The First Customer - The Importance of Taking Risks and Making Mistakes with CEO Leopold van Oosten

[00:00:27] Jay: Hi everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast. My name's Jay Aigner. Today I'm lucky enough to be joined by Leo Van Oosten. he is founder and CEO of American Standard. He's also the first guest that made his own cover art, for The First Customer. So he automatically comes in with a, you know, a big win for us.

Leo, thanks for being on buddy. How are you?

[00:00:46] Leopold: Thank you so much, Jay. And you actually made a very funny introduction there because you pronounce it as American Standard and my company is called Amsterdam Standards, 

[00:00:55] Jay: standard. Well, I think 

[00:00:56] Leopold: but the funny, thing is that it was inspired by American Standards. 

[00:01:01] Jay: all right. So

we'll have to hear that,

after we get started. So yeah, my apologies,

[00:01:05] Leopold: no worries. No, I,

[00:01:06] Jay: standard. and actually I was telling you, we, checked out your website beforehand. I really love the marketing and the copy and just like kind of the technical details of the way you guys are marketing what you're doing. where did you come from originally? And did that have any impact on you being an entrepreneur?

[00:01:21] Leopold: yeah, well, I grew up in a very small, dull town in the center of the Netherlands. not sure if you've ever been there, but this is like super small. you don't want to be there. we don't even have like, massive cities. So, eventually I ended up studying hotel management in The Hague.

Not sure if you know The Hague, the only famous thing we have there is the international court of justice where we, you know, put a real big war criminals on trial. but that's basically everything we have there and our local government. So I actually wanted to do something with, you know, hotel restaurants or some chain of, fast food.

that's what was I was dreaming of. So I went there. but in the second year, they sent me to London for my internship. and there I, actually woke up a little bit. So I was there with my friend. I was. Green as it could be, you know, because I was coming from this extremely dull town and this guy actually took me everywhere to like all the clubs he showed me, you know, what a metropole actually was about.

And the cool thing was that he, showed me that, back then this, I'm talking about a 2001, that you could already, buy tickets for, entry tickets actually online there. And he was, he found this like a super remarkable because back in the Netherlands, he was always queuing, you know, at the post office to buy these tickets.

And, he said that, wow, this is like amazing. Do you have these online ticket services? This is something that we could really launch in the Netherlands. And I had some experience, because when I grew up and when I was like, 15, 16, I saw a couple of guys in my high school, actually becoming extremely wealthy.

some of them actually started companies at 14, 15, they hired their parents to work for them. And later I found out because there was like a big mystery about them, what they were doing. But I found out these were the first guys who actually, I did something in affiliate marketing and they actually, sent traffic to adult websites in the U S and those websites, they know what they actually did was, it was just like first affiliation of casino businesses actually.

and the cool thing back then was that if you actually had some signups, they sent you the check. And we don't have checks in the Netherlands. We only had cash and we had like, you know, like digital money, but checks was like, awesome. you received the check and you went to the bank. So that was my inspiration.

I was like, what's happening there. And I was trying to figure it out and I was actually trying to copy them. Now I also wanted to have this affiliation business and I succeeded during my hotel school. I had one of the three biggest adult websites in the Netherlands, which I mean, there was no like real content.

The coolest thing that I had on my website was like fake Anna Kournikova images. So this is actually, this is what gave me the experience of that. You could actually do something that you could actually make money. And of course, now I had to work with tools like Microsoft front page, Dreamweaver. I know that many guys on your show talk about that, you know, about those early days.

So I knew how to build something. I knew that there was like money out there that there was like real traffic. So when we were there in London, we decided, okay, when we're back in the Netherlands, we will build this thing and that's it. And, you know, I was always trying to find other ways to make money.

And this was my first experience. So when we came back in our second or third year as students, we launched this online ticket service in the Netherlands. We were the first ones there, the first local ones. Of course you had like Ticketmaster, it was already everywhere, but they were just selling, you know, like tickets for the big concert, for the big artists, for Michael Jackson, who I guess was still alive back then.

but, yeah, there wasn't nothing for like the local clubs, the local festivals. And we did that. And that was just, you know, awesome. That was our first experience. but in the Netherlands, you don't have the credit card culture. I mean, back then PayPal was upcoming, but like, it was always in the news that this was like still unsafe and, you know, so the young people, our target group was not having a credit card.

