holding a Frappuccino. The other was scrolling through her phone. She looked up, startled. “But this is your first lecture,” she stuttered.

I told her it didn’t matter. I walked out and have never set foot in a law building again. I put all my books for sale on bol.com, the Dutch version of Amazon, and sent an email to the university to formally deregister from my law studies. 

It was a relief. But that feeling didn’t last. Because, once again, the question popped into my head, what the f*ck was I supposed to do?

I got to work. I decided to take up a side job at my father’s company. My father has been a window cleaner and painter for over forty years. He’s a hard worker and built his life from scratch. Over the years, I’ve helped with minor tasks on weekends and holidays. Now, I was old enough to take the car and drive to Leidschendam to do some work.

This arrangement worked for some time. However, ‘working for my dad’ wasn’t exactly something I had truly decided on as much as I lucked into. It felt great to make some money, but after a few months, I was done with it. 

I wanted more for myself. 

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do. I tried many different things, including being a ski instructor in Austria, but nothing gave me the satisfaction I crave. I don’t regret any of the paths I went down; I think it’s very important to try many things to know what works for you and what doesn’t. However, finally realizing my passion was incredible. I’d had an empty feeling inside me for a long time – spending so many years feeling lost and unsure of what I wanted to do. No one tells you how disorientating that is. 

It happened while trying to sell pub crawl experiences and ski safaris in Austria. Yes, it was on another one of those odd jobs. I realized that I was good at telling stories and selling experiences.

WAGENINGEN

What do I want to do with my life? 

How do I get started? 

It was the same questions over and over.

As far as I was concerned, I couldn’t take a specific course to become an entrepreneur. There was no degree for starting out on your own. 

I was a bit lost. I had all of these ideas, this motivation to build something, and the work ethic to back it up, but I had no idea where to start. One thing was certain: I needed guidance and support. The University of Amsterdam offers a reorientation program that helps students align their goals with the educational opportunities available to them in the Netherlands. From here,I learned that a Business and Consumer Studies degree at the University of Wageningen was my best bet. 

After another great summer filled with road trips and partying, I finally started my second attempt to get my bachelor’s degree. An old friend of mine from Gouda, Sjoerd, was attending the same university. Back then, Sjoerd was already one of the most extraordinary people I knew, and he still is. He’s someone who always makes his own plans and carries his own weight. He is the most contrary person I know – but if you challenge him, he will always try to prove himself. 

We went to the school’s Annual Introduction Days together and were really excited about this new chapter. I felt like I was The Man. We strolled through the city, got to know the university, and visited student associations. Branko, a friend of ours, had a dorm room we were able to stay in. Luckily, that meant no nights in a stinky frat house. Not this time. However, unfortunately, Branko wanted to Rush and somehow managed to convince Sjoerd to as well. Even though I hated frats, and the frat house in Utrecht were some of the worst hours I’ve spent on a college campus, I couldn’t be left out. I was scared to be the odd one out, alone without friends in a new city. 

On the last day of the introduction week, we drunkenly applied for the Katholieke Studentenvereniging Sint Franciscus Xaverius, one of the many frats, and were accepted. I kept to myself how much I hated what we were doing the entire time. I was afraid to speak up, scared to be left on my own in godforsaken Wageningen.

And that is how, packed and ready on Monday morning at 7 am, I found myself standing in the parking lot behind the grocery store with only some clothes and a scratchcard – the entire contents of the supplied packing list. Naively, I thought our “hazing” would be amazing: playing football, drinking beer, and making bonfires. That’s what an introduction of new, young people is supposed to be like, right? That could not have been further from the truth. My poor 19-year-old brain had not been able to imagine what hazing entailed. No one could have prepared me for what lay ahead. Branko had told us it might not be fun, but as tough as I thought I was, I was shocked by how much “not fun” it really was. 

We formally registered with the frat on the first day of our hazing in a shady room. The older members were loitering around, drinking pints. We had to literally sign a contract filled with vague clauses and disclose any allergies or other health issues. After that, we stepped into a dark room. I’ll spare you the details, but just know what happened was truly dehumanizing. 

Looking like a dirty mop, smelling of smoke, beer, coated peanuts, and barf, while covered in paint and something that looked an awful lot like human hair, I was put on a bus towards ‘the camp,’ where we’d complete our initiation. I could see the fear of the pimple-faced new batch of students, barely through puberty. They were truly scared. Apparently, they knew more than I did. On the bus, we had to stay silent and couldn’t look outside. Me being me, I thought, fuck it,  and looked outside. The entire drive, I kept thinking, what have I gotten myself into? Knowing what I know now, I obviously should have obeyed the older frat brothers, done what I was told, and kept my mouth shut.

WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME

I understand the idea behind hazing that you go through hell together in order to make a rock-solid connection, but, man, I really should have looked deeper into what I was getting myself into. When the bus turned and drove onto a farmyard, I was still clueless about what was to come. I saw army tents and was shocked. Were we supposed to sleep in tents? Where was the shower? I was still covered in paint, hair, nuts, and miscellaneous mystery stuff. I felt like I had just washed up on the shore of the wrong country, in the wrong place at the wrong time. I tried to play along, but I really do have a problem with authority – I should have listed “authority issues” under my “allergies.” Naturally, the older boys singled me out. I was targeted. They made me sing and walk around in a banana suit. I was scolded for the smallest things, and unfortunately, being scolded meant being beaten up and made an example out of. 

That night in my tent, I had a fever. The next morning, I woke up completely over it. I was done, tired, sick, broken, and I wanted to go home. I got up, walked over to an older member, and said, “I’m out.” I was dropped off at the nearest station, completely alone. I was still wearing my filthy clothes and carrying my bag full of random stuff they’d asked us to bring. 

The packing list said to bring a lottery scratchcard, and upon arrival, we had to turn it in, but right before being dropped off without so much as a shower, I stole it back. As I stood there, shivering, sick, and disgusting, I got out the card and scratched it. I’d won twenty Euros and considered it a sign that I was supposed to do things myself. 

As the reality of what I had done set in, I realized I was all alone again. Sjoerd and Branko probably thought I was a loser for leaving. I felt like I’d “failed” at university again. How was I supposed to make my time as a student some of the best days of my life? I went to stay with my parents to recover, and after a few days, I went back to work with my dad. I wanted to quit my education in Wageningen. I was over all the bullshit and elitism. I’d rather be a window cleaner.

After a few days of recovering, I realized something really important. Something that completely changed the rest of my life.  I couldn’t keep running. I had been running from job to job and school to school, bouncing around instead of pushing through. I had to turn things around because no one was going to figure my life out for me.

A few days later, I found the motivation to keep going to classes. 

SJUUL

Every day, I got on my moped to go from Rhenen, where my dorm was, to Wageningen. While studying, I quickly made new friends - fortunately, not everyone was part of a fraternity. The lectures and exams were quite easy. I prepared well, did my best, received good grades, and was on track to get my degree, but then what? Find a job? I still didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I forced myself to finish my studies. At least I had an idea of what I was good at.

Among my fellow students and new friends, I didn't feel nearly as lonely as I had feared. Sjoerd and Branko had finished the hazing at their fraternity, but we stayed friends. They continued to hang out with me, and over time, I got over my hazing trauma and even dared to go to their frat parties. 

I saw a tall, lanky boy on the dance floor at one of their parties, completely wasted. Around him were a few girls, but it seemed as if he didn't realize that they were into him. I don't know exactly what dimension he was in, but he definitely wasn’t all there. A few moments later, he stood next to me at the bar. 

“I know you from our lectures,” he said. 

He held out his hand. “I'm Sjuul.” 

As it turned out, Sjuul and I took many courses together. During lectures, I talked a lot. I’d tell anyone who would listen I am going to be an entrepreneur. 

Sjuul and I would talk about successful entrepreneurs and companies like unicorns – companies valued over a billion that haven't gone public yet. Sjuul thought it was time for a new Dutch unicorn and was eager to make it happen. During seminars, I enjoyed working with him because we complemented each other very well: he figured out what needed to happen, and I arranged for it to happen. Yin and yang, the hippie and the hustler. I think Sjuul was also the first person to see how big my dreams were and that I could do more than just dream. During one of those seminar collaborations, Sjuul planted the seed for what would later become our company. 

What were those big dreams, you might be wondering? I wanted to mean something, to show that I was more than an easily distracted boy. 

From a young age, I felt like I had a lot to give and wasn’t around the right people who could see it. I didn't want to join the large group of people who would always have to work hard for a boss. Financial independence has always been my motivation to be able to own a house of my own, have a nice car, and go on amazing trips. Something I obviously romanticized as a teenager growing up in a capitalist society.

Now, I am at a point in my life where I have enough, but sometimes, it still feels like I'm playing a part, one I haven't quite mastered yet. It will take a few more years before it feels normal. If it ever will.

From the moment Sjuul and I became friends, my life shifted into a higher gear. 

Had the time finally come for the big things I wanted to do?

ONE WARDROBE

In a small group with three other students, Sjuul and I often discussed business ideas, but those never really amounted to anything. However, on a Thursday morning somewhere in the middle of 2013, Sjuul asked if I wanted to grab a coffee. He asked me separately because he had a truly golden idea.

Sjuul was from the northern Limburg town of Well. He was the only boy in a family of four, therefore having three sisters: Eef, Maud, and Ceciel. Sjuul's sisters frequently exchanged clothes amongst themselves. The bad buy of one would often be well-liked by another, and the youngest sister, Ceciel, especially took advantage of this. 

Sjuul had watched this with amazement for a long time, but had gradually become convinced that his sisters would also want to exchange clothes with others. However, they didn’t use an online marketplace or Facebook groups — those weren't trendy, safe, or easy enough for them. As a result, many clothes were left hanging in the wardrobe, never worn. Sjuul believed that if we could create a trendy, safe, and social platform where people like his sisters could buy and sell their clothes, it would be huge.

That Thursday morning, Sjuul told me that he had come up with the solution for his sisters and every other Dutch fashion fanatic: a platform where every fashion lover in the Netherlands could come together easily and exchange or sell their clothes. It had to be as social as Facebook and as easy and safe as Venmo.

That's how Sjuul pitched it to me: a safe online marketplace for second-hand clothing. He had also come up with a name, One Wardrobe. 

He looked at me and asked, “So? Are you in?” 

I could tell he was serious. But I burst out laughing. 

“Sjuul, what do you take me for? A fashion guru? This is surely going to be a miss. Why on earth would people go to One Wardrobe? Surely there are online marketplaces and Facebook? What a shitty idea.” 

To put it mildly, I didn't think it was a great idea and didn't really understand why Sjuul approached me about it. But Sjuul clearly didn’t see it that way. He kept nagging about it. He sent me WhatsApp messages, called me, and did everything he could to explain the potential of such a platform to me. 

At the beginning of the summer, when we were outdoor drinking and dining in Wageningen, I got tired of his nagging.

“But Thijs, believe me…” he started once again. 

“Okay, Sjuul, stop it,” I said. “If you are really serious about this, we should try and see if this really is the golden idea you think it is and put a beta version online to test it.”

His eyes began to shine in a way that I later learned to recognize as typical Sjuul excitement.

“I'll ask Tim how we should go about this,” I said. 

Tim was my roommate in the new dorm I had moved to. He worked in his spare time on an online platform for vacation homes in nature that would grow to be hugely successful, Nature House. Tim had told me stories from time to time about his work, so I figured he could help us out.

That same evening, I explained Sjuul's plan to Tim. He wasn’t very convinced. To Tim, it seemed like a complicated business model.

“Go and see Maurits,” Tim said. 

So we did. 

We didn’t really have a detailed plan yet, just Sjuuls’ broad idea: Venmo for clothes with a website and maybe an app eventually. Maurits had his own company, Way2Web, and said he would make an offer for us at mates’ rates. A few weeks later, Sjuul called and told me Maurits’ price. At around €25.000, Maurits certainly gave us mates’ rates, but this was an astronomically large amount for two broke college students. On top of that, Maurits would charge for every little tweak or new feature that we wanted to change or adapt.

In the end, Sjuul and I chose not to work with Maurice. Not because he wasn't a nice guy but because we anticipated that growing would be complicated and wouldn’t be scalable. As well, we just just didn't have the money at that time.

In retrospect, this was a crucial step in the process. We decided to build everything ourselves from the ground up. Or at least... We did that much later. 

First, we let the idea bleed out, as befits two lazy students. But Sjuul wouldn't be Sjuul if he hadn't kept pushing us.

A TENNER AN HOUR

It was late 2013, and I had some completely different things on my mind... I was in love. At a party, I was introduced to a friend of Sjoerd's girlfriend. I was on cloud nine and wanted to be with her all the time. 

But then Sjuul knocked on my door again and said, “We have to do something with this.  One Wardrobe has to happen.” 

In all honesty, I wasn’t that interested in the business idea. But my ego was on the line, and I had a promise to keep. 

When we started, we thought we could do everything by ourselves. Sjuul and I spent hours at the university trying to figure out how to build a marketplace website. There were so many things to take into consideration – people need to be able to create an account, upload photos, set prices, chat with other customers, and there has to be a secure payment service. Turns out this was just the tip of the iceberg. 

After a few months of messing around, we found a WordPress plugin called BuddyPress that members could create accounts with. Sjuul, all by himself, even managed to build a system in which those members could send pictures, garment sizes, brand information, and prices to us, after which everything would be uploaded to the platform. But, this system was not scalable at all. Logging in proved impossible. We broke our heads over the payment system. It was terribly basic, and, above all, it was ugly. So, once again, I knocked on Tim’s door for advice.

“If you want to keep it cheap,” Tim said, “then you should find yourself a designer. He will make a design of what it should look like, and then you have someone else program it.” 

“Okay, a designer,” I said, “and where do I find one?” 

“Yeah, no idea, dude. Google it yourself, or go to a school where they teach design.”

Naively, I took note of that last remark. A friend from back in the day used to study in Arnhem for a while, 'something with design.' There, he learned how to work Photoshop. So I decided to go to Arnhem, and I would not return without a designer. 

I walked into the Arnhem University of Applied Sciences. I had no idea where to go, so I asked the receptionist where the designers were and was directed to an internal design desk. It was nothing more than a single room where about twenty young people sat designing.

Bingo.

“Who here can design?” I asked aloud.

Everyone.

“Who wants to work for me for a tenner an hour?”

No one.

Taken aback, I stood in the doorway. A young guy in a corner beckoned to me and said, “Look what I've made, you'll like it.”

What he showed me looked really sleek – a corporate brand identity for a local bakery, the web design for a clothing brand, and some more cool projects.

“What's your name?”

“Jan.”

“Jan, do you really not want to work for me for a tenner an hour?” I asked, hopefully. “My project is called One Wardrobe. It's going to be really fucking big. The biggest wardrobe in the world.”

Sadly, Jan didn't want to join me. He already had a job at a design agency and didn't think ten bucks an hour was enough. The teacher in the room also thought it was time for me to leave.

Depressed, I boarded the bus back to Wageningen. I had failed. What would I do now? On the bus, I put a message on Facebook: who knows a good designer? Golden Tip gets a case of beer.

Less than fifteen minutes later, I received a message from Jay, a friend from college. He did know someone. His new roommate was to be a good designer. That same evening, I cycled to his house, a huge housing complex where about thirty people lived together. I walked into the house, and Jay pointed me to his roommate’s room. The door opened, and there he was, Jan, the designer! The same guy I had seen in Arnhem and who didn't want to work for ten bucks an hour. 

No matter how much I tried to convince Jan, he didn't want to be part of the company, but he decided to help me as an extra assignment at a standard hourly rate. I called Sjuul, and he immediately came over to meet him. We were happy with anything at this point, really.

We then spent ten to fifteen evenings together in a small room at the university. Sjuul had figured out what the platform should look like and what features it should have. I, without any design training, thought I could decide what looked good. Without any warning, I’d occasionally just shout my opinion across the room – no, this is what a page should look like!

After a few weeks, we had a first draft. A design that could be programmed.

Meanwhile, Sjuul and I found out that the domain name One Wardrobe was already taken. A company from England had already registered it. Crap! So now we had to find another name.

Sjuul and I both sat grumpily at our laptops. I stared at Google Maps, I don't even remember why, and saw the United States on the map.

United States.

United Wardrobe.

“United Wardrobe!” I yelled at Sjuul. We both closed our laptops. We immediately knew this was the right name. And so, United Wardrobe was born.

UNITED WARDROBE 1.0

Our United Wardrobe was designed, and all we had to do was program it. We knew this would be difficult, but we had no idea just how difficult it would actually be. The hustler in me woke up again, and I printed out a stack of flyers: Programmer wanted for the largest wardrobe in the world. I hung them at the central train station, our university, the University of Amsterdam, back at the University of Applied Sciences in Arnhem, and at all the fraternities. I placed advertisements online and even asked around in Facebook programmer groups. 

All of this was to no avail. Once again, our United Wardrobe was under threat. 

I heard through the grapevine that some guy from my studies had a hosting company. His name was Joep, and he was able to code. While waiting for an exam, I approached him and pitched United Wardrobe. From the get-go, he was into it right away, which surprised me. We had been searching for so long, and now Joep wanted to participate without much convincing! 

Upon showing Joep the design, he said, “Yeah, sure, I can build that.”

From the first second we met him, Sjuul and I were huge fans of Joep. We went to the Chamber of Commerce, and the three of us set up a general partnership. We didn’t really know what we were doing. None of us had started a business before, so we didn’t realize this was, in retrospect, a big mistake. Now we know we should have opened a Private Limited Company right away so it would be easier for investors to join. With a general partnership, it is difficult to issue shares to let investors into your company, and it takes quite a bit of time and effort to convert your general partnership into a PLC. We would find out about all of this much later, but at that time, we had no idea. It was such a huge accomplishment just to set up the business at the Chamber of Commerce. At the time, I really thought that United Wardrobe would be a nice side hustle. I figured, let's roll that out, cool, and let’s get on with my student life. How wrong I was.

