‘My advice is to get out there’

On the Promoting Enterprise portal we are talking to the entrepreneurs on the 33 Under 33 list. This Secrets of Success initiative aims to shine the spotlight on a selection of successful young entrepreneurs, documenting their stories in an effort to inspire others to consider entrepreneurship as a career path. Today it is the turn of young Dutch Thijs Verreck.

Thijs Verreck is from the Netherlands and is a graduate of TU Delft and Imperial College. His hero is his father and he has a number of entrepreneurs that he can turn to for mentorship. As for entrepreneurial spirit, Thijs has always had a great drive to create new things. He believes that the essence of being an entrepreneur is to work hard and have the freedom to create new products. His company is called Wavyr and its product is a software platform that allows anyone to build digital products.

Tell us about your business.

My business is called Wavyr. Our aim is to let businesses quickly build products for internal use, such as dashboards or web applications. This way they can automate and customise their internal needs.

Where did you get the idea from?

I got the idea while I was working in my previous company, SocialSpaceship, and was in contact with customers. I started to notice a pattern when working with some customers.

How old were you when you first decided you would start your own business?

I have had the ambition to become an entrepreneur since I was about 16 years old.

How did you get it off the ground?

I got it off the ground by using my previous experience and focusing on developing a minimum viable product that worked as quickly as possible. It took about nine months to deliver the first version of our product.

Who did you turn to for help?

As soon as we started development, I began reaching out to industry experts that I knew and fellow entrepreneurs. Above all, we also involved our customers in the development.

Describe some of the obstacles you faced as a young person starting out in this business.

The biggest obstacle for me, but I think this is the case for any entrepreneur, is overcoming self-doubts and dealing with stress. As an SME entrepreneur, you don’t have a big company structure to take some of the load when things get tough. Even going on holiday is difficult, because any free time will slow down business growth.

How do you define success?

I would define success as having the freedom to do what ought to be done. You get the opportunity to move a business in the right direction.

What was the most challenging aspect of setting up your business?

The most challenging aspect is making something out of nothing. Taking a product to market is hard.

What has been the most rewarding part of your journey so far?

The most rewarding part has been when our first customers started using the product. That is an absolutely magical feeling.

What are the future goals of your business, and how will you go about achieving them?

Our future goal is to launch a V2 of our product next year and to expand our customer base into all European regions.

What advice would you give to other aspiring entrepreneurs out there?

My advice is to get out there. Talk to customers. Don’t sit on an idea for too long, but act on it and see what happens! You have to learn and fail fast.

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