So, you know, we really had to close our presale like two, three days before the event. Because, you know, people were just wiring the money to us and it was always this delay, you know, between the banks still. So we had to be sure that we closed on right on time. So we did that, you know, we built this platform.

It was super cool, especially as students, you know, this was like a rockstar life because we also had to go to those events to check at the doors if people were coming in. And then, you know, we went in, we made some party photos, we just partied ourselves and we uploaded this on our platform. And then, you know, we had this pretty cool platform.

And then in 2002, we were actually approached by Vodafone. Not sure. Do you know Vodafone in the U S well, yeah, you have them. Okay. So they came to us and they said, so we have this phone here. And this is like, like way before smartphones. Right. And they said, we have this. internet browser or something.

We were like, whatever. I don't know what that is, but they said like, this is exactly what we want you guys to launch, you know, among your. community, because we had the people in mind that they, you know,to use our, their new phone and they offered us like a project and we were still trying to make some money with that platform.

It was super cool. And we were selling some tickets, but then, you know, we could, with building one platform and we easily know how to build those websites. We could earn as much as selling 20, 000 tickets. So the next day we decided, damn, okay, this is cool. We will be an agency. Let's close this ticket business.

And, yeah, we go all in. So that's how it started for us.

[00:06:37] Jay: Wow. so like I said, I looked at the website. I love the,you know, I work a lot on our messaging, at JDA QA and I help my friends workshop stuff. how did you guys come up with your current marketing strategy? I mean, it's a really interesting way to frame, You know, the services itself.

I mean, and it's, I've seen it, but it looks fresh. So how did you guys come up with that?

[00:07:01] Leopold: we actually came up with it only six, seven months ago, and we were forced to do so. you know, I just, told you how our agency started. And after that, honestly, we had 19 very easy years. The Netherlands is like a super small community. if you have like a good reputation there, if you do well, if you really take care of your customers, they will just bring in new customers.

so no, I've been through many crisis actually, in those 19 years and somehow it's, It actually only meant every time it just meant a boost for the IT, but a year and a half ago, I don't know, there are like too many crisis going on right now. So we finally felt it in our business that business was just going down.

Our clients do not have the funding anymore. Everyone is trying to make some profit instead of just burning at crazy rates. So for the first time, We actually felt that we had to take care of our marketing. We never spent like a one euro on it in the past. So now we are forced to do so because now eventually we grew to an agency of like five offices.

We have,back then around 150 people and the first quarter of last year was crazy. It was the best quarter ever. And in. April and May, everything went down. So, you know, as an agency, you usually talk about your bench. How many people do you have on your bench? Two years ago, we had like 40 vacancies open and two years later, you know, we had like 13, 14 people on the bench, which is crazy and, you know, and the pipeline was just empty.

So then you start thinking like, wow, what's happening, you know, or how can we, you know, how can we make up for this? So you start looking around. So we started building a marketing team, and then we actually found out that we do not have any competitive advantage. I mean, this is just a red ocean right now.

When I started offering our services, years ago. We were quite unique, especially 12 years ago when I opened our offices in Poland. I was one of the first ones to actually offer this near shoring slash team augmentation model that was like, you know, I was preaching everywhere that this was like a good solution for companies in Amsterdam or we're looking for, But it changed.

I mean, there's so many companies out there and all of them offer pretty much the same services. So then suddenly you're forced to think about that. You know, how can you be? How can you be special? What are we actually offering? What kind of technologies and who are we helping? So yeah, that was like a big struggle, but there's, for me, there was just one solution and it's to read a book that I read like three, four years ago.

And then it actually did not resonate too much, but it's Donald's Miller's book, how to build a story brand. And it's not just a book, but it comes with the framework. So during my holiday, I read it myself. And it's cool because every time you read a chapter, you're also forced to go to the framework and you fill it in.