Joep started his programming, and Sjuul and I took care of all the administrative tasks. After a few weeks, Joep came up with the idea of calling in one of his friends from the student fraternity to help speed up the development process. His friend Thijs came to be another member of our team, The Big Friendly Programming Giant, who, to this day, was an integral addition to our team. 

(Yes, for this story, it is very inconvenient that there were two people named Thijs walking around at United Wardrobe. Even more inconvenient is that this second Thijs will also play a leading role in this story. Bear with me, dear reader. So, we’ll call him Thijs S. from now on.) 

While enjoying some disgusting vending machine coffee at the university, Sjuul and I pitched United Wardrobe to Thijs S. His first reaction was, “Nice, but aren't only a hundred people in the Netherlands going to use this? Are you really going to put money into this?”

Thijs S. had zero confidence in us but was happy to help us out. After our experience with Maurtis, who wanted €25,000, we were skeptical of Thijs. We had to trust Joep that he was good and wouldn’t screw us over. Ultimately, we settled on €3000, a very good deal. We agreed on a strict deadline and suddenly had an actual date to work towards. January 15th, 2014, would be the day United Wardrobe would see the light of day. 

Thijs S. started programming during the Christmas holidays, and honestly, I didn’t have the slightest clue as to what he was talking about during our meetings. From PHP to server configuration, HTML, and CSS, it was all completely over my head. But it didn’t matter. All I could do was sit there with the biggest stupid grin on my face.

Somebody was working on our dream.

FUCK FAST FASHION

After endless development and testing, United Wardrobe finally became a reality. 

At least, we thought we had the final version. 

All fired up, Sjuul and I made a marketing strategy mostly consisting of spamming people and doing cold sales. We harassed everyone who would listen, but especially those who wouldn’t, with United Wardrobe’s story. We had almost no money for marketing, so we relied on friends and family for a lot of help. We made a poster advertising United Wardrobe with the help of an Amsterdam Fashion Institute student, making just short of a hundred copies and hanging them everywhere we could. One is still hanging in my old dorm. We created a Facebook page to grow a community and involve them in the process. 

My number one rule for setting up a start-up is to go out into the world and talk to people about your idea– tell them, pitch them, test the waters, and validate your thoughts! So often, I hear people say they’re afraid to share their ideas because they might be stolen. In my opinion, everyone copies everything in tech, so it’s likely your idea is going to be stolen regardless. You just have to be the first and become the biggest. With lots of hustling, we eventually got two thousand likes on United Wardrobe’s Facebook page before we had even launched. Our motto was Fuck fast fashion, as well as ‘the biggest wardrobe in the world.’

On January 15th, 2014, a typical Dutch winter day with cold shitty weather and no sunshine, Sjuul, Joep, Thijs S., and I launched United Wardrobe at twelve o'clock. Our baby would be born, and my life would never be the same again. 

On United Wardrobe’s Facebook page, we counted down the seconds until our launch, on the one hand, to tease our fans and, on the other hand, to push ourselves. We had to launch on that day, so on our final day, the four of us locked ourselves up in a small cubicle in the Orion building on the Wageningen University campus. We met at eight o'clock in the morning, and I didn’t have even a wink of sleep the night before. I still remember vividly how my stomach turned with anxiety while on my way to the university. What if it doesn't work? What if the launch is a flop? What if I lose all my money? After all, I had put two thousand Euros into this idea! At times like these, my love of hip-hop keeps me going – when I listen to rap, I feel the courage flowing through my veins. At that point, giving up was no longer an option. 

So off we went. We informed the WUR, the local news station’s press office, who agreed to publish a press release at 12 a.m. exactly. 

By 11:30 a.m., with four sweaty men in one cubicle, it was almost time. With bags under their eyes, Thijs S. and Joep were typing on their keyboards like crazy. It was quiet. Sjuul and I didn't have the courage to say anything. 

“This is not going well,” Joep said to Thijs S.

“'I'll just put it live,” Thijs S. replied.

By 12.00. Thijs S. broke the silence. “We are live.” 

Joep replied, “Will you post it on Facebook, Thijs V.?” 

With my hands shaking, I did as I was asked. “We're live. Start to sell and buy your clothes at unitedwardrobe.nl!” And bam, we were off. 

Thijs S. replied, “Look, this is our Google Analytics.” 

At that point, my entire world turned upside down. Suddenly, I could see how many people were visiting United Wardrobe. At that moment, there were 80 people on the website. How awesome! We actually existed! And we already had 80 users! The reactions poured in, and the first pieces of clothing were published.

At 12:15 p.m., there were 120 people on the site. I called my mother. 

“Mom, you need to buy something on United Wardrobe,” I said to her, panicked. 

She did, and by god, it worked. It worked! 

At 12:30 p.m., I received a Facebook message, 

Hey Thijs, I can't visit your site anymore! 

Since I was living on cloud 9, I ignored it.

At around 12:35 p.m., more than half an hour after its birth, United Wardrobe was already down. Nobody was able to reach the site anymore. I received dozens of messages. Thijs S. sat straight, frowned, and started typing again.

By 12:45 p.m., United Wardrobe was up and running again. Thijs S. could really solve every problem we faced – he prepares, investigates, starts typing, and in the end, it all works out. Anyone starting a startup needs a “hacker” like Thijs.

Finally, around five o'clock in the afternoon, Thijs S. showed us the order screen– a backend page of the website allowing us to view all orders. There, we saw that a lady from Groningen had bought something from a lady from Rotterdam. 

IT WORKED! It really worked! 

On that first day, €150 passed through our platform. 

We were happy. No, we were euphoric. We were over the moon, and to celebrate, we drank a few too many beers, but we deserved it.

FROM SNOWFLAKE TO AVALANCHE

The next morning, I woke up with a hangover. 

Google Analytics showed that there were three people visiting our platform. It was ten o'clock, and no orders had been placed. I ordered an item from a friend to test if everything was working, and it worked fine. I had a lecture at half past ten, so I went there first. In class, I opened my laptop and made a new Facebook post for United Wardrobe. I checked which new articles were posted, picked the best ones, and created links to them. I started with a leather jacket. The number of visitors increased from three to ten. My adrenaline levels increased just as much. An hour later, I repeated the same trick, this time with a pair of Nikes. Our visitors went through the roof– there were 35 people on our site! Except, to my great frustration, no one had placed an order. 

From this very first day, I learned a valuable lesson about one of the most important factors of an online marketplace– trust. People need to trust your platform before they start purchasing anything, and trust isn’t just given. People wait and see what happens and only start ordering once they feel safe to do so. Trust is key in the world of online purchases.

Between lectures, I was ridiculed by fellow students. Thijs and his fashion start-up. “Did you really put money into this? You don’t actually think people will use this, do you?”

Frustrated, I returned to my dorm. 

“Hey there, you old thrift store owner,” one of my roommates said jokingly. 

I had had it with those jokes. I walked to my room in anger and put on my running shoes. I ran across the forest and thought about how I could make United Wardrobe succeed. We had to share more, post more on Facebook, and get more people acquainted with our company. It was a lot of more, more, more. 

When I came back, I was in a better mood. I grabbed my laptop and looked at the site. Two active users. Goddamnit. It’s bleeding to death. I made another Facebook post right then and there and decided not to use Nikes but vintage items instead. At that point, there were about ten people on the website. After half an hour, I saw that two orders had been placed. Okay, okay, maybe this will work. Three or four times a day, I repeated this ritual: I looked for the most beautiful items that were put up for sale and posted them on our Facebook page. 

That's how we waddled along. In the first few weeks, we accepted that there were only going to be two to five orders a day. We did everything we could, pushing our content on Facebook watching as the community grew. Ten new members a day, that’s it, but it was enough to keep me going. I spent every free second walking across campus to try and convince people to start using United Wardrobe. I must have looked crazy.

LIS DE VIS (LIS THE FISH)

It was 2014, so all the Dutch students were using Facebook. We actively searched for Facebook groups that had a lot of students in them and started reposting garments listed on United Wardrobe. That worked well, but often, we were quickly kicked out because people thought it was a scam. Then, someone gave us the tip to join a Facebook group called “Vintage Marketplace.” This was a group where vintage lovers exchanged clothes. As you can imagine, this was a truly golden opportunity for us. I joined the group, clicked around a bit, and found out it was a serious group. Almost no bullshit items were shared. There were strict rules and one main admin, who operated under the name “Lis de Vis,” “Lis the Fish” in English. You had to be nice to Lis. The group was not hers, but nonetheless, it seemed like she was controlling it. If someone posted something that, according to Lis, wasn't vintage, it was removed immediately. To get in touch with her, I sent a message:

Hey Lis, do you know whose group this is? Because I want it ;)

Control over this group meant control over a potential goldmine for United Wardrobe. Lis connected me to the woman who owned the group, and for a fair amount of money, she was willing to hand it over to me. In fact, she was really over it since admitting new members and moderating content swallowed a big chunk of her time. It was such a lucky break. I became the owner and administrator of Vintage Marketplace. 

I told Lis de Vis first because I knew that if I would just tell the whole group out of nowhere, an uprising would occur. Lis actually thought it was fine, so I introduced myself and my mission to the group. Most members thought it was a noble endeavor, but not everyone did. We had quite a lot of critiques of our business model, which was set up as follows: 

United Wardrobe had a commission rate of 10% and a transaction fee of €1.99 on every order. I'm so glad I listened to Sjuul because I did not like this model at all. I thought that it should be a 5% commission rate and €0.99 transaction costs. That might have been better for the initial trust level and would have lowered the threshold to use United Wardrobe, but because of the high percentage we received on every order, our customer lifetime value, i.e., how much a customer is worth, was set from the start. Until the very last moment, I wanted to change our business model, but as with all the big decisions that Sjuul had a firm opinion on, I didn’t convince him and the others. We’d also considered using advertisements, but that was a dying market already, and we wanted to keep our platform clean.

Even though some people objected to our business model, the majority of Vintage Marketplace members were okay with it. After all, United Wardrobe had a really big advantage: security. The sellers only got paid out after the product had been delivered. Every now and then, someone managed to abuse the system, but in that case, we helped our users as best as possible through customer service.

After I started sharing United Wardrobe listings in the Vintage Marketplace Facebook group, we saw our platform grow much more steadily. About a hundred new members joined the Facebook group every day, so our reach was constantly increasing.

It may sound cringe, but thanks to Vintage Marketplace and the criticism we received there, we learned an awful lot about our product. There is always criticism and negative reactions to every start-up, but as long as you really believe in your idea, you have to accept that you're not going to make everyone happy. It’s easier said than done. Trust me, I've spent nights lying awake because of other people's opinions and bad reviews about our platform and business model, but eventually, it all worked out. It’s taken me years to put my anxiety aside and look at it objectively, but one thing I’ve learned over these years is not to be afraid. It will come with time. It really does.

IT HAS TO BE MORE

When we bought the Vintage Marketplace, it had around 7,000 members. A few months later, there were already more than 10,000 members, and United Wardrobe steadily grew with it. At any given time of the day, there were around thirty users on the website, which was also roughly the number of new signups per day on the Vintage Marketplace Facebook page. It was good, but not nearly good enough. It had to be more, and, above all, our growth had to be faster.

We were tipped off about a new Facebook group called Clothing Offered/Wanted. Most members were from Amsterdam and were using the platform to buy and sell clothing; however, there was a big problem. The group was filled with scams, and even bearing this in mind, the owner of the group, Milou, did not want to sell to us.

Milou gave us the opportunity to pin our messages to the top of the group page for a little more than a couple hundred a month. We introduced ourselves with caution and got about as many new users as we had with Vintage Marketplace — and with just as much criticism of our revenue model. We didn’t mind, though, because we finally had some momentum. 

The snowflake that was United Wardrobe had become a little snowball – every now and then blown forward by the wind, rolling down the mountain, and becoming bigger and bigger. We felt that more was possible, a lot more. More members. More orders. We needed the growth. It was necessary for us to finally grow into a real company and pay our employees. Oh yes, and ourselves. For the first few years of United Wardrobe, we didn't pay ourselves a penny. Everything we earned was invested back into the company. It wasn't until much later, when we finished or dropped out of college, that we started paying ourselves a living wage. 

We eagerly promoted our company with Facebook ads, and since our page had a high interaction rate, we were able to advertise cheaply. In addition, this was still in Facebook’s early days, which means advertising was ten times cheaper than it is now. At the time, we could buy an impression for our Facebook page for €0.02, so for every euro we invested in Facebook marketing, we received 50 new impressions. In two years and for just under €4,000, we managed to grow the page to 200,000 likes. Our reach was growing, and so was the number of clicks to the website, but that was all indirect traffic. Facebook users arrived at our Facebook page first, and after this, they arrived at the website. A pitstop, and with every pitstop, you lose people. We had to get people directly onto the website. 

One Saturday morning, I woke up at my parents' house in Moordrecht. I was pretty hungover from a night out. In the living room, I grabbed my laptop to see how many people were visiting United Wardrobe. Forty. Nice. I created some posts on Facebook and checked my email. At that point, I remembered a piece of advice from Joep that it was possible to promote the website directly on Facebook. We could direct people from an advertisement to the website in one go. 

I did some Googling, ended up at Facebook Business, and used my hungover brain to put together an advertisement. Sneakers in all sizes on United Wardrobe. The largest fashion marketplace in the Netherlands. I chose some slick photos of Nike Air Maxes, which always did well. Afterward, I submitted the ad to Facebook for review. I put on my running shoes and ran for a while. I came back hungover and exhausted. The weather was nice, so I sat down in the garden with my laptop. Then I opened Google Analytics: there were 75 people on our site. What the fuck was happening? 

Whatever it was, it was good. I went to Facebook's ad overview. One click cost us three cents, and we had already spent seven euros. I enthusiastically called Sjuul to tell him about my discovery. He immediately logged in, too, and started tinkering with some ads, and the next Monday, the three of us had a meeting and decided that we would put all incoming money directly into Facebook to drive clicks to the website.

The snowball had started to roll. It even sped up. We decided that we needed more money. We saw this as an investment; the more clicks we could buy, the faster United Wardrobe grew, and the faster we’d be profitable. My roommate Tim connected me with someone at StartLife Wageningen, a fund that helps entrepreneurial students pursue their business goals. It allows you to get a microcredit loan easily without having to give shares in return, as many of these kinds of funds do at other universities. Imagine my joy for having made the choice to study in Wageningen! 

We had to prepare a business plan to apply for the fund, and we all pitched in. Sjuul wrote the plan, and I supported where I could. Just before the summer holidays of 2014, we were granted the fund. We didn't know exactly how much we needed, so we applied for a microcredit of €5,000. Fortunately, StartLife was smarter than us: they gave us €7,500. In hindsight, that extra €2,500 was very useful. 

So much money! We were over the moon! We even decided to chip in ourselves. We all borrowed €3,000 from our parents. And then we went for it, buying conversion clicks on Facebook. Let's go! We noticed that someone trying to sign up for United Wardrobe that had been directed through Facebook cost us about 40 cents, or about thirteen clicks at three cents per click. This became my daily chore, putting together five to ten new ads every day and removing the old ones. It was as simple as it was brilliant.

MAX

A major bottleneck for the development of United Wardrobe at that point was time. More specifically, time that Thijs S. needed for programming. Joep mainly focused on customer service, hosting, and email-related matters and had no time to do any programming. It didn't suit him the way it did Thijs S., either. But we urgently needed more programming capacity. Opportunistic and uninhibited as we were, Sjuul and I thought that we could learn to program ourselves, so we signed up for a minor in Programming at the University of Amsterdam. We expected to have become programmers in a few weeks and would be able to assist Thijs S., but the minor was a living hell. Programming really is a profession in its own right, and we both sucked at it, so we bided our time doing the bare minimum.

But in those dark days, there was one ray of sunshine named Max Hofland. Max did the same minor as us but stopped pretty early on. He happened to be on the committee of ASOP, the Amsterdam Student Entrepreneurs Award. One day, Max said to me that I should apply for the award. Arrogant me, I rejected him. I had other things on my mind. After all, I had to share clothing all day on Facebook, look at Google Analytics, monitor incoming orders, craft new advertisements, and meet with Sjuul and Joep. I thought I was so important. 

But Max didn't give up. Like the noble guy he is, he himself registered United Wardrobe for the award. We were lucky Max was so persistent. Of over 150 entries, we landed in the top three together with TicketSwap, a ticket exchange website, and studeersnel.nl, a website for exchanging class notes. 

On April 16, 2014, with trembling knees, I gave my first pitch in front of a large audience. There was a grand prize – a trip to Silicon Valley – and an audience award of €1000. For the audience award, participants had to vote for the winner, which would then be announced on the night of the event. We put a banner on the United Wardrobe homepage and had at least fifty friends text in, voting for us. We were worried, but, you guessed it, we won the Audience award and became €1,000 richer. It might sound silly, but €1,000 was a huge amount for us at the time. Max gave us a large bag filled with coins, and we smoked cigarette after cigarette on the steps of an Amsterdam theatre next to one of the canals. Our parents and girlfriends were proud, and the adrenaline rushed through our veins. We immediately put the money into a branded content story on a fashion news website. Unfortunately, we didn’t get much out of it, but it was an interesting experiment.

Meanwhile, our time in Amsterdam was coming to an end. By the skin of our teeth, Sjuul and I passed the programming minor, but the most important thing we got out of that minor, as it turned out later, was Max Hofland.