And then I came back with a pretty cool script, actually. I gave the book to my whole marketing team. I asked them to read it within like two weeks. And then I flew to Poland to organize a session where we all aligned on that. And then bam, then we introduced it. And this really helped us because without that, you know, we would be clueless.

yeah, because this is like a new thing. This is a crazy that like, After 12 years, you finally start thinking about that. It also says something about, you know, how booming the it was before. And it says something about, you know, the, I would say the crisis that the IT industry is in here, in, in Europe.

I'm not sure if you feel the same over there, but, yeah, for sure. And yeah, I'm quite happy, you know, after analyzing all that, we really found out that we are there to help the founders that, you know, that struggle with scaling their tech businesses. And we want to tell them that they are not alone, that there's like a lot of other founders out there that struggled with the same challenges.

We are mainly targeting SaaS businesses and it's like super hard, you know, to grow a SaaS business from technical perspective, from people perspective, from marketing sales perspective. And that's just what we actually found out. And it's also my personal experience, because as I told you, I started with this product company, you know, like the ticket service, we actually, somehow, Yeah, started an agency, but at the agency felt quite boring, I would say after like four or five years.

So back then we just decided to invest all our money, all our profit always in startups. And as an agency, well, you probably have the same experience. you get like so many offers probably on like a weekly basis if you don't want to participate in some kind of new project or company. And when you're a naive, then you do that.

So, but we knew we were naive, but we also had a strategy back then with my previous co founder said that if we do this 10 times, probably one of them will be like a huge success, right? So eventually we ended up doing that like 22 times. in the past, like 12, 13 years. and you learn so many things from that.

You learn how to build proper software, how to scale an organization, how to finance that you'll learn so much about the motives that people have. yeah, you learn how to do research, how to build a good product. and we failed so many times. I mean, I made some really. expensive mistakes. And that is actually eventually what I started to explain our clients at Amsterdam Standard.

and that is actually what started to grow the company. so it was just that and, yeah, and it's still my passion. I mean, I'm still trying to coach,You know, the young entrepreneurs, but also we have like a lot of experience, to help the scale ups further. So yeah,

[00:12:23] Jay: like that. and speaking of kind of the young entrepreneurs or, you know, kind of aspiring business owner folks, if you had to start an agency, the agency version of Amsterdam standard over again tomorrow, What would be step one?

[00:12:38] Leopold: I wouldn't start an agency anymore. Agencies

[00:12:43] Jay: I mean, fair answer to that question. I think,

[00:12:46] Leopold: are really hard to run. I mean, in the good years you can make them profitable. But there's always, there's always the pressure from your people to come up with proper projects to, you know, give them like a fair career path. You have demanding clients. It is really hard to run an agency. And, I don't know why I'm still keeping up with it for 20 years.

I guess I have really great people around me, but yeah. it's also hard actually to sell an agency. it's yeah. So I don't hope that I'm still doing this when I'm like 65, but, I don't know what the way out is. I luckily I still enjoy it every day, but agencies are hard to run. Yeah. I would never do it again.

I would go for a product company for sure.

[00:13:31] Jay: would you, that's interesting. So no, so, so not a service company. See, I've always, as a services guy, I've always wanted to do, you know, some sort of product eventually. And I've been a

product guy in previous lives and, you know, works as a product owner and stuff. Why would you rather do a product company than a services company?

How, I mean, just know what we know today. You know, if you had to go do it tomorrow in 2024, with kind of the back wind of the turbulent, you know, tech time we've had, you would still pick a product.

[00:13:59] Leopold: yeah, I guess so. Yeah. It's more scalable. it's not, I'm in there, let's say for the money. I really love to work with the people. I love to help the clients, but I also want to make impact. And I guess with the product company, you can make me more impact. And, yeah. and I'm probably also more like a product guy.

I really loved, you know, to focus on products and, Make them awesome and scale them. I'm quite happy that I invested actually in a few product companies. So I'm still part of some boards, companies that are really scaling well. And if I look at my co founders there, I'm actually quite jealous how they're like traveling the world, showing everywhere and, you know, having like awesome feedback and yeah, that's a.

That's probably what I would prefer.yeah, so, so it's also, I mean, I never had a plan to start this agency. I ended up with it and I loved, you know, the fact that I was making people happy that I was earning money. It was like good money. it was like easy decision. I mean, if you finish hotel management school, you don't have to apply for a job because you already have a running business.

That's easy. Right. So yeah. Yeah. I mean, I really love what we're doing and we have a new mission since a year and we have great employees are with us for like 10 years and really, you know, we, make life's better for sure. But, it is stressful to have an agency. Yeah.

[00:15:14] Jay: Yeah. It can be for sure.

give me one of your main goals, personal goals. For 2024 and what you're doing to achieve that goal this year.

[00:15:26] Leopold: Wow. Well, last year I became the CEO again of Amsterdam standard. I wasn't the CEO for like a few years and I was more focused on our holding. We have like a group of companies and, last year I actually decided to go back because you know, I had to fight this crisis. My other co founder had like difficult times.

So I came back. and my main goal actually was there to make some standard future proof again. I wanted to move, you know, from this red ocean back to the blue ocean and wanted to add something that could really. You know, make them some standard unique again. And it was also, I mean, I'm, I don't know how old you are, but I'm 43.

I was doing this business for like, 22 years. And I think when I was turning 40, I have two kids. I actually started thinking like, wow, what are we doing here? I mean, we have like great people. We have like so many smart minds in our company. The world is full of problems. And basically what we are doing is producing lovely software, making entrepreneurs happy, rich, building cool companies for them.

But what is our impact on the world? Right. And what is like the, what is the purpose that, that our company actually has? I mean, it's a very commercial business actually. And that didn't feel good anymore after all those years. So I really wanted to divert our strategy into a direction that we will make impact.

So I decided that, we will fully go for, clients who do something with sustainability, clean tech, climate tech, and renewable energy. I really think that the problems in the world are quite serious, you know, and that maybe with technology we can help. So that's what I started doing. And that is a lot of storytelling.

I mean, we need, I need to tell the organization, what's going to happen. I need to tell the clients I need to find new clients. so yeah, that is my purpose that everyone understands that. And that I can also show that it is real serious business. I mean, that it is that those companies are actually, you know, cool projects, good projects.

and that will make impact with that. But I mean, also from like business perspective, it's like, I feel it's a smart decision. If you look at the investments in the U S for example, last year, 25 percent of all the VS VC dollars went to companies. doing something with like clean tech or climate tech.

So this is actually huge and I just want to build some, you know, like real specialized common knowledge in the company. this year, that is what I want to do. And I really want everyone in the company to feel by the end of this year that was the right decision. And the finally that this specialization is actually something that will make us, you know, grow in the next five or 10 years again.

That's my goal. And I'm 

[00:17:58] Jay: I love that. that's a great goal, for the year. So let's end on one other question. another personal question, cause we talked about business and we talked about, you know, what you guys do. if you do anything on earth and you knew you couldn't fail. What would it be? Non business related.

[00:18:15] Leopold: non business. Okay. Well, I also started DJing when I was 40 and, I really make some, I think I have some talents, but I never dared to show it. So if I could play someday at a big festival for a big crowd, then I would be, 

[00:18:29] Jay: I've heard rockstar. I have

not heard, you know, I've not heard concert

[00:18:34] Leopold: DJ. That's a new, you definitely, that's a brand new one for the list. yeah. Okay.

[00:18:38] Jay: yeah, no, that's a good one. So, all right, Leo, if you want to get in touch with you, or Amsterdam Standard, how do they do that?

[00:18:45] Leopold: just visit Amsterdam Standard. com. You can, directly, shoot, invite in my agenda. It's open calendar. So I'll be happy to talk to everyone.

[00:18:53] Jay: Beautiful. All right, man. Well, thank you for being on. It's great to meet you. and I hope you have a great rest of the week. All right. Thanks Leo.

[00:18:58] Leopold: Thank you so much, Jay, for having me have a good day.