CRAZY MONEY

United Wardrobe grew steadily, and we felt we needed an office space. My girlfriend lived in Utrecht, and because Utrecht is also situated in the middle of the country, we decided to look for an office there. We found a space on the outskirts of Utrecht, where we were able to rent out an office for very cheap, around €150 a month, as a part of an anti-squatting initiative.

This was a huge step in our growth– we had our own office! It was a terrible mess, but it was our mess. We had a fridge, a coffee maker, three desks, and a couch. I put some clothes and records on the wall, but honestly, we couldn’t care less what it looked like. We were just happy things were moving in the right direction. 

Because of his muscle disease, Joep grabbed a taxi back and forth between cities every day and eventually made the sacrifice to live on his own in Utrecht. Sjuul found a room in Utrecht, and I moved in with my girlfriend in a different anti-squatting building. Meanwhile, I was still studying, and we were all working. I cleaned windows with my dad as often as I could, and Sjuul washed dishes in the Utrecht police canteen. Sjuul and I often stayed late when Joep had to go home because of his illness, and it was during these stressful months that the first cracks in our relationship started to appear.

Our customer lifetime value exceeded our customer acquisition costs for the first time, meaning we earned more from a user than it cost to acquire it. The number of users and orders grew rapidly. That meant, according to Sjuul, that it was time to look for an investment. An investment – we had never done this before, and frankly, I had never really understood how it worked. Did we have to issue shares for cash? To whom? And how do you even find an investor? We looked into it and understood that we first had to grow as much as possible before we started attracting foreign money because the bigger your company, the higher its value, and the more you can sell your shares for. 

We reached out to some funds, went back to the university for an extra loan, and eventually got in touch with Marcel Beemsterboer. Marcel is a serial entrepreneur and is best known for the successful exit, or sale, of Vakantieveilingen.nl, a Dutch auction site for different consumer goods and experiences. When he first came to visit us, he brought a friend, Arthur Kosten, the former CMO of booking.com, one of the most popular travel websites in Europe. Both of them were interested in investing with us. I conducted the interview while Joep and Sjuul went over the business figures and statistics. I still remember going to the toilet and walking back into the room and seeing those four men sitting together. Two legends and two beginners. My head was spinning thinking about the amount of capital in this room. These men had made some crazy money.

Marcel and Arthur had a genuine interest in our business and were willing to invest. They made us an offer of a few hundred thousand euros, but we weren’t going to accept the first offer put on the table. They had to come up with something better. At the time, we received so much media attention that it had completely gone to our heads. The gentlemen did, in fact, make a higher offer, but we wanted to make even more out of it, and we asked for more. It was at that point that they thought this was a bit too far, and our conversations started to break down.

MEGAPHONE

The amount of time and money we had was dwindling, and times were getting tight. We needed new leads, meaning new people who would find us and become loyal members. We needed a megaphone to address the whole country, but when I brought up the marketing budget, I was told that we didn't even have enough money to pay for three months' rent in our already incredibly cheap office. 

Through the grapevine, I heard about a journalist named Bregje Lampe, who was one of the leading fashion journalists at the time. She wrote for de Volkskrant, a very popular newspaper in the Netherlands, so I thought that if she wrote a piece about United Wardrobe, it would get our name out there. 

I wrote her an extensive email. No response. 

I called the newspaper. No response. 

Then I called Het Parool, another newspaper she had once written for, and somehow got in touch with one of the editors, who was crazy enough to give me Bregje’s private number. 

I called her but got no answer. 

Then, I texted her a short summary of the email I had sent to her work email at de Volkskrant.

Great story, she texted back, but she was in the middle of moving, so I had to call again later. The next day, I called her again, and this time, she did answer. 

I told her all about United Wardrobe. She thought it was a good idea and great that you are growing this fast, but she wondered if the subject suited her. She said this was a story for the economics editors. 

Nonetheless, she had become curious. She said she’d come by and see what we were all about. After that, she would decide if she was the right reporter for the story. 

A few weeks later, we welcomed her into our office and showed her what United Wardrobe was up to. We took her through everything we had done so far – the ups and the downs. Motivated by our tenacity, she agreed to write a story about us.

After a long wait, on January 29, 2015, our article was published in de Volkskrant. It was a beautiful piece about United Wardrobe, down to the most minute detail, that truly showed the world what we had been building. The piece took up a full page in the newspaper. I’m still so proud of it that, to this day, it’s still up on my wall at home. 

Before the interview, Sjuul impressed upon me that I needed to emphasize we were looking for an investor. He’d said this message was the most important thing that had to be in the newspaper, and sure enough, the last paragraph of the piece was: 

When the site had been online for just two months, the trio was approached by investors. Those led to nothing because they preferred to do everything themselves. Now that it turns out that the website still has a lot of growth potential left, they are open to investors again. Their website was launched in Belgium last Wednesday with the intention that United Wardrobe will also be available in France from the beginning of April. In a statement from Verheul, he mentioned, “What Airbnb is to renting houses, we want to become in the world of reselling fashion.”

The champagne bottles popped, and from the moment de Volkskrant's piece was published, the telephone rang off the hook. Next thing we knew, BMW 7-series and Range Rovers from all over the Netherlands and Belgium were parked in front of our anti-squat office. We pitched, pitched, and pitched like there was no tomorrow. But eventually, we got into a conversation with Tommy and Duco. Now, they were some amazing entrepreneurs! They had been the owners of the Infotheek Group, which had sold for an impressive amount. They were tried and true entrepreneurs. 

We spoke to Tommy and Duco twice, and according to them, the deal had to be made immediately after the second time we spoke. They wanted to invest € 250,000 in United Wardrobe for a minority interest in a Private Limited Company. 

Minority Interest? In a first investment round, it’s customary to give fifteen to twenty-five percent of your company in shares, which is referred to as a minority share investment. In return, the company receives money in a Private Limited Company’s account, which you can use to make the company more successful. 

But wait a minute, a United Wardrobe Private Limited Company? How? What even was that? We didn't have one yet. But obviously, we wanted that money. With Tommy and Duco’s deadline in mind, we had to give them an answer before nine o'clock in the evening. Sjuul and I locked ourselves in my house, opened a bottle of wine, and discussed the deal. I think we chain-smoked the stress away that night. 

“Are we really going to do this, Sjuul?”

To me, Sjuul was the shot caller. He was the one who had to make a decision.

“Let's just do this. Fuck it,” Sjuul said, lighting another cigarette.

We hesitated for a moment.

“We can really take on the world with that 250K,” I added

We hesitated again. Finally, I added, “And what do we do if it doesn't work out again, like with Marcel?”

We gave each other a look, and I realized we might just be crazy enough to do this. We put our cigarettes down and decided.

It was eight o'clock. We put the phone on speaker and called Tommy and Duco.

“We're doing it.” We said in unison. My palms were sweating, and I looked over at Sjuul to see he was grinning from ear to ear. We waited in anticipation to hear their response.

After a moment, “That’s great, guys. We're going to celebrate this soon!”

Sjuul and I looked at each other, grinning like mad men. We had our investors, and we’d finally received our first investment of €250,000. Life couldn't be better. We were ecstatic. We opened another bottle of wine and lit some more cigarettes. 

Unfortunately, our celebration was cut short. It only took a few minutes for the realization to hit. We still didn’t have a Private Limited Company.

Damn. 

How does that even work? And where do you begin?

The general partnership structure that had been United Wardrobe until that moment had to be transferred into a Private Limited Company. After that, we had to create our own personal holdings to minimize personal risk in the event of bankruptcy. 

Not only would converting our business turn out to be a big hassle, but it set off a bomb within our team.

THE BOMB

Due to the large number of visitors after de Volkskrant piece, United Wardrobe went offline almost every day. At that time, we hosted the website with a small hosting party that was taken care of by one man, a friend of Joep's. The provider kept saying that there was an error in our code that caused us to go offline, but Thijs S. doubted that. Joep was lost as well. Were we being hacked continuously? Was there something wrong with the configuration settings? Did we have programming errors in the site’s code? 

If you've never owned an IT company yourself, it may be hard to imagine, but the moment your company goes offline at least once a day, cannot be reached, and you don't know when things will come back online, it makes you feel helpless. We were going around in circles and couldn’t find any solid answers. The uncertainty drove us crazy, and the relationship between Sjuul, Joep, and I was tested daily. 

That’s when the bomb burst. 

Originally, Joep was asked to join the team as a technician, but as we grew, we continued to face technical problems every day, which were then solved by Thijs S. At this point, Sjuul and I openly stated that we had lost confidence in Joep, which Joep interpreted as us not wanting to work with him anymore. Joep decided he wanted out, so the four of us had to strike a deal. Without diving into the particulars of our deal too deeply, it’s sufficient to say the road leading up to it was not pretty. Luckily, we’re all on good terms now, but back then, we weren’t sure how it would pan out for our friendship.

This was the reality of what Ben Horowitz calls The Hard Thing About Hard Things when friends suddenly turn into enemies. Of course, we had to keep everything under wraps, so Tommy and Duco wouldn’t suspect anything. We were worried because if we couldn’t figure it out together, the whole investment would flop. I mean, who would want to invest in a company with founders who are constantly fighting? 

In the end, in a surprising turn of events, it was my parents' bookkeeper, Mr. Moons, who got us through everything, and to this day, Sjuul and I still discuss whether it was handled properly. 

We made a deal with Joep, which allowed us to ask Thijs S. to be CTO. Joep, Sjuul, and I had wanted to bring him on board properly for a long time and had already made him an offer that he had not responded to. According to Sjuul, this was the moment to give Thijs S. the same ownership as we had and to head into the future as equals. Had we not, and there had been an uneven distribution of power, he simply wouldn't have had the same motivation as us. Now that United Wardrobe had proven to be a company that professional investors were willing to invest €250,000, Thijs S. wanted to join as long as he could finish his master’s degree as well. 

Although Thijs S. got as many shares as Sjuul and I, he wasn’t concerned with the more “business” tasks and just wanted to focus on the technical side of things. Sjuul and I spearheaded the business, complimenting each other perfectly. We wouldn't have been anything without Thijs' technical skills, but if Sjuul and I hadn’t taken the lead to push the business, we wouldn’t have been successful. It was a true partnership, with each of the boys specializing in their own field and everyone motivated to make United Wardrobe a success.

In the end, it took six months to solve our internal problems and convert the general partnership into a private limited company. We’d occasionally send Tommy and Duco an update, but unfortunately, we didn’t have much positive news to report usually. When we finally got over our internal struggles in September 2015, we feared that Tommy and Duco would bail, as had happened with Arthur and Marcel, but they were very understanding. They kept their trust in us, even at a time when everything went wrong, and for that, we’re incredibly grateful. If they had pulled out, I don't know if we would have found another investor. 

After a stressful six months, we finally got through it, and with a lot of lessons learned. The biggest lesson I took away from this experience is that a deal is not final until the money is in your account. Once you see your bank account go up, anything can happen.

NOT A NICE PERSON

We had been experimenting with influencer marketing for a while – nowadays, the most normal thing in the world, back then, pioneering. I figured that influencers could help us expand our reach, not because I had experience with influencer marketing; it just seemed like common sense to me. We did a lot of testing to see if it had any effect. In the end, we worked with Monica Geuze, Enzo Knol, Fred van Leer, singer Maan, Ronnie Flex, and more famous Dutch influencers and celebrities. We’d sell the clothing of the influencers on United Wardrobe, taking care of the selling and sending of the items and giving the money to the influencers.

When we received our investment funding, I arranged for Sticks, an artist from the Dutch hip-hop crew, Opgezwolle and my teenage hero, to sell his clothes on United Wardrobe. I had sent a Facebook message to his record label, Top Notch, and was cycling from Gouda to Moordrecht when the answer appeared on my phone. I was allowed to give him a call, as per his label. I started sweating, calling him right away. He was cool. He was Sticks. He agreed to come to Utrecht and grab a cup of coffee with us. A few days later, I was having coffee with Sticks. He agreed to go ahead with our plan and was happy to work with us as long as we arranged everything. He even agreed to do a photoshoot with his old clothes. My day could not get any better! 

We arranged to have his clothes put online and thought through every detail of our photoshoot. On the day of the shoot, he had to do a show in Utrecht, for which I had, of course, already bought tickets. After the shoot, we grabbed a beer at our office. I remember lighting up a cigarette and almost having to pinch myself. Sticks in our office. Sticks on our platform. It was one of the best moments in my entire career. 

The week after the shoot, we launched Stick’s clothing on United Wardrobe. Everything went smoothly, and his clothes sold out almost immediately. 

That weekend, I was packing Sticks' clothes up when my girlfriend texted me. 

Thijs, I want to discuss something with you. Will you be home soon? X

With a strong, dark suspicion, I quickly finished packing the last boxes. It was a Saturday, and I had been working the weekend again. I had a pit in my stomach the entire ride home. She poured me some tea and sat down on the opposite side of the table. I took a sip. Too fast, and burned my mouth.

“Thijs, I'm not in love with you anymore.”

A heavy blow. 

I had been so focused on United Wardrobe that I had no idea she felt this way. I was shocked. I didn't know what to do and fled to my parents. I stayed there for a few days. Angry, sad, upset. Just when I thought I was doing good for myself, this happened. I felt like a failure. I had lost my girlfriend. It wasn't until years later that I realized that my only purpose in life at that time was United Wardrobe. The company was my sole focus. I must not have been a great boyfriend or a nice person to live with. As they say, hindsight is 20/20. 

The only advantage of my heartbreak was that I felt like I really had nothing to lose anymore. I decided to put all my energy, anger, aggression, frustration, and love into the only goal that was still within my reach– to make United Wardrobe a success. 

The first few weeks after the breakup were hard, and I was absent a lot. I didn't know what to do with myself and would just sit there in the office. To try and pull me out of it, Sjuul took me to Berlin for a week. We had the time of our lives, but we also picked up some important information while chatting with some German girls– a very popular second-hand clothing platform was already active in Germany. It was called Kleiderkreisel, with a parent company called Vinted. 

Remember that name, dear reader. 

That's what I did.

REM

Back in Utrecht, I found a new place to live. It was a small attic room, perfect for what I needed, and so I went back to work. 

After the situation with Joep calmed down, we hired our first employee. In his first week, we closed the deal with our investors, Tommy and Duco, and Rem Smiers was right in the middle of it. 

This man had balls. He turned down a Master’s degree to start programming for United Wardrobe. Can you imagine? I’m still so grateful.

Rem, even in the midst of the chaos, would just drink jugs of coffee and continue programming like nothing was happening. Once things settled down, Rem turned out to be a real asset. We had found him through some mutual connections– he was the little brother of a guy from Thijs S.’s school year, so he and Thijs already had some friends in common. Those two were like Bonny & Clyde, Batman & Robin, Rico & Sticks. They programmed like crazy and delivered feature after feature. We cut ourselves off from Joep's servers and moved United Wardrobe to Amazon's servers. Although sometimes a heavy update still took us down, it happened way less. We kept running, we kept growing. We hired an intern, Janine Driessen, from the south of the Netherlands, near the German border. She interned with us in the marketing department for a few months, and after her internship was over, we immediately offered her a customer support position. Janine worked like crazy and was just as invested as the founders were.

Rem, Janine, Thijs S., Sjuul, and I were at Herculesplein day in and day out, building our dream. We grew out of our small office, which wasn’t particularly safe and had two break-ins. It was time for a better place, somewhere where United Wardrobe could grow properly. 

At the beginning of December 2015, I got on the phone with Marijn from “Camelot,” the anti-squat organization we had used to find our current office. He had a spot for us at a unique location, the former post office on the old town square. It’s an impressive old building from 1924, in the old Amsterdam School architecture style, a popular architectural design from 1915-1940s around Amsterdam featuring a brutalist take on brick buildings. 

Of course, I loved it. It was a dope building in the middle of the city. We’d be right in the heart of everything. I went to check it out and immediately fell in love. This was the place we needed to be for United Wardrobe to succeed. Marijn didn’t care too much about what we did. He even allowed me to choose the best room. We walked through the big hall in the center of the building as if the whole thing was ours. 

We moved during the Christmas holidays and were over the moon. It was an absolute dump with rats gnawing at our toes and the internet dropping every other second, but we’d just had to be creative. There was a long lance from some student sorority that had been left in the office — we had no idea how it got there,  but with it, we were able to press the router button that was hanging from the ceiling. This became Rem’s daily ritual. He sometimes did it up to four times an hour. 

Needless to say, we laughed our asses off there.

ALL ABOUT THE VIEWS

Meanwhile, the Facebook campaigns continued to run smoothly, and we threw parties like never before, which our new office was extremely suitable for. The walls were about one meter thick of cement, so we’d often keep the speakers on until well after midnight without anyone outside hearing us. We’d party in the hallways and barbecue in the closed parking lot. We had our own little paradise in the middle of the city. When I look back on all the years at United Wardrobe, this really was a highlight — complete freedom and working on our dream with a small team. 

It wasn’t long until our growth started to slow down. We needed a new growth model. Once again, it had to be faster, better, cheaper. That was when I got a tip to look into influencer marketing on YouTube. At the time, it was still fairly new, but some YouTubers seemed to have a lot of viewers from a young, mostly female audience. Of course, I had to give it a try.

I continuously emailed and called managers and personally talked to some YouTubers. Of course, we weren’t complete strangers to influencer marketing. We’d had sporadic collaborations with Sticks — I don't think he’d want to be called an influencer, but to us, he was — and singer/YouTuber Teske. But we hadn't gotten much further than that. We had been reluctant to pay much for collaborations, relying mostly on our charm to get us where we needed to go.Now that we were growing, however, it became easier. Some managers I spoke to thought we were from America and that we were based in New York, which we used to our advantage. United Wardrobe seemed so international!

Eventually, I got into contact with a Dutch influencer based in Amsterdam, Sara Ras. She wanted to make a 'shoplog' for us and put it on her YouTube channel. She was already a fan of United Wardrobe, had bought and sold clothes on the platform, and, best of all, we could afford her. It was an excellent test, although, at the time, it still cost us our entire monthly marketing budget. 

On January 24th, 2017, Sara’s video was supposed to be online at 4:00 a.m. Sjuul and I were ready. I had had extensive calls with Sara and her manager in advance to coordinate everything. It couldn't go wrong. It's online now, Sara texted me. Right then and there, Google Analytics went through the roof. The video got 100,000 views in no time. People were loving it. That week, we showed in-sane growth numbers, we were on cloud nine, and we doubled the number of transactions. Suddenly, all of the young, trendy people in Amsterdam knew about United Wardrobe. 

It became clear that this was what we had to continue doing — more influencers, more reach, and eventually, more growth!

We wanted to work with big influencers so that we’d be set for a long time, with a lot of ammunition for the future. Together with Sjuul, I closed a deal with Social1nfluencers, a young agency from Amsterdam. The agency had recently signed Mascha, owner of the YouTube channel BeautyGloss. At that time, she was the largest Dutch YouTuber, targeting a female audience in the beauty/fashion market. We had our sights set on working with her. 

After some time and lots of deal-making, we closed a deal with Daan, the founder of the agency Mascha was signed to, in the basement of their Amsterdam office. I felt like it was very important for Mascha to understand the importance of this to us, that she understood the philosophy behind United Wardrobe. I consulted her manager, Birgit, at least three times, and together, we looked at what would come across as the most natural way to convey our message. From our point of view, our story was mainly about sustainability — our app stimulated people to give second-hand clothing a new life, but from a marketing point of view, we also understood that our users were mainly searching for low-priced designer goods. We knew that our “hook” was designer goods. It was what people searched for and clicked on most, both on YouTube and on United Wardrobe. To make sure we were communicating everything we needed to about the brand, we blended the two stories, and Mascha made a video about it. 

I had watched the video beforehand, and everything was spot-on, with Mascha even saying, “By the way, this is not a big company from America, you know. This is just a nice start-up from Utrecht!”

We scheduled the video for March 22, 2017, a date we had calculated with our marketing team to indicate the biggest potential for conversion. 

Sjuul and I were in the office that day. We were alone because the video wouldn’t be put online until the evening.

Mascha sent me a message: it was uploaded, and everything was ready.

At 6:30 p.m., We are live, Mascha texted. 

I clicked on her link.

It didn't work. No video there.

I don't see anything, I texted back.

Shit, she texted. Maybe a delay. Keep refreshing.

I did. Again and again. F5 F5 F5, but there was no video. I started panicking.

After the umpteenth time pressing the F5 button, I suddenly saw the video. I also saw that it had already been viewed 300 times.

OK, good news. Did the link to United Wardrobe work? It did. 

Now what?

I shared the video on our Facebook and in all the groups we had joined. I sent it to my entire network. Everyone had to see this video.

At 7:15 p.m., the video only had 600 views. Huh?

What went wrong here? Surely there should have been thousands of views with Mascha's reach?

Mascha, do you know why there are so few views? I texted.

YouTube has yet to send notifications. That hasn't happened yet, she replied.

Meanwhile, Sjuul started to nag: what is this? Will it still happen? Do you realize what this has cost us?

The clock turned to 8 p.m., and we were at 1100 views. Just for the record: normally, Mascha would receive tens of thousands of views within an hour. 

What. The. Fuck. Was. Happening. Here.

Sjuul and I started binge drinking and moved to a bar nearby. We had just used our entire marketing budget for the month on this. We felt more like crying than we did laughing. 

At 8:15 p.m. Sjuul and I ordered a beer. A message from Thijs S. appeared in the United Wardrobe group chat: wtf is going on? What makes it so busy?

I went back to Mascha's video. 50,000 views! Sjuul and I looked at each other, relief setting in. Then, we got another message from Thijs S: United Wardrobe is offline. I don't know how to fix this!

Don't panic, I texted back while panic raced through my veins. Sjuul and I downed our beers and sprinted back to the office.

Thijs S.: Guys? I really don't know how to fix this. There are so many accounts being created that the API cannot handle this at all.

At nine o’clock, the video had 100,000 views. In the comments, people complained bitterly. They were unable to reach United Wardrobe. Meanwhile, new accounts were registered en masse, but nobody was able to add or order items. This was pure misery. We had spent all of our budget to get the spike we hoped for, but the platform wasn’t built to handle it. 

At 10:30 p.m., the video had reached 120,000 views. 

Thijs S.messaged again. I think I've found something that might work.

A few minutes later, at 10:50 p.m., Thijs S. had found a solution. Our performance is back to what it should be.

Orders started to come in again! At that time, we handled around 150-200 orders a day, and on that evening alone, we surpassed 400 orders.

The next day, it was time for another party. The video was in the trending section of YouTube, along with our app in the App Store. It was a major success! Our recently developed app was already a hit. We’d decided to create an app after receiving complaints from users, and if we were to do it all over again, we undoubtedly would have started with an app. Thijs S. had never programmed anything for iOS before, but with a little additional research, he was able to program one like a pro. NASA, if you're reading this, hire this guy. If there is anyone who can find extraterrestrial life, it's Thijs Slijkhuis! 

With all of the added buzz our influencer marketing generated and our trending app, we grew, and grew, and blew the roof off all our expectations.

PEAKING EARLY

Our growth did not go unnoticed. According to Sjuul, this was an ideal time to write to Venture Capitalists for a new investment round. Venture capital firms are professional investment companies that manage the money of successful entrepreneurs and wealthy individuals and invest it in promising companies. We hadn’t thought through how much we wanted to collect. Actually, we hadn’t even considered what we would do with the new investment money. All we wanted was to become big, bigger, the biggest! The largest clothing marketplace in the world – that's what we wanted to be. 

We had started getting some traffic in Belgium, and because we had already translated the website and app into French, we decided to take France by storm. Now, we needed to raise money and grow these markets, but we were still in the early stages of the business — we’d only been running for just over six months by this point, and we’d only proven ourselves in the Netherlands. 

This is how we, actually quite naively, started looking for investors again. We wanted to grow. We just didn't know how yet. We needed money. But that, too, was something we understood far too little about. So off we went again, head first, calling everyone, emailing, approaching newspapers… We let everyone know that we were looking for an investment round. Before we knew it, we were pitching everywhere and nowhere once again. We even flew to Sweden to pitch for an investor – which could have been done in a Zoom call, of course, but we had no clue about that. You have to remember this was pre-pandemic.

Finally, we came into contact with Peak, an investment company run by Stefan Bary, Johan van Mil, and Heleen Dura-van Oord. They were, and still are, known for their successful investments in emerging online marketplaces, platforms, and SaaS (software as a service) start-ups. Our first conversation was with Johan. We grabbed a coffee in Amsterdam, and Sjuul and I pitched United Wardrobe. Johan had obviously had his fair share of dealing with 'our kind' before. His knowledge seemed endless, and, as such, he burned us to the ground from the start. Nice idea, but team = unmanageable. He would put in his notes later. Our egos weren’t equipped to handle that very well at the time. With a bad taste in our mouths, which wasn't just from the coffee, we returned to our office. We didn’t feel good about the conversation. Of course, I had been way too excited and was talking way too big. 

Oh man, all the traveling back and forth and pitching in those days. We visited or were visited by at least twenty investors. Investors grab coffee with start-up founders like us all the time. They just need one success story from those countless appointments. At the time, I didn't think we would be that success story for Peak. 

Weeks later, we received a call from Johan, asking if we could send some data on the performance of our business so that Stefan could analyze it. This is a fundamentally difficult dynamic when looking for investors — you have to fully expose yourself, send all your data and company details to an investor, and then open yourself up to brutal criticism. It feels like you have to get fully naked while being stared at or as if your partner is being examined in front of you. You get it. It’s not a nice feeling.

But Sjuul dared to do it and sent Peak the requested data. We received a lot of questions. Stefan and Sjuul had endless meetings, going through everything, discussing our business model, and making assessments. We had to wait a while before we heard back.

Meanwhile, United Wardrobe kept growing. We had ten people in the office, and the old post office had already become too small for us. We were growing so quickly that we broke the magical barrier of one million registered users. We had always promised our friends that if that happened, we would throw the party of the century. So we did. We shared our office with the guys from Club Basis, an underground club in Utrecht, who allowed us to rent their club for a good price. It was a legendary party. By one o'clock, I was puking in the bathroom. That’s a sure way to illustrate the success of a night out.

THE FIRST MILLION

Thijs S. had a meeting, coincidentally with yet another Thijs, who ran a server company around the corner. They met at his office, in the middle of the city, above a McDonald's. 

I was looking for new office space again. We had to move out of the old post office because the Utrecht municipality had other plans for it. So, I asked Thijs S. to check whether the third Thijs might have room for us in his office. After half an hour, he texted, come and have a cup of coffee with Philippe here. Philippe turned out to be a cheerful man whose company, Adlantic, was the main tenant of the beautiful building. “The most beautiful spot in Utrecht,” he said himself. 

I had noticed the office before, especially during King's Day, when people were hanging out of the windows, overlooking the partying crowd on the street below. Now, I was standing there myself. Philippe pointed to an elevated space at the back of the office, “You can sit there.” 

He made us an offer we couldn't possibly refuse. So we moved again, for the third time since United Wardrobe was founded. This office really hit the spot. It was our first REAL office. Not an anti-squatting hell hole. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Sjuul was still very busy handling Peak. I myself was still looking for other options since one buyer is not a buyer, and an investor on a list is not yet an investment. Attracting foreign money really involves a professional process - a process that I didn't really understand at the time, let alone mastered. 

In our first round, we sat around the table with Marcel Beemsterboer and Arthur Kosten. After a long conversation, they decided not to invest, leaving us to keep searching.

Weeks later, unable to let it go, I got in touch with Arthur Kosten through his personal assistant. He wanted to catch up with Sjuul and me — it hadn’t escaped his attention that in just a few short weeks, we were growing fast.”'My daughters are big fans,”' he added.

So Sjuul and I boarded the train to Amsterdam for a second round of coffee with Arthur. 

“Do you regret not stepping in sooner, Arthur?”

We liked being able to say that. Compared to our previous meeting just a little while earlier, when Marcel and Arthur chose not to invest, United Wardrobes’s value had increased a lot. Now, we were pursuing a much higher valuation.

It works like this. Suppose you want to raise 100,000 Euros for your company, and you manage to close a deal where you give away ten percent of your shares. Then, the post-money valuation of your company is one million. This is the usual order of things for a first, usually not too large, investment round. But you can also make a valuation based on pre-money. In this case, you then add the investment, arriving at the post-money valuation. Often, what I see happening around me is that investors ask for twenty to thirty percent of the shares in starting companies. The entrepreneur already has a number in mind and considers themself rich, and investors naturally respond to this. Because once they want a deal, they want the best possible deal. However, a higher valuation of your company is not always in your favor. If your company performs poorly, it may be “underwater” in a subsequent investment round. That means you have to raise money for a lower valuation than you did before. Before you know it, you have become a slave to your own company, and your shares have lost their value. 

Such a situation often arises because you have agreed to a liquidation preference with your investors. There is an entire spectrum of these so-called liq prefs, but to give you an example, you raise one million Euros against a valuation of ten million post-money. Your investors ask for a liq pref of one million. That means that if the company is ever sold, they will first get their million back, and only then will the proceeds of the shares be distributed to the shareholders. This arrangement was created to ensure investors always get their cut. There is always a chance that you, as a young entrepreneur, will not fulfill your dreams. Additionally, as soon as you start attracting foreign money, you have to take into account the vesting of your shares. Vesting is when you make a deal with an investor, and as a company with three founders, you still have sixty percent of your shares left, so you all have twenty percent of the shares, but you agree that you must first vest those shares for three years — meaning, it’s only after three years you really own these shares. Such an agreement keeps the founders motivated as soon as a lot of money comes in — or it chains them, depending on your perspective. These types of agreements exist solely to protect investors. As an investor, you don't want to put down a million for a company whose founder resells his shares the next day and leaves for Ibiza. You want that founder to stay involved and help the company continue to grow. 

None of the things I am explaining now were things I knew the slightest bit about when we started talking to Arthur again. I just said yes to everything – I wanted money as fast as possible and as much as possible to grow. That worked out well for us, but many young entrepreneurs fall prey to their own investors because of these kinds of constructions when shit hits the fan.

Why am I telling all of this? To make it clear, a successful investment round does not mean we have money; we are rich, and we are going to party in Ibiza. 

In fact, the moment you have your investment is the moment to get to work. Sure, you often hear that some start-up has raised a bag of money, and you might think, wow, I want that too, but don't forget that those founders first have to get their hands dirty and go through hell and back three times, in order to make their money back. If you are going to make a deal, seek good legal advice and have it explained in detail before you sign. 

In the conversation with Arthur, we could feel an above-average interest in our company. Arthur was amicable and always had been. But he also had very keen, valuable insights. He helped build Booking.com, the global travel-booking website, so he knew the tricks of online marketplaces all too well.

No concrete agreements were made during our conversation, but Sjuul and I already had dollar signs in our eyes. At the end of the conversation, I wanted to ask Arthur if I could take a picture with him. But he beat me to it and asked if he could take a picture with us, saying, “My daughters need to see this!”

Weeks after our conversation, things got tense for a while. Would the deal go through or not? In the end, Arthur only wanted to participate if Peak also participated, and we thought we should be able to take care of that!

Peak was totally obsessed with our data. This was so different from our first round with Tommy and Duco. Hours, days, weeks, Peak and United Wardrobe danced around each other, crafting the perfect deal, but we ran into a small snag — Joep had to be bought out. Peak did not want to participate if he was still in it and would, therefore, buy Joep's shares. Fortunately, Joep was lenient, and we were able to get it done quickly. And to put some more pressure on it, Sjuul went on vacation after signing the official papers…

Eventually, the die was cast. The game was on! It was time for our first million. We announced it on November 1, 2017. The next day, we were on the front page of Metro and made the national news. “United Wardrobe is going to ‘blow away' competition with a new round of money,” Sprout wrote. And Metro headlined, “From students with a good idea to a million dollar company.”

The process had really gotten to me. Although I had been involved in the deal way less than Sjuul, I had continuously felt the stress. And once the deal was done, I was done. I was exhausted. Sjuul kept on going in the weeks that followed, but I had the feeling that I couldn't anymore. The walls of the office were closing in on me.

RICK

Together with Peak, we made a 100-day plan, which also stated that we were looking for a Chief Marketing Officer. Tommy quickly helped us find a young guy, Rick Molenaar, who would be able to do the job. He had gained a lot of experience as the CMO at Helloprint but wanted a new challenge.

I actually felt skipped. Was this guy going to take my place?

But I had to put my ego aside. This Rick guy would make United Wardrobe stronger, bigger, and better, and honestly, I wasn’t someone who wanted to fiddle with Excel sheets every day. For me, marketing mostly meant closing deals with influencers, Facebook campaigns, and making sure United Wardrobe would continue growing.

At that time, I was so tired that I was hardly involved in the process. When Peak transferred the first part of the investment, I called Sjuul. 

“I don’t think I’m able to continue like this,” I said.

“Thijs, look at our bill. We’ll be good for a while, you know. Get away from it all. Go on a trip or something!” 

I was so grateful for Sjuul.

A friend of mine, Tijmen, was about to leave for Vietnam. Subtly, I invited myself. He was going to travel from the North to the South, so I suggested that I would go from South to North so we could meet halfway. Tijmen was fine with it. 

A few days before I was due to leave, it was almost Christmas. Sjuul sent me a message asking if I still wanted to meet Rick before I left. He was eager to hire Rick, and so was Peak, but they couldn't make that decision without me. After all, I would be working with him a lot. 

But at that point, I actually had already taken a distance from United Wardrobe. And I wasn't really feeling this conversation. I still saw Rick as a potential threat, someone who could take my place, but I didn’t want Sjuul to make this decision all by himself.

Rick and I grabbed a coffee in a café near Rotterdam Central Station. 

He seemed like a good guy with tons of experience. He talked about wanting to build a “marketing machine” at United Wardrobe. He was chomping at the bit. 

I've always found job interviews difficult, but this time, I really didn’t have my head in the game. In order not to disappoint anyone, I told Sjuul that it was fine with me. In fact, I really didn't know. I didn't want any drama moments before I would go traveling, but I actually still had a hard time accepting that another person would start working in my spot.

ON THE EDGE

It was Christmas 2017, and I was not prepared for my trip to Vietnam. Apart from getting the mandatory vaccinations, during which I had passed out embarrassingly and nearly broken my neck, and a handful of malaria pills, I hadn't really arranged anything. When the plane took off, I felt like I had left the front door and the refrigerator open with the gas on.

I tried to relax. I read The Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz, a billionaire and Facebook investor. Few books have impressed me as much as this one, which captures the harsh realities of IT entrepreneurship so well. When you read that book, you’ll know that nine times out of ten, it's just going to suck, but you will obtain the strength to bite the bullet over and over again.

Once I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, I barely had any sense of time and space left. I had intense jet lag and had to get used to the climate. It was so hot and so humid. What the hell was I doing here?

Oh yes, travel. I decided to visit a friend from home, Helmer, who so happened to be traveling at the same time. Helmer was in Mui-Ne, which was only a 4.5-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh, but I didn't want to be on a dilapidated bus filled with drunken tourists, so I booked an Uber that would take me there.

It was a beautiful Toyota with tinted windows and wonderful air conditioning, which immediately transported me away from the metropolis I had just arrived at. Once we got away from the crowds, the driver stopped to eat something. He said it was at least five more hours away. I ate something as well, got back into the taxi, and fell asleep. I think it was the deepest sleep I had had in months. All the stress came out — United Wardrobe, the deal with Peak, Rick, my incessant jet lag…

I woke up a few hours later. We drove on the highway, and believe me, they really do drive like idiots there. At any moment, someone could decide to overtake in the middle of a two-lane highway filled with speeding cars. My body wanted to continue sleeping, but my mind did everything it could to stay awake. In the end, sleep got the better of me. When I woke up again, the taxi, engines still running, stood in front of the hostel where Helmer was sleeping.

That was the start of a few blissful days, swimming in the sea, going out, having beers, and going for beach walks and scooter trips. We hung out with two students from Delft and laughed our ass off. But after three days, Helmer already returned to the Netherlands – his Vietnam trip was over. I booked a trip to Da Lat, and all alone, I took the bus there. When I arrived in Da Lat – cold and cloudy – I was completely exhausted and just wanted to sleep. Unfortunately, the Australians in my hostel had other plans. I barely slept, was grumpy, and didn't feel like doing anything. It seemed like all my fatigue and stress from the past year poured out in one week. I took the first night bus to Da Nang, where Tijmen would arrive a few days later. On the night bus, I didn’t get an ounce of sleep. I actually started to hallucinate. I saw the United Wardrobe office on fire, an empty database, an order page with zero orders, Google Analytics without data, and it kept happening. In my next dream, I saw the United Wardrobe office completely empty. Everyone was gone. Everyone had forgotten me – my desk was the only one that was occupied. As I got closer, I saw Rick sitting there.

I arrived in Da Nang broken. I was so tired, but my head was working overtime. I went to Hoi An with Tijmen, but I was somewhere else. I was so exhausted. I decided to go back to Ho Chi Minh with him and revisit Mui Ne. After all, I had had such a good time there with Helmer. But after the first beach visit, I had caught sand fleas and was desperately burned, like a lobster. It was over. I was done. I had been in Vietnam for a week and a half now, and I still felt miserable. Although I felt really bad for Tijmen, I had no choice but to return to the Netherlands. I booked a flight to Amsterdam almost a month ahead of schedule. 

Back in the Netherlands, I spent as little time as possible on my phone for two weeks and rested as much as possible. I was sleeping 14 hours a day. I went to spas and saunas and had a massage a few times. Through Peak, I found a coach, Jasper Vreugdenhil, with whom I had some really good, enlightening conversations.

It was more down to luck than skill, I think, that I didn't end up in a severe burnout.

WHOSE COMPANY IS THIS?

Two weeks later, I thought I was back to my old self, and I decided to show my face in the office again. Rick had already been trained for his role in my absence. He was busy building his “marketing machine,” and overall, coming back to work wasn't as intense as I had expected and imagined in my hallucinatory dreams. Rick was nice, we got on well, and he did an excellent job. He lived in The Hague but was always one of the first in the office. I respected that.

The problem was that during management meetings, Rick and Sjuul were increasingly talking in pairs. They would have heated discussions about how to calculate the Customer Acquisition Costs and Customer Lifetime Value, how many, and what new people we should hire when we should raise new money again. Thijs S. and I found it difficult to intervene. When those two were at it, we looked at each other with a look of understanding that said, whatever. Eventually, we would leave the meeting to work on something else while Rick and Sjuul continued to argue.

Before Rick arrived, our management meetings had never been this long. We had almost always managed to keep discussions short. Usually, we were done within an hour and went back to doing our own thing, but now it was different. Suddenly, there was a second captain on the ship. Sjuul and Rick sometimes went on about the same subject for days without coming to a decision. If they did finally make a decision, the next day, someone would not be entirely happy with it, and it would cause weeks’ worth of resentment.

Thijs S. and I did notice that something was changing. I think Sjuul noticed it himself, too. But we didn't really pay attention to it. After all, there was no cloud in the sky. We had enough money in the bank to continue for years to come. If Rick and Sjuul wanted to bite each other’s heads off about job titles and Excel sheets, be our guests.

We had received a lot of money from Peak for our growth, and we had to go on. Having started as a company run by some students, we had to become a well-oiled scale-up. The focus was on building a marketing team — that was Rick's job — recruiting new customer support reps and especially looking for new programmers. We hired a lot of new people quickly. In hindsight, this might have been one of my biggest mistakes as an entrepreneur; I didn't intervene when I saw things go wrong. I had relinquished all control and just watched as what I built started to change, and not for the better. United Wardrobe did grow, but not as fast as in 2017. The only growing thing was personnel costs. In retrospect, we did things backward. We hired more and more people to grow the place, but the place did not grow along with it. The writing was on the wall. But it's always easy to look back in hindsight.

THE PROMISED LAND

And all those new people we hired? They were looking forward to working with us eager to work for a cool, young company. We received amazing motivation letters and were able to hire real talents. The people weren’t the problem. We just couldn't get back the growth we showed the year before. Nothing worked well, really. 

We ended up spending tons of money working with French influencers trying to break into the French market. In September 2017, we had a successful deal with an influencer named Gaëlle Garcia Diaz. This resulted in some big spikes, but as quickly as the French visited our platform, they moved away again. It wasn't Gaëlle’s fault – it was United Wardrobe's fault, or rather, the competition’s. There already was a major player active in France called Vinted. It was the first time we had to deal with Vinted, who did the exact same thing we did, but cheaper. They even operated in Germany under the name Kleiderkreisel, so they’d already been successful in two huge markets.

It was a strange and difficult time. The culture at United Wardrobe changed as quickly as our team grew, and we had already placed our bets on France, our promised land. We had to do everything we could to make United Wardrobe grow in the French market because if we became popular there, we could continue to grow all over Europe and roll out TV commercials, for example. Then, we would be in a strong position to raise even more money so we could expand into yet another area, England, for example, or Scandinavia, or Eastern Europe. So we hired a new manager for France, Maud – remember that name. We closed one Parisian influencer deal after another and optimized our website and app for the French public — La douce France around the clock. I would have preferred to move to Paris to drag the French to our platform myself, but our French conversion was not good enough for such a move.

Honestly, we tested everything. The marketing budget was a bottomless pit. Our French customer base was almost as large as the Dutch one. And yet we didn't get the result we hoped for — a million French items listed on United Wardrobe, which we had already achieved in the Netherlands.

Our mistake? We looked inward too much. We forgot to look around. We did not see that our French users were all also on Vinted, a platform where sellers paid 0% sales costs, and with us, it was 10%. It was as if we didn't dare to look, as if we kept pushing our own product while blindfolded.

If only we had paid a little more attention. Then, we would have had the enemy in our sights earlier. The enemy called Vinted.

With the news of Vinted and their low-cost alternative to our platform, we had debates over our revenue model. How could we ever take over the French market if another player did what we did, but for free? Our debates didn’t get us anywhere. Sjuul insisted on sticking to our model. If we were to give up that 10% for the French, we would also lose a huge part of our turnover. Then we would have no money for anything, and we would have to fire half of our employees. The risk was too big.

It was a frustrating time. In addition to all of this in our foreign markets, our growth started to stall back in our home country. Meanwhile, we spent money like water — on Facebook campaigns, influencers, and dozens of new colleagues. We even hired an office manager to ensure that we could work even more efficiently. But did we really need all this? All this pomp and circumstance?

Something was gnawing at our insides. We didn't know exactly what, but it muddled on. During a meeting with Peak, Stefan Bary looked at us and shook his head. “I don't think you know what you're doing, boys,” he said.

He was right. We had a great company, fantastic people working there, and we had a good turnover. But our growth strategy was too limited. Too focused on hiring new staff and taking over one new market, one where it did not look like we would succeed any time soon.

Did we still consider ourselves a success story at the time? Yes. But the first cracks in that success were becoming visible.

BUSINESS CLASS

Because the next chapter contains “classified information,” the names of James, Matthias, and Lucas are not real people — the names of whom have been changed. 

I felt we had only just closed the deal with Peak when I received a message on LinkedIn in mid-March 2018 that immediately sparked my interest. 

Hey Thijs, I don't quite remember how we got in touch on Linkedin, but lately, I have been seeing a lot of good news about United Wardrobe. 

At [X], we are very excited about the fashion market. I was wondering if you'd like to catch up and see if there's anything we could learn from each other. Regards, James.

James' company turned out to be a huge player in the venture capital world — a world of money where big companies gobble up small ones. James came by for a cup of coffee in our bar (we had a real bar at the office, the United Bardrobe, which two of my friends, Hans and Sjoerd, had put together). We made small talk. James, of course, wanted to extract every piece of information he could from us, but I had been given strict instructions by Johan from Peak. He had advised me not to reveal anything, just to wait and see what James would come up with. His company was known for buying start-ups with high numbers. So this could suddenly mean a very big exit. 

When the conversation was drawing to a close, and James was getting ready to go home, he casually said, “You should drop by our headquarters sometime. Matthias, a colleague who knows everything about marketplaces, is based there.” 

I knew that their head office was located in a warm country on the other side of the globe. 

“Fine,” I replied, “if you pay.”' 

“No problem,” James said. 

I laughed – I wasn't quite sure who I was laughing at, him or myself – and said, “I look forward to the tickets!” 

A couple of days later, James slid into my inbox again, asking if I could provide my passport number, as well as Thijs S.’s and Sjuul’s. Wait, what?

“This is a joke,” Sjuul said immediately. Thijs S. certainly did not trust it at all. 

I called James and subtly asked if he was kidding.

“Of course not,” James said. “Just send me that information, and I'll book a great hotel for you right away.” Say what? 

This was real. We really were going to the other side of the world. Holy shit!

What cast some shadow over this bizarre invitation was that Rick didn't join us. Only the three of us, the founders, boarded the flight on Wednesday, April 25, 2018.

On the plane, I had completely forgotten about my semi-burnout. I felt the adrenaline rushing through my veins, and I enjoyed it to the fullest. We arrived at the airport late in the evening. I received a text from their office manager that an orange BMW with a driver was waiting for us “because you guys are Dutch.” I still don't know if it was a coincidence or if they really arranged an orange car for us. The driver took us to the hotel full throttle, where we started drinking gin and tonics straight away.

Euphoric and tipsy, we sat at the hotel bar. We knocked back drinks and lit one cigarette after the other. After yet another gin and tonic, we noticed that we had been watched for some time by a young man further down the lobby. When he noticed us noticing him, he walked over and introduced himself as Lucas. He founded one of our international competitors. His company was like United Wardrobe but in a different country. They had already expanded into two continents. Company X, who wanted to buy us, had a master plan that immediately became clear to us: they wanted to introduce us to this competitor, see if there was a connection, and if they could merge the two companies. Together, we could then stand up to Vinted.

The next day, we woke up with a hangover for the first meeting. For the second time, we were picked up by the orange BMW and taken to Company X’s headquarters. While driving, we saw the beauty of this country. The nature. The people. What a country. At their headquarters, we met Matthias and a colleague of his. I got dizzy from all the stress. So this is it, I thought, these guys are actually going to buy us. We had a long meeting. Matthias turned out to be a nice guy with a lot of knowledge, who once again pointed out that everything during our stay would be at the expense of the company. Including the dinner, we would have that evening. Yet something important was not discussed during our first meeting — a potential deal. Matthias made no remarks about what they really intended, what they would put up for United Wardrobe. But we felt it would be big money. Or maybe we just told ourselves that.

Back at the hotel, Sjuul, Thijs, and I were over the moon and jumping with excitement.

“We're going to be millionaires!”

“We have to take this deal!”

“Whatever it is, yes to everything!”

We made sure we looked our best when we headed back into town. It was Thursday evening, and it looked like this city had a great nightlife. Everywhere we looked, people were walking around in beautiful outfits. We had arranged to meet Matthias in a trendy restaurant. The entire evening, we talked about United Wardrobe, comparable marketplaces, the changing market, the game, and the dies. We laughed, we drank, we were feeling it. But since Matthias had just become a father, he left quite early. The evening was still great, but no longer free.

Still, we made the most of it that night. Lucas, the competitor, was still feeling it too. The four of us ended up in a filthy techno club where we screwed our heads off. Then we went to a bar in a beautiful courtyard. We started talking to a group of friends who were on their way to the next club. Drunk. By car. Not a good idea, said Thijs S. – always the wise man among us all. But Sjuul, Lucas, and I thought it was all well and good. We were in love with the city, with this night, with the money we could already feel in our hands. We were on top of the world. In two small cars, crammed into the back with the drunk girls, we raced to the next club. We arrived in one piece and danced until dawn.

The next morning, we went to lunch at some way too trendy vineyard. A table had been set for us on a glass floor, under which pheasants roamed freely. We had another big fat hangover, and I started sweating when the suit-clad waiter showed us the wine list.

“Here we go again,” Sjuul sighed.

And off we went again. We ate venison, drank great wine, and talked about merging our companies. Apparently, Company X was really impressed with what we had delivered. In case of an acquisition, they even wanted to transfer the entire platform to United Wardrobe.

Hours later, and semi-drunk, we stepped outside again. Matthias had arrived in a white Audi A5 convertible. An extremely sweet ride. Of course, I wanted to ride along, so we raced through the city, and for a moment, I felt really powerful in this amazing car with a top executive of an international company at the wheel. I closed my eyes and could already see what my new life was going to look like until Matthias suddenly slammed the brakes in the middle of what looked like a highway. I was shocked, but Matthias let out a cheerful cry, “There's my wife!”

And sure enough, his wife and newborn child were walking on the side of the road. I was introduced to her and was even allowed to hold the baby in my arms for a while. I remember thinking, Matthias, now I am holding your child – will you be holding my child soon?

DEAL OR NO DEAL

We returned to the headquarters for some coffee and a final meeting, which Peak joined as well. The fantasy we had lived over the past few days became a reality in one fell swoop. They made an offer and an insanely good offer at that. God, this was crazy money. With one big hit, we would become financially independent, all three of us.

Do it, said the look in Sjuul's eyes.

Do it, I read on Thijs' face.

Do it, everything in my body screamed.

But Peak thought otherwise. “Let them wait,” Johan and Stefan said when we were allowed to discuss separately. “When you are back in the Netherlands, we will facilitate a professional process. Enjoy your last days, guys!”

We obeyed. We told Matthias that we were honored but that we could not accept his offer yet. He hid his disappointment well, but it must have sucked for him to see this slip through his fingers. He had gripped us firmly during our entire stay, and now United Wardrobe and Peak were wriggling themselves out. For now, at least. We thanked Matthias for everything and went back to our hotel.

In the taxi, we excitedly discussed what all this could mean for us. We could become rich just like that and stay that way for the rest of our lives. Did we want that? Of course, we wanted that. But wasn't it too early? Peak had just stepped in, and Rick had just begun… It seemed like too big of a decision for us at the time.

We were totally steered by Peak's advice. If we had carefully and completely listened to our gut, we probably would have accepted the deal. If we knew what lay ahead of us, we would have said yes right away.

But we didn't dare to trust our gut. We listened to Peak and stuck with, “No, thanks.”

On our last days, we climbed a mountain and booked a fishing trip to go tuna fishing, something I was dying to do. We got on a boat early in the morning. The water felt like a washing machine. My breakfast left my stomach, and I kept throwing up until nothing but bile came out. Meanwhile, Sjuul and Thijs pulled one tuna after the other out of the water. I, the seasick fisherman, could not speak any more until the boat headed for shore.

Just before we boarded the plane back to the Netherlands, we received another message — our tickets had been rebooked to business class. We were the first to board, we were given champagne, and with the push of a button, we turned our seats into beds. We had never experienced this before. And all three of us knew this was how we wanted to live, forever. During the flight, we joked about what had happened in the past few days. But I'm sure, in our heads, all three of us had turned into millionaires already.

Back in the Netherlands, it became clear that Peak really had a different opinion regarding the deal compared to us, and we didn't want to argue with Peak. So, at Peak’s urging, we made them increase their offer by a lot, far more than what we thought was good enough. But, the guys at Peak encouraged us, saying we shouldn't be wimps — that we had received a wonderful offer, but it could always be improved. We wanted to believe that. We kept negotiating with some things added and some things subtracted, but in the end, we weren’t able to come to an agreement.

The memories of this time are still very dear to me. I wouldn't have wanted to miss any of it for the world. In all honesty, right after we decided on the deal, in the beginning, I was disappointed that it did not go through. If I had only known then what was to come — the real ending of this story is even better. For now, we just had to go back to business as usual, roll up our sleeves, and keep chugging along with our amazing team.

A MONSTER

Every year, we would go on holiday with our team. The first year, we went to Antwerp, and the following year, to Berlin, where Rem, semi-drunk, had put a new functionality online, “bundle bidding,” which broke the whole platform. Those were some times, and the year after, we went to a house on a cliff in France.

In 2018, because we had become increasingly busy ourselves, we handed over the organization of our annual trip. We chose to go to Nes, a town in Friesland, a providence of the Netherlands. It felt like a loss after having had trips abroad to now have to stay in the country, but it couldn’t be helped with our tight budgets. It was during that week in Friesland that I realized we couldn’t go on like this any longer. We have far too many staff. At least forty people went along, and I didn't even know everyone by name anymore. United Wardrobe started to look more like a fraternity than a scale-up, and I had discovered by now that fraternities weren't really my thing.

Everything inside me screamed this is going to explode.

Shortly after that week in Friesland, I was having my weekly Sunday dinner with Sjuul to discuss the week ahead.

That night, he said, “It won't be long now, will it?”

''What won’t?” I asked.

“Until the money runs out.” 

I felt myself turning pale.

“What do you mean?” I asked naively.

Sjuul looked at me. “We only have a few months left.”

I knew a bomb was going to explode. I just didn't know it would be this particular bomb. Run out of money? But how? For months, I had been so busy growing the French market that I had hardly looked at the finances, and apparently, that was true for everyone. Collectively, we had buried our heads in the sand. We had just been continuously hoping that it would work out somehow. 

In a year’s time, we had grown from fifteen to fifty employees. Our hyper-efficient machine had turned into a big, plump monster.

Meanwhile, the Dutch market had barely kept pace. We had killed the goose that laid our golden eggs. All the while, new team members were coming in without a care in the world.

Thus began a very difficult phase. Where were we supposed to get money to keep our heads above water? Should we work more efficiently? And what changes did we have to make exactly? The discussions in management meetings reached unprecedented heights. Panic. Rage. Accusations. Everything came to the fore. Everything except for concrete solutions. We tried to ignore the hard, painful truth, but we couldn’t face it until the very last moment. Every week, we thought we had come up with something that would make us grow again. Or rather, something that would allow us to simply stay afloat. We experimented like crazy; we kept coming up with new features, and our developers worked overtime, but without the desired results in sales, something had to budge. 

It had to stop. It was enough. Sjuul, Thijs S., and I walked through the city and came to the conclusion that we could no longer continue with Rick. His idea of growth was simply too different from ours, and now, the leadership team was completely conflicted with different ideas about the future. Rick mainly wanted to build and scale teams, while we needed more certainty and efficiency. Rick wanted to go a lot faster than us. We now wanted to bring the team back to the small core it once was, but Rick would never accept that we would cut deep into the teams he'd single-handedly built over the past year. It would prove to be some very difficult months, but letting Rick go was our only way out. We sought help from Peak, but they told us that we had to fend for ourselves.

The period that began then would be the most instructive and painful period in all of United Wardrobe's history. We had made our beds and had to lie in them.

Rick really wasn't a bad CMO at all. On the contrary, he was a better manager than I was, but he had to be let go. It was him or Sjuul.

On January 7, 2019, Sjuul and I scheduled a meeting with Rick. It was an exit interview, only he didn't know that yet. I felt sick when we walked into the meeting room. Finally, Sjuul spoke the difficult words.

Rick got up and went home.

BROKEN

Meanwhile, the rest of the company had no idea of what was going on. Everyone was working very hard on a new shipping integration. The entire United Wardrobe shipping system was overhauled. We were going to work with a new system, SendCloud, with which shipping labels could be created in-app. That saved users a lot of hassle. According to Sjuul, this new functionality should ensure that we could hit 100,000 orders in March. 

Now, it may sound like a nice new feature that everybody was excited about, and while it was, we were still creating it on a sinking ship. To our staff, we acted like we had no care in the world after Rick's departure. Rick had hired almost everyone who worked for us at the time, and he would never have accepted it if we had undone his work and broken up the teams he so carefully built. That's why we let him go first. Behind the scenes, we were feverishly looking for new investors. Our teeth turned brown from all the cups of coffee we had with potential new lenders.

At the beginning of February, in the middle of the night, the new shipping method went live. It was a very fundamental change in our system. Previously, the sales prices on United Wardrobe always included shipping, but from now on, it would be a price excluding shipping. I had been strongly against it, but Sjuul had managed to convince me, as always, that there was no other way. He said it would give us the growth we desperately needed. Selling on United Wardrobe became much easier. Sellers no longer had to advance the shipping costs. In hindsight, it was a stroke of genius, but at the time, it was extremely stressful for all of us. You can expect a major change on your platform to cause a lot of issues. If you have loyal users who use your product every day, they simply don't want anything to change.

At two o'clock in the morning, the office was full of empty energy drink cans and pizza boxes, and we went live.

We ran a test.

Nothing worked as expected anymore.

At three o'clock, everything was chaos. Bug after bug popped up. The system had changed so fundamentally that all of United Wardrobe's functions faltered.

We should have known. In the IT world, launching new features is almost never perfect. Sometimes, you just have to put something online. Even if it's only eighty percent done. However, once we went live, we noticed that it was not eighty percent done. It was twenty percent at best.

It was a disaster. The fact that I couldn't change anything about it myself felt horrible. All I could do was be there to boost the mood and atmosphere, both of which were shit. At five o'clock in the morning, I went home to my attic room to finally get some sleep. Two hours later, my alarm went off. I woke up dehydrated and looking like shit.

I opened the United Wardrobe app on my phone. Still, nothing worked.

At that point, I wanted to throw my phone out the window. I wanted to disappear from the world. I wanted to cover my eyes and ears and sleep for a year. 

Instead, I went back to the office. Some colleagues had been up all night and were sleeping on the couch in the lobby. Rem had already arrived again. We worked our asses off that day and the days after and were able to repair most of the damage, but the damage to our profits had been done. The amount of orders was disappointing, to say the least.

On Slack, our internal communication channel, I sounded the alarm to the wider team.

Yesterday was a day with only 1800 transactions *alarm goes off*

What are we going to do about this? Where lies the problem? I’m digging in, but I have no idea. These are my hypotheses:

1. Users do not see that they have to pay for shipping in the added product flow; therefore, they are listing products for a higher price
2. In the check-out, we have a second conversion killer, the shipping costs

We HAVE to find out what is killing conversion; we are already earning less because of the commission on shipping.

Thijs S. responded:

- people are not getting their money on time
- the payout mail seems broken
- in the #bugsandqs (our slack channel to report bugs), there are ten bugs an hour
- the background task queue is getting overfilled, which is causing United Wardrobe to not work…

The platform is actually broken. I wouldn’t dig too much if I were you.

It took me a moment to fully comprehend, but those words, The platform is actually broken, hit me hard. A lot of damage had been done. Our users had to get used to the new shipping functions. Suddenly, there were additional costs in the shopping cart. Many people did not understand what had changed and only saw that something had become more expensive. The first few weeks, we tried to explain as best as possible that this was not the case, but no matter how many emails and push notifications you send, people read what they want to read, and most don't even read at all.

It was February, which was traditionally a bad month for United Wardrobe. Students, our largest target group, had run out of money from the holidays, and no one else really bought new clothes in February. It’s just a dead month. We wouldn’t see the first peaks in order numbers until the end of March and the first real peak of the year not until May.

You can imagine it was a stressful time. The money had run out. We had launched something new that didn't go over well with our users. It was the poorest month of the year. Our endless conversations, emails, and phone calls with potential investors were a dead-end. The bottom of our bank account came terrifyingly close. We had to cut, and we had to cut deep. We had to start showing people the door. There was no other possibility than doing everything ourselves again. If we continued like this, with the amount of staff we had, United Wardrobe would have been doomed.

JUDGEMENT DAY

With Rick’s leaving, we had to pick up his workload. Not only did we have to take over his marketing tasks, but there was also customer service that had to be actively managed. We had too much on our plate.

Luckily, we had a guardian angel on our side, or rather, two. Earlier, I mentioned that we had hired a manager for France who was supposed to help us conquer the French market. That was Maud. Rick had found her – she had huge potential, had come from Uber, and was fantastic. Because there was so much work to do, we decided to ask Maud if she wanted to become COO, Chief Operating Officer, which she happily accepted, and so we expanded our management team again.

In the same week, Max Hofland, who we still knew from our student days, joined us as the new Head of Finance. Max had launched a platform for second-hand games and electronics, and as such, we’d run into him often and always clocked well.

With the arrival of Maud in the management team and the start of Max at United Wardrobe, we felt a little stronger again. However, after a few last desperate talks with investors that ended up nowhere, we had to make a very tough decision. We had to show a lot of people the door. We were able to continue with about thirty people.

This is still one of the hardest things I've had to do as a leader. We genuinely loved everyone who worked for us. We were a family. We had seen people grow and had been through so much together. We would have preferred to keep everyone in the family, but it just wasn’t possible. Our investors and lawyers told us we would be better off if we made big, deep cuts in one go. 

And so judgment day, February 21, 2019, arrived. At eight o'clock in the morning, we stood on the doorstep of Philip de Roos, our lawyer. He would give us the latest advice to handle this round of layoffs properly. It will never be fun, but there are more and less civil ways to go about it. We wanted everyone to know where they stood in this reorganization. 

In the car on the way to Philip, Sjuul and I had already had heated discussions. How many people had to be let go? How deep should we cut? What was possible and what wasn't?

Philip very clearly explained to us where we stood. But in our sunken faces, he saw that we could barely handle it. “Maybe you guys should consider becoming leisure entrepreneurs,” he said. “This all feels a lot like dancing on the edge of a cliff.”

At Philip's table, Sjuul and I got into such a huge fight that, at one point, I screamed that I was going to quit.

“If we don't do this my way, I'm gone!”

Sjuul remained calm, but by the look on his face, I could tell that he was boiling inside. We were in way too deep. United Wardrobe was everything to us. All that time, all that energy, all that money, all of the missed opportunities, all of the parties and friends and studies – everything, absolutely everything, we had sacrificed for United Wardrobe, and now, we watched it burn before our very eyes.

We raced back to Utrecht. I had three speeding tickets that week. But I didn't care – this was one of the most important days of our lives.

We parked the car at my house and walked into the park. Without saying anything, we both lit a cigarette at the same time, even though we never smoked during the day.

Then we cycled to the office. We saw the faces of the people we had to let go. We were quiet. The guillotine’s blade was raised — our necks were on the chopping block. 

Together with Thijs S. and Maud, we divided the layoff talks: Maud would speak to the customer service employees, Thijs S. had to let go of a number of programmers, and Sjuul and I would address the group together. It had to be done quickly and efficiently and all in one day. Apart from the people who were allowed to stay, whom we had previously informed, the wider team still wasn’t aware of all this. Of course, people must have sensed that there was a lot going on and that things at United Wardrobe hadn't been going well for a while now, but no one saw this amount of layoffs coming.

Like with breakups, there's no right moment for something like this. There's just a moment, and you have to be ready to answer every question. Sjuul and I sat in the conference room for hours. We had conversation after conversation. Most people understood the situation, but some did not. Some colleagues did not take it well at all, and of course, we understood that too. Why them and not everyone? Immediately after this round of layoffs, a WhatsApp group of ex-United Wardrobe employees was created, who were already gathering during lunch. In the meantime, we tried to be as transparent as possible and keep our own emotions out of it.

The conversation I remember best was with a young developer from the Middle East. He had been working in the Netherlands for a while and really had a heart for United Wardrobe despite only working for us for three months. We told him where things stood, that we had to let him go, and what his rights were.

He sincerely showed how sorry he felt for us. He understood perfectly and didn't think about himself for a second. Most of all, he didn't want to be a burden on us. He didn't even want his wages. When he walked out of the meeting room, we shed a tear. What a mess that we had to let such an immensely good person go.

Between conversations, Sjuul and I climbed out of the conference room window so no one would see us. On the roof, we smoked one sad cigarette after another.

That same evening, we gathered with the whole team in our United Bardrobe to drink away our sorrows. Almost everyone showed up, including the people we had to give such shitty news to earlier that day.

Honestly, we've been so incredibly lucky with the people around us. These people were really there for us, for better or for worse. I think it is also a certain type of person who chooses to work in the startup world. Things can go from incredible to disaster in a heartbeat. Risk brings excitement. After all, the most beautiful flowers blossom on the edge of the ravine. But if you don't want to run that risk at all, then you opt for a job in the corporate grown-up world. The people who worked at United Wardrobe had taken that risk, consciously or unconsciously.

PLAN A

Management went from Rick, Sjuul, Thijs S., and myself to Sjuul, Thijs S., Maud, Max, and me. We had gone from over fifty people on the payroll to a team of around thirty. I expected the remaining staff to hate us because of the round of layoffs, but it seemed like their respect for us had actually increased, and that was mutual. We had a lot of respect for the people who stayed with us despite the mess. I went back to work fully motivated. It felt good to do everything myself again, from the Facebook campaigns to the influencer marketing. Sometimes, I think that if Vinted had entered the market as hard as it did six months later, then motivation at United Wardrobe would have died a quick death, like a beer that has been on the bar for ten hours. But the taps in our Bardrobe were still running!

We made a fresh start, but the sword of Damocles was still hanging over our heads. After all, it wasn’t as if we somehow had money again. Our buffer had run out. We could pay salaries for another month, and then it was really over.

There were two options, but at that point, we only saw one.

We were just about to knock on our investors' doors for a shitty deal — after all, we screwed up and had to try and keep the company alive, but because nobody invests in a ghost town, not even loyal investors, we had to come up with the perfect plan. We had always fantasized about expanding the platform with children's clothing, so that’s how we decided to turn things around — United Wardrobe Kids would become our newest growth engine, and we urgently needed money for it.

But, just as we were about to head down yet another path of investment pitching, it turned out there was another option, something we had never thought of before. Max had gained some experience with bank loans while running his own start-up. To us, that sounded like pure magic. What bank was going to lend money to a start-up? I heard through the grapevine that Rabobank, a prominent Dutch bank, was quite lenient with new, young companies, especially if they had a green, sustainable business model. It was hard for me to imagine that we could get money from Rabobank, but on the other hand, our numbers looked much better than before. The reorganization had been effective, the number of orders on the platform started to increase again, and we were able to demonstrate some great growth over the last five years.

It was early March. We still had about three weeks of money left. I slept about two hours a night that entire month. I was exhausted when I first met Alrik from Rabobank. We had a fascinating first phone call. Alrik already knew United Wardrobe and even knew where our office was. I just had to send him the necessary documents as soon as possible, and if the numbers were good with steady growth, everything would be fine.

I linked Max to Alrik, and from that moment on, everything accelerated. Every morning, as soon as Max showed up at the office, Sjuul sat down with him, and together, they worked on the funding plan we wanted to send. Because United Wardrobe had been doing fine for the past five years, had always been able to keep its head above water, and the founders still owned the majority of the shares, it seemed that Rabobank truly respected us.

We had two weeks of money left by the time we submitted our application.

Time was ticking. The office was getting emptier, and our working days were getting longer. 

By mid-March, we were able to stretch our money for another week and a half. It was getting really tense now. The other option left on the table was a deal with our investors that would leave us, the founders, penniless. We would lose our majority and have to surrender shares, and if United Wardrobe ever sold, the founders would only get a fraction of the sale price. I don't blame the investors, though. We had made the mistakes that had led us here.

But that was plan B. Plan A was Alrik and Rabobank.

With the fact that we only had one more week of money left, Sjuul, Max, and I pitched our plans to Rabobank. Drenched in sweat, we left the conference room with no idea what Alrik and his colleagues thought of it.

The next day, I was sitting across from Max in the office when he suddenly jumped up, throwing his chair to the floor. 

“Motherfuckers! We just did it!”

I jumped up and sprinted to his computer. There, I saw an email from Rabobank with the redeeming words, positive impression... submit for approval... 

“They're in! They are doing it!”

Shortly after that email, we got the final confirmation, and on March 22, 2019, Alrik, our lifesaver, personally signed the contracts.

The contracts stated that we were personally accountable and had to guarantee tens of thousands of euros, and should United Wardrobe ever go bankrupt, Thijs S., Sjuul, and I would all have to pay back a part of the loan personally.

Whoa.

Stop.

Thijs S. did not want that. But we were in a hurry.

Sjuul and I were in the car returning from a PostNL event where I had given a presentation and acted like there was no cloud in the sky.

“Fuck it,” said Sjuul. “We'll take the risk.”

After all, we had always done that. In the end, Sjuul and I signed a guarantee for which only the two of us were personally liable. 

Fuck it, let's go!

At the beginning of April, the money was in our account, and we could keep operating normally. We had gotten through by the skin of our teeth.

NEW BEGINNINGS

From then on, we would do everything differently. With fresh money and a renewed management team, we would grow efficiently and not expand the team beyond a few support staff and developers. For me, this meant working my ass off in a small marketing team again, consisting only of Joel, our performance marketeer, two interns, and myself. Work that we used to employ ten people for, we now did between the four of us, and often with just two.

Joel had been working with us since the first investment round with Tommy and Duco. He was a reliable, hard-working guy who knew everything about Excel and Facebook marketing. He helped us enormously with marketing and business intelligence. From now on, Joel did the Facebook and email campaigns, and I threw myself back into influencer marketing and PR. I came up with something quite brilliant, if I do say so myself, that saved us a lot of time and money — The way we worked with influencers was quite cumbersome. They took pictures of their clothes themselves and posted them on their accounts. They then sent their clothes to us, we arranged the sale, and needless to say, a lot went wrong. Influencers would take their time to upload and send their items so that we couldn't get our campaigns online quickly. Inconvenient much?

I decided to pick up the influencers’ clothes myself and have the photos taken at our office. That was not only cheaper, as it saved on shipping costs, and faster, as we received the clothes much earlier, but also much more fun. I went for coffee with Maan, Monica Geuze, Roxeanne Hazes, Fred van Leer, you name it. Every single time I visited a celebrity, I got very nervous, but it became more and more fun. Fred, in particular, was a great guy. If you ask me, he responded quickly, was cheerful when I visited him, and always had a cup of coffee waiting for me. It was just banter with him, nothing too serious.

The influencers themselves were also happy with this new way of working. It saved them a lot of time, and we were able to run our campaigns more efficiently. The collaboration now cost us almost nothing because we did everything ourselves. We used to spend tens of thousands of euros per month on marketing — Google Adwords, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, SEO marketing, and influencer deals — but now it was limited to a little gas and the occasional sponsorship in a vlog or Instagram post.

Another new marketing strategy we enacted was to place part of our advertisements on Marktplaats, the online Dutch marketplace. Many years before, we’d tried something similar, but  it wasn’t until our brilliant data analyst, Frederik Hemmink, saw that the people who came from Marktplaats were of extreme value to us. Unfortunately, as soon as we had picked the low-hanging fruit, it became much more expensive to advertise on Marktplaats. You see this a lot with channels you want to scale with. At first, it is very cheap to advertise on it, but the more budget you put into it, the more expensive your advertisements become. The trick is to spend more without increasing the average cost of an ad. If you are a marketer who understands how to do that, you have found Columbus’s egg.

In April 2019, we were doing so well that it looked like 100,000 orders in a single month could become a reality. That had never happened in the entire history of United Wardrobe. Less than two months after our “judgment day,” when we let our staff go, the cards were shuffled very differently. How quickly things can change if you all put your energy into something. 

EVERYTHING IS FOR SALE

By mid-April, peace had returned to the company, but for ourselves, the founders, unrest was just around the corner. Maybe it was spring fever. Maybe it was just the right time. Now that we had restored internal peace, we were finally able to look around again. We saw that there was a lot of consolidation in the market. Small marketplaces were increasingly being bought up by larger players and for more and more money. Of course, we had already experienced it first-hand on the other side of the world when we were almost bought up ourselves. Everyone was clamoring to participate in the second-hand clothing segment, and United Wardrobe was growing fast, but Vinted was growing even faster in non-Dutch markets and much more aggressively. Moreover, Vinted had already raised hundreds of millions from various investors, while we had only raised a few million.

It was time to ask ourselves what we actually wanted. Continue to grow or (finally) start making money? For myself, an exit, a sale, would mean that I could finally live a more relaxed life. For example, I really wanted to buy a house, but that had been impossible throughout the past years as I worked to grow my company. I had placed bids on nearly any home I could but had always been outbid. An exit would mean that I could go on holiday like a normal person, that I no longer had to be so frugal, and could finally start living the life I dreamed of. So, did we want to do this for another five years? Did we want to look at our sales opportunities? Actually, the answer presented itself pretty obviously as the market developed. United Wardrobe was a company with a lot of potential, but Vinted was growing so fast that we had to start working towards an exit strategy — just in case. 

Secretly, I had started that “research” a little earlier, investigating what the options are and what’s possible.

Over Christmas break in 2018, when we saw the rounds of layoffs and the lack of money coming, I had already contacted Vinted in consultation with Sjuul and Thijs S. Vinted is a Lithuanian company with a Dutch CEO, Thomas Plantenga. At the end of December, I sent him an exploratory LinkedIn message, and it turned out that he would be in the Netherlands for Christmas.

Let’s grab a Christmas coffee?

I was so nervous. Even when I read that message now, a strange feeling comes over me. Vinted had always been the big bad competitor, the “enemy” with much more money and much more clout.

On December 23, Thomas and I met in Utrecht, and he told me the story behind Vinted and how he got there.

Vinted was founded in 2008 by Milda Mitkute and Justas Janauskas. It started as a website where women could exchange their clothes. After meeting a German couch surfer, they decided to launch their platform in Germany as well, under the name Kleiderkreisel, the app we had already heard about in Berlin. Kleiderkreisel caught on very well, and Vinted gained momentum. In 2010, they launched in the United States, and a lot happened in that time. There was a lot of money in the U.S. market, but like many scale-ups with growth spurts, Vinted made some wrong turns as well. However, since Thomas came on board to take on an advisory role in June 2016, he had miraculously turned things around. He reduced the company from 250 to 140 people and the number of offices from eight to four. 

“We went to hell and back,” Thomas said in an interview. He really was legendary.

The only thing I actually knew about Thomas was from an interview on the Sprout entrepreneurial platform. Shortly after United Wardrobe went viral in the Netherlands, Thomas wanted to set the record straight that Vinted and United Wardrobe were comparable, competing platforms.

“There are bigger forces than United Wardrobe that I should be more concerned about,” he had said at the time. “United Wardrobe is a direct competitor, and we keep an eye on them, but it's not our main concern.” Thomas's main concern was the battles he fought against the big tech companies worldwide. United Wardrobe was too small to be afraid of.

During our Christmas coffee at the end of 2018, Thomas said that he had great admiration for our media strategy in the Netherlands. Our conversation also showed that Vinted and United Wardrobe were very similar in many ways. At Vinted, Thomas had been responsible for reorganizations and layoffs that must have been much more intense than ours, and he previously started his own start-up, a boat rental platform. He actually resembled us quite a bit, and I liked him right away.

At the end of our conversation, which was pleasant and informal, he dropped a bomb, “We are happy to look into the possibilities of taking you over. Would you like that?”

“Everything is for sale,” I said as casually as possible. “For the right price.”

That was in December 2018. It would take another two years before the correct price was determined and paid.

CANDY

Deep in our hearts, we knew that an exit from the company was best. We had three options at that point — we could raise round after round of investments to compete with a company like Vinted, opt for a sale to a strategic party like a large tech or fashion company, or sell to a direct competitor such as Marktplaats or Vinted.

It became increasingly clear to Thijs, Sjuul, and myself that United Wardrobe was ready for sale. In the Netherlands, we were still growing steadily, but in other markets, our options were becoming narrower by the minute. We were circled. From my conversation with Thomas, I remembered that Vinted was already way ahead of us in Belgium. They had ten times the amount of users we did.

We approached our investors. We expected extremely hard pushbacks, but Peak was fine with us going through this process as long as we were on board with this ourselves. In the end, you really are your company’s boss. An investor is there for money and also for advice, but not for the hard decisions you have to make yourself.

As such, the path to further investigate a takeover by Vinted or another party was clear. As always, Sjuul had crystal-clear ideas here. He asked us and himself a number of questions. These were my answers on May 1st, 2019:

1. Do I want to remain active at United Wardrobe BV after the sale?

Depends on the terms. I prefer to get as much cash as possible as soon as possible, but I'm happy to work with you on a new goal.

2. How long do I want to remain active at United Wardrobe BV after the sale?

Up to two years if it really is an extremely good deal. If Thomas gives me an apartment in Lithuania or Berlin, I think it's fine to work there for another three years with you.

3. Am I willing to keep part of my shares? Which part would I like to keep? How much % must be cash?

Preferably as much cash as possible. Again, it is completely dependent on the valuation.

It's funny to reread this. How little confidence we had, how badly we’d wanted to be bought.

After we had coordinated these points with each other and thoroughly discussed them with our investors, Stefan from Peak came up with the idea of having the process run by a professional party. We needed an intermediary who would sell us for the highest possible price. Eventually, we chose Drakestar, a party with a large network in our industry. In short, a commercial broker who manages mergers and acquisitions and guides the company through the process. In retrospect, I’m very glad that we had them as intermediaries because an exit process like this is much more complicated than it may seem. You can't just call Vinted and ask what they want. No, this had to be a process in which multiple parties showed interest and bid so that we could choose the best deal. United Wardrobe had to be presented like a shiny new toy, like candy in a store. Each party had to be given the feeling that everyone wanted to buy us. There's a lot of strategy involved and a lot of moments when you can make crucial mistakes. 

We divided our roles. Sjuul, Max, and Maud would lead the sales process. Thijs S. would keep programming, and I would focus on marketing. We had learned from previous situations that you should not dive into a process like this with all of the founders. We couldn’t let ourselves get tunnel-brained again. After all, we had to make sure United Wardrobe would remain up and running.

By May 2019, we hit the magical milestone — 100,000 orders in a month. One hundred thousand! We bought a ping pong table as a present for the team.

Sjuul, Max, Maud, and the people of Drakestar were busy with an exit strategy. It was quite a task to keep it all a secret. Normally, we were always very transparent with our team. Everyone was allowed to know how we were doing financially, how many orders we had, and almost any other data. But now, we had to account for the possibility that our employees' motivation would drop to zero if they found out that United Wardrobe was for sale. Moreover, it was still totally uncertain whether we would really sell. So, while we worked hard to make United Wardrobe an irresistible piece of candy, the team wasn’t aware of anything yet.

DO YOU KNOW VINTED?

It was June 19, 2019, when Maud posted an innocent yet chilling message on our management channel. A friend told me that Vinted is broadcasting on live television in the Netherlands with a very good commercial explaining the Vinted concept. 

Apparently, Vinted had started advertising on TV. This was the start of a ride that seriously impacted our ego and our sleep. At literally every birthday, every party, every meeting, and every occasion, I ran into someone I knew who would ask, do you know Vinted? Have you seen it on TV? Is Vinted the same as United Wardrobe? Isn't that competition for you?

In my head, it always went something like this, YES, OF COURSE, I KNOW THAT, OF COURSE, I’VE SEEN THAT, DO YOU THINK I I HAVE BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK AND DON'T KNOW MY BIGGEST COMPETITOR?

But luckily, I always managed to control myself and calmly tell them that we hadn’t noticed anything yet, which was true. In the Netherlands, we noticed that people were searching more often for second-hand clothing and apps to sell clothing. Thanks to Vinted, United Wardrobe also took the spotlight. Whenever Vinted was on TV, our signups, product placements, and orders would increase.

In short, there was nothing wrong. July and August of 2019 were exceptionally good months, and after a while, our fear of Vinted turned into a mixture of gratitude and euphoria.

I thought it was time to go on holiday again after not having done so in years. I went on a long road trip through Europe, and I noticed that I was mentally preparing for “the final stretch” already. I was going to sell my company, and it felt good. Soothing. It was the right time.

But Vinted thought otherwise. On September 2nd, we received a message that they did not want to make an offer for United Wardrobe. It was a huge downer because Drakestar had been in contact with them for a long time, and they seemed very interested, but now they didn't want to continue and place an official bid.

They did, however, want to see our September figures as soon as we had them. Yeah, sure, we thought, obviously, you just want to know whether your own marketing is having an effect.

This made our exit process a lot slower than we had initially thought. To give ourselves some distraction and to reward the team for the recent success, we took everyone on a company holiday. At the beginning of October, the entire United Wardrobe team got on a flight to Marbella. It was a week to remember — a nice house, wonderful weather, an upward trend in United Wardrobe orders, where we broke record after record while chilling in or around the swimming pool.

Then, Autumn came. In mid-October, the following headline appeared in the management team’s Slack channel:

Aha, I thought, that's what they were doing. It felt weird and great at the same time since they were willing to buy up competition but apparently had made Spain a priority. Meanwhile, Vinted kept spending money on Dutch television, which allowed us to do better than ever. October 2019 entered the books as the best United Wardrobe month ever. The Dutch market grew like crazy because of the Vinted campaigns. Selling second-hand clothing was more popular than ever, and our brand was rock solid. Our users were now used to the shipping integration and saw it as a great asset to the platform. 

At the end of November, we heard that Vinted had raised another 128 million euros from investors, an unbelievable amount of money. In one fell swoop, Vinted had become a unicorn – a company worth more than a billion before it even went public.

With trembling fingers, I texted congratulations! to Thomas. Max was optimistic immediately after hearing the news, “Now they have the money to buy us!”

But my heart sank. How could we ever compete with, let alone win against, such a giant? They had all the means to destroy us completely, and that is exactly what they started to do.

On top of that, it was December, a shitty month for United Wardrobe. December is a month when all of the students leave, go to relatives or on ski trips, and don’t think to sell their clothes. You might think that December is a good month to buy new, second-hand party clothes, but everyone always thinks about that way too late, and at that point, United Wardrobe is not as convenient as going to a physical store and walking out with something new to wear.

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA

Through Drakestar, we came into contact with another big party with an interest, and suddenly, things started to speed up again. Max, Sjuul, and Maud flew to the other side of the world to pitch United Wardrobe. I thought it was quite a pity that I couldn't come along, but the two Thijs had to mind the shop.

When they were at the office of the newly interested party, Maud took a picture from the window, which she posted on Instagram. We later found out that Vinted had studied this photo very closely and found out which office and company we had been to. Although this was not part of our strategy, sometimes reality truly is stranger than fiction. It did set off some alarm bells at Vinted. If United Wardrobe were sold to this party, Vinted would have a serious problem in the Dutch market. It was a major international player that was already active in a number of other major countries.

On December 15th, this new party had already made an offer. An excellent first offer. It was serious. We were jumping with joy. Was it still possible to become financially independent? That evening, the management team had a long meeting at the office. Around ten o'clock, we walked to my favorite café, De Voortuin, to have a beer. We were elated. We were going to get rich. As we toasted, an Ernest Hemingway story came to my mind, The Old Man and the Sea, a book I got from a friend and read in Vietnam. A story that resembled our story, it seemed.

Sjuul and Max were not really up for hearing my story, “No Thijs, not another story from you,”  but I thought it was so appropriate that I just had to tell it.

“Santiago is an old fisherman who has been returning to port without fish for the past 84 days. The other fishermen laugh at him. His young friend, Manolin’s parents no longer allow him to accompany Santiago because he is not successful enough. On the 85th day, Santiago departs to go fishing again. He prepares his fishing lines, something bites, and suddenly sees the biggest fish of all time on his line. A huge marlin. The fish is so big that Santiago can't even get it on board. The fish drags his boat with him, and Santiago fights it with his bare hands for two days and nights. Both are getting more and more exhausted. Finally, Santiago ties the marlin to his boat. Now, he must return to the coast. He navigates his way back using the stars, but sharks catch on to him. They attack his boat continuously, eating more and more of the marlin. When Santiago comes back ashore, only the marlin's carcass remains. But Manolin has remained loyal to him, makes his coffee, and promises to come along next time.” 

When I was finished talking, there was silence. 

“So you're the Manolin?” Max asked.

“No, we are Santiago,” I said. “The offer is the big fish!”

“But we don't have a penny in our account yet,” said Sjuul.

“Exactly,” I replied. “We can still encounter lots of sharks along the way. The story is a warning. We need to secure this deal as soon as possible.” 

We all thought very differently about the deal. I wanted to close as quickly as possible, and Sjuul and Max thought it would be better to wait and see what other parties would do.

That same evening, we called Peak. Wasn't this a good time to reconnect with Vinted? After all, there was now another party with serious interest.

Johan from Peak called Thomas from Vinted and explained to him where things stood.

Thomas said he was going to consult with his team.

The Christmas holidays started, and Sjuul went on a week-long skiing trip in France. He had been gone for just two days when we received a message from Vinted. They wanted to set up a meeting with us in Amsterdam ASAP. Thomas had even booked a flight already. 

Sjuul returned from his holiday that same evening, weeks ahead of schedule. On the day of the meeting with Vinted, I was completely in the Christmas spirit, staying with my new parents-in-law in Limburg. That evening after their meeting, Sjuul called me with the offer that Vinted was probably going to make.

It was a much better deal than the other party had offered. So this was the deal for us.

You get it. Christmas wasn’t going to be the first thing on my mind that year. I couldn’t get any sort of peace of mind. Although I have the nicest in-laws in the world, Christmas dinners, and singing carols were the last things I was thinking about. All I could think about was Hemingway's story. We had to reel this fish in without the sharks taking it from us.

The risk of running into sharks was mainly in the due diligence process. That is the period in which lawyers and accountants of the bidding party are allowed to go through your entire accounting, looking for skeletons in your closet. If they find it, they will use it against you for a lower price and, therefore, a better deal for their client. As far as we knew, we didn’t have any skeletons – Max had always kept a strong hold on our finances, and so had his predecessors. However, the due diligence process can take months. During those months, we already pictured ourselves as millionaires, but we were not there yet. I felt like Santiago, the fisherman, we had the fish hooked, but there was still a chance that we would come ashore with nothing but a gnawed bone. After all, a deal is only a deal when the money is in your account.

NUCLEAR STRATEGY

It was still Christmas break. We were all enjoying time with our families and figured the deal would surely pull through. When we came back to the office the first week of January, Vinted was all over the Netherlands. It seemed like they had increased their marketing budget tenfold. In that week, “Vinted” was googled thousands of times more than before. 

We were amazed. We had already given up contact with the other interested party, and now Vinted suddenly went on a rampage in the Dutch market – maybe they didn't want to take us over after all? We had never been this far in the process before, and it was all very tense.

Everywhere we went, we heard about Vinted. Birthdays and drinks with friends were killing me. Vinted was on pretty much every commercial TV program. All day long, primetime, and any other time.

What Vinted was doing at that time is what you call a “nuclear strategy” in marketing jargon, an all-or-nothing strategy, with the aim of being visible everywhere. But hey, at that time, we had no idea. We got nervous. We wanted the letter of intent to be signed quickly.

The letter of intent is a step in the process where you mutually promise to no longer talk to other parties and that you want to work towards due diligence. So, basically, you agree to exclusivity, but everything has yet to be finalized legally. The nerves were gnawing at our state of mind. We had to put our pedal to the metal to continue growing, but Vinted was all over the place, and the Netherlands started to try out the app en masse.

On February 7, 2020, Maud received a cheerful message from Thomas via Instagram. We were closing in on a deal, and he was really looking forward to the collaboration.

On February 9th, Vinted visited Amsterdam with a delegation. Together with the people from Peak, our lawyers, Max, Maud, and Sjuul, had a long meeting about the exact details of the deal. This got very granular. For example, how would we get United Wardrobe users to switch to Vinted? At the end of the day, I also joined in, and we had dinner together at a luxurious restaurant in the heart of Amsterdam. Everything was arranged perfectly. It was nice to see Thomas again and to meet his Vinted colleagues. The wine flowed generously, the evening was long and fun, the deal was pretty much done, and the stress left our bodies. On our train ride back, Sjuul and I both had a very good feeling about the deal. This couldn’t go wrong anymore, could it? Finally financially independent, and all that thanks to Vinted, who’d just raised 128 million Euros. Finally, I could buy a house. Finally, it would all work out.

AND THEN CAME… YES, EXACTLY

February 20, 2020. Sjuul, Thijs S., Max, and Maud flew to Lithuania to dot the I's and cross the T's. The deal was to be finalized, and the official process had to be decided on. Thijs S. and Sjuul were already secretly discussing how we would transfer every United Wardrobe user to Vinted. We signed the letter of intent, and things were looking guaranteed. 

Outside of our deal with Vinted, something else caught my attention. In China, people had been getting ill from a new, deadly flu virus for weeks. Things started to look bad in Italy, too, but in the Netherlands, everything was fine. Even on February 27, when the first coronavirus case was detected in the Netherlands, no one seemed worried. We won’t be hit as hard, was the collective sentiment. 

March 13, 2020. The due diligence was at an advanced stage, and unfortunately, some aspects of the business required further explanation. Vinted's attorneys considered us a risk because they believed we might not be following some very specific niche rules that were interpreted differently by different specialists. In addition, a number of historical calculations in our accounting surfaced that needed more explanation. 

I started to panic. Shit, shit, shit. Max dug deep. We were sure we hadn't made any major mistakes, but of course, the burden of proof was on us.

March 16, 2020, the Netherlands started to panic. The fear of the virus spread faster than the virus itself, and we saw that reflected in our orders straight away. The Netherlands was no longer concerned with second-hand clothing but with toilet rolls and canned food. Our sales fell. 

Damnit. Not now. Not in this process. We wanted to sign so badly. This was our moment.

At 3 p.m., a dramatic press release was put out in France. Mondial Relay, Vinted’s and United Wardrobe’s logistics partner for the French market, reported that it would cease operations because of the virus. In plain language, France went into lockdown, and people could no longer send packages with our logistics partner Mondial Relay, who also took care of the shipping for Vinted, which meant potentially serious consequences… Fuck, where is this going? I texted Sjuul. I could imagine the panic that must have broken out in Lithuania. The panic was becoming more serious in the Netherlands, too. Government aid was promised to companies, so we considered it as an option should the situation get worse. Our turnover plummeted. Suddenly, we were back in survival mode. 

On March 19th, our investors urged us to stop all marketing and focus on running our core business. One day later, we also decided to suspend all activities in France, which Vinted had already done. The French market came crumbling down.

A few days later, things really went wrong. Our fish was gnawed to the bone. In a call with Sjuul and Max, Vinted announced that it wanted to pause the buying process. They first wanted to get everything back on track internally. 

“The next check-in is planned in 2-3 weeks. Hopefully, the situation will be cleared by then, and we can continue,” Vinted's contact person emailed.

Oh god, I thought, here we go. We were standing on the shores, empty-handed and with a loss-making company. The sharks had caught our big fish, after all.

With tears in my eyes, I put on my running shoes and went for a long run without any clue where to go. After two hours of running, I was exhausted and arrived at Majella Park, a park in western Utrecht, with the sun just breaking through the clouds. My body had produced enough endorphins, I could smile again, and I knew we had to keep going, no matter what.

If necessary, I would cut down on my salary or put my measly savings into United Wardrobe. We had to keep ourselves afloat, and we had to get that deal done.

It seemed like Vinted also shut down everything in the Netherlands. They were no longer on TV, and “United Wardrobe” was once again searched more than “Vinted” on Google. The Dutch, meanwhile, were all staying indoors. Restaurants, offices, shops, everything closed, including the clothing stores.

That was the light at the end of the tunnel. In the first weekend of the first lockdown, we saw a huge increase in activity and orders. Without any marketing whatsoever, without spending an extra Euro, we had a record day. How did this happen? What was going on here? The lockdown was the explanation. People had nothing to do nowhere to go, and decided to put their clothes on United Wardrobe all at the same time. I noticed that the prices for Facebook ads had dropped way below their normal price. They had gotten at least seventy percent cheaper. Companies had apparently stopped marketing en masse, so now the Facebook ads were on sale, too. We took full advantage of it.

The NOW scheme, a compensation towards wages if you suffer a substantial turnover loss, was announced on March 31st by the Dutch government, but we didn't need the support because our numbers were through the roof. We decided not to apply. In the meantime, we were very cautious. If PostNL followed the French example and closed their pickup points, we might have to close down. After the umpteenth press conference, the government had stated they wouldn’t close package delivery and mail businesses. United Wardrobe was able to go on, and in those days, we were growing like never before. But every new press conference felt like a game of roulette to us. If all of a sudden, the pickup points were to be closed, then it was over. We would have to accept government support.

On Friday, April 3rd, we were exceeding our targets by no less than sixty percent. We had never done so well with so little marketing. Everyone in the Netherlands seemed to have found their way to United Wardrobe. 

We were happy with our growth, but in the meantime, Vinted was still holding back. On April 15th, they once more let us know that they wanted to continue to focus on their core markets, so they were no longer interested in buying us. Some days, I was very disappointed about it, but on other days, I was so excited because of our own successes that I almost forgot how badly we wanted that exit.

PATIENCE

Corona held us hostage for a few months, but another special thing happened in the spring of 2020. On April 21, for the first time in our history, more than 10,000 orders were placed within 24 hours. I had always said that if that happened, I would get a United Wardrobe tattoo and convince Sjuul to get one as well. Unfortunately, all tattoo shops were closed, so we had to be patient.

Vinted put our patience to the test. In mid-May, I was convinced that they were really done with the deal, but Sjuul still believed that a sale would follow. “Thijs, we are a bargain for Vinted. Have some patience!”

But I had no patience. I wanted to control the situation and not feel like we were being toyed with. Didn't Vinted see how well we were doing? The clothing containers in the Netherlands were closed at that time because there was too much second-hand clothing to process. The second-hand clothing market had never been this big. Our growth was endless. Surely Vinted had to take us over at some point? I couldn’t let it go. I’d lie awake at night, frustrated that Vinted was playing their cards so close to their chest. 

Fortunately, on May 21, I got a distraction. The tattoo shops reopened, and Sjuul and I got our first tattoo, our logo, on our upper arm, under our armpit. From now on, I will carry United Wardrobe with me forever, literally, on my body.

A few weeks later, on June 2, our patience was finally rewarded. Sjuul received a message from Milda, one of Vinted's merger and acquisition employees, who wanted to reopen the conversation. The entire circus could continue once more! Of course, it had not escaped Vinted's attention that we had got our United Wardrobe tattoos and that we were growing exponentially. If they wanted to show the world that they were the rulers of Europe, fine, but what were they willing to do for us in return this time?

It became clearer how they wanted to use us exactly after a takeover. They not only wanted a large market share in the Dutch market but also wanted to expand into new countries with the help of our team. Vinted is a European platform through and through, with European addresses and European regulations. You can't just launch that in a non-European country. They could, therefore, make great use of our website and app and customize it for the non-European market. 

We weren’t going to be bought so easily this time around. We didn’t want Vinted’s order to be the only one on the table, so we got in touch with other companies who had pre previously made us an offer.

We were loaded with the perfect ammunition for attracting new buyers. We had just reached four million (!) users. It was a huge moment for us. Not only had we survived yet another setback, we had come out stronger.

ONE BUYER IS NO BUYER

By the beginning of July, the negotiation was in full swing. We received an attractive proposal from Vinted in our mailbox. We called Peak, Tommy, and Duco every day, asking everyone and anyone who could advise us, what should we do?

The proposal included a part of Vinted’s shares, meaning we would become shareholders of Vinted after the exit. But we preferred a little more cash. That was important to me so that I could finally buy a house. So we kept emailing back and forth, all while trying to keep relations warm with another interested potential buyer, but then we received bad news. They had made up their minds and were not interested in United Wardrobe. Everything was hanging by a thread again, and it was of the utmost importance that Vinted did not find out. We had to remain confident during the negotiations and still dare to walk away if we were not happy with what was on the table. But our ammunition had been taken from us. I now understood the cliche “one buyer is no buyer.” We didn't want to admit it, but we were now way too dependent on Vinted.

Vinted was excited. They knew where we stood with a huge amount of growth during a crisis where every other company in the world seemed to be reporting losses. We really were the shiny new toy, the candy they wanted to have. The deal was so close I could almost touch it. Every night, I slept worse. Every day, I was more tense. On July 22, another letter of intent was signed, after which Vinted's lawyers and tax specialists could get back to work with the due diligence and drawing up all the paperwork. Something that got to me was that we could hardly talk to anyone about it. I had to hide this from everyone, including our colleagues. If they knew, it would only cause anxiety.

August came, and a massive heat wave broke out. My small attic room didn't cool down one bit, and my already shoddy sleep schedule went from bad to worse. I couldn’t sleep anymore. I wanted a deal. I wanted my own house so that I could start a normal life, goddamnit.

On August 25, things started to move ahead again. The due diligence was finished, and the lawyers had concluded the negotiations. We were ready for the Share Purchase Agreement, the final piece of the negotiations surrounding the sale of our shares. At the office, no one knew anything yet, but as soon as that Share Purchase Agreement was signed, we would inform everyone right away.

Two weeks later, the day finally came. We called our lawyer one more time, coordinated everything, and made sure everyone was ready to sign the Share Purchase Agreement that night.

Late that evening, on September 7, 2020, I signed a document that would make me financially independent. 

The deal was done. 

That night, I came home exhausted. My girlfriend and I took the car and drove to my parents. Although everything was still strictly confidential, and none of my friends knew anything about the process, I simply had to tell them. They were happy, relieved, and urged me not to do anything stupid just yet, “Let's see that money in your account first,” they said.

Wise council.

THE END OF AN ERA

On Wednesday, September 9, we called all United Wardrobe employees to come to the office. Sjuul, Max, Maud, and I arrived around eight o'clock. We made the office covid-proof and installed a large screen in the middle of the workplace.

Naturally, a buzz ensued among the people who were already in the office.

“Have we been sold? Is Vinted the new owner or something?” a colleague laughed.

It was extremely difficult to keep a straight face. Did she know what was going on, or was she just taking a wild guess?

Anyway, it was a tough day. Because the news we were going to bring was not good news for everyone. Some people wouldn’t be able to keep working when Vinted took us over. Together, we’d have to come up with a solution that very same day.

It was ten o'clock when the presentation started. Our opening image was the Vinted logo on the left, and the United Wardrobe logo on the right, and the handshake emoji in the middle.

Eyes widened. People almost fell off their seats. Some colleagues immediately understood. But with others, I saw the confusion, the question marks, the anxiety, and the fear. Sjuul explained where we stood and what our plan looked like. I was allowed to tell how we got this far and what it meant for United Wardrobe.

In fact, it wasn't until that moment, when I tried to explain it to my staff, that I realized that this was the end of an era. An era in which I had been in charge of a company with Sjuul and Thijs. An era when this business had been my life. Now, everything would be different. I would no longer be part of this family, this tribe, this world. Real life was about to begin. Or had it just ended?

I suddenly found myself crying. Tears streamed down my face. I saw tears on other faces, too. Tears of sadness, of joy, of disbelief, of everything at once.

After our presentation, some employees jumped up to congratulate us – corona or not, we really needed each other at that moment.

Of course, our staff also had a lot of questions. I struggled with a few things myself, too. The acquisition had to remain a secret for the next few months until the deal was actually closed, and our team would have been transferred to Vinted. Our employees had signed confidentiality agreements, but I was still afraid that something would leak before then. So, we still had to work very hard for a few more weeks to be able to close the chapter officially.

As if it were the most normal thing in the world, as if they hadn't just been told that United Wardrobe would soon cease to exist, everyone sat down behind their desks, just getting back to work. The amount of respect I had for these people!

That’s when the big project started. We had to keep everyone quiet, and in the meantime, not a penny had been credited to our account. The closing and delivery were scheduled around October 15. If everything went according to plan, we would sign the official documentation, and only then would Vinted's money go to the notary. It would then be distributed among the shareholders.

To me, this was a very difficult period because even though everyone had already congratulated us extensively — team Drakestar, the lawyer, our employees, our investors - I was still working my ass off in my attic room. We still had to deliver.

In addition, there was not much for me to do at United Wardrobe because marketing was down to its bare minimum, and it was difficult for me to deal with that. With our data analyst, I made another list of the most valuable influencers, people we had to work with one more time to tell the Dutch public that United Wardrobe would become Vinted, but we finished that in two days. Now, we just had to wait for the closing.

On October 20, the time had finally come. We signed, and at the end of the day, Vinted signed, too. The notary e-mailed the money had arrived and would be in our accounts the next day.

You guessed it, that night, I had a bad night’s sleep.

PING

I slept badly but woke up high on adrenaline. Was this the day I had been working towards all these years? How would I feel once the money was in my account?

What would you do if you knew that an insane amount of money was on its way to your account? I did the useless but unavoidable thing — I checked my account all day. Literally, nonstop. I had already logged in to the banking app at least 200 times.

It was ten past three when I logged in again.

My brain immediately registered that the screen looked different from the last time I looked.

PING.

The money was in.

It was on my account. 

It was really there.

It was mine!

I ran to Sjuul, who was in a meeting with the programmers. He hadn't been nearly as anxious as I had been that day, but that was typical Sjuul.

“Sjuul,” I yelled, “It's in!”

“Thijs, dude, take it easy,” said Sjuul. “I'm working.”

It's hard to describe the euphoric feeling I felt for the rest of the day. All the effort, pain, and uncertainty paid off. We were done. From that point on, I would be financially independent. United Wardrobe was sold, it no longer existed, and it was a success story. It was time for the rest of the world to hear that story.

Vinted had orchestrated the communication surrounding this deal very carefully. They had put a PR team of five people on the project, assisted by a Dutch PR agency. Ever since the deal was signed, we have approached journalists and conducted a few interviews. I knew someone at the national broadcasting agency, NOS, who wanted to interview us, and MT/Sprout published a cool piece about the takeover. We had prepared everything so that all interviews and publications would appear at the same time, on October 27th. 

Sure enough, early in the morning of the 27th, I picked up De Volkskrant from my doormat, and there we were, with an entire page about the deal. It had worked! It was picked up by the press. At eight o'clock in the morning, the news was aired on NOS. From that moment on, my phone exploded. The calls, emails, and messages poured in. We were asked to appear in the Achtuurjournaal, the primetime Dutch news broadcast, at 8 p.m. every day that evening. The news, with an average of two million viewers – who could say no to that? Of course, we said yes. Around noon, the camera crew came by. Then the Dutch broadcaster RTL  came by, and the crew from Hart van Nederland, you name it, we were all over national news.

“When we started, I was that weird hippie guy who studied in Wageningen,” I said. “People asked how my little second-hand store was doing. Now, all my friends buy their sneakers second-hand, and they do it on our platform.”

That day, two million Dutch people saw the very last chapter of this story, and now you can say that you, too, know the whole story. 

Except maybe the answer to that one all-important question, how much did you sell it for?

Well, that’s a secret I’ll never tell. 

Just know that for me, it’s enough.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

COLOPHON

First dutch edition: November 2021

Second dutch edition: April 2023

Copyright © 2023 Thijs Verheul /

Publisher Verheul 

Final editing: Suus van de Kar 

Cover and interior: Villa Grafica 

Author photo: Mathijs Jorritsma

English Translation: Floyd van Zoelen  & Ami Artiz

ISBN 9789083194707 (DUTCH)
NUR 336 (DUTCH)

#UnitedWardrobe

www.thijsverheul.com

Dutch title “Voor hoeveel heb je het verkocht?”

Publisher Verheul

A man suffers most from the suffering he fears.

famous saying

- author unknown

“You need a hippie, a hacker, and a hustler.”

 - Yung Wardrobe, 2018

CONTENTS

TAKING A GAMBLE 

URGE AND DISCIPLINE 

IN & OUT 

WAGENINGEN 

WRONG TIME WRONG PLACE 

SJUUL 

ONE WARDROBE 

A TENNER AN HOUR 

UWEE 1.0

FUCK FAST FASHION 

FROM SNOWFLAKE TO AVALANCHE 

LIS DE VIS 

IT HAS TO BE MORE 

MAX 

CRAZY MONEY 

SPEAKER 

THE BOMB 

NOT A NICE PERSON 

REM 

ALL ABOUT THE VIEWS 

PEAKING EARLY 

THE FIRST MILLION 

RICK 

ON THE EDGE 

WHOSE COMPANY IS THIS? 

THE PROMISED LAND 

BUSINESS CLASS 

DEAL OR NO DEAL 

A MONSTER 

BROKEN 

JUDGEMENT DAY 

PLAN A 

NEW BEGINNINGS 

EVERYTHING IS FOR SALE 

CANDY 

DO YOU KNOW VINTED? 

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA 

NUCLEAR STRATEGY 

AND THEN CAME… YES, EXACTLY 

PATIENCE 

ONE BUYER IS NO BUYER 

THE END OF AN ERA 

PING

PREFACE

I was with Sjuul, my business partner, spending a week in Friesland. On Sundays, we often ate dinner together to discuss the week ahead.

I remember it clearly.

That night, Sjuul said, “It won't be long now, will it?”

''What won’t?” I asked.

“Until the money runs out.” 

I felt myself turn pale.

“What do you mean?” I asked naively.

Sjuul looked at me. “We only have a few months left.” 

I knew our bubble was going to burst. I just didn't know it would happen so soon. Run out of money? But how? 

For months, I had been so busy growing our business in the French market that I had hardly looked at our finances. Apparently, everyone else did the same. We had buried our heads in the sand, continuously hoping that everything would work out somehow. 

In less than a year, we had created a monster.

This book is for anyone who wants to know what entrepreneurship really looks like. For those who want to know the truth behind those flashy headlines praising startups with millions in investments. For those who want an insight into the complicated yet fascinating world of start-up entrepreneurship. For those who want to understand how to become financially independent with just two thousand euros in starting capital.

However, don't read this book if your goal is to get-rich-quick. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to getting rich, and I do not have some standard lessons to offer you. There’s no roadmap to success, wealth, or both. The lessons in this book consist of trial and error, messing around, falling, getting back up, and getting lucky. So, all I can do is share my own story with you. This is a story filled with ups and downs, tears, euphoria, shame, joy, fear, and sadness, with surprises, secrets, bizarre twists, painful moments – oh, and a tattoo or two, just like life itself.

All I can do is share my story with you. 

The rest is up to you.

THIJS VERHEUL