Retrospect Frank & the Backs 2021
Inspiring and challenging
For the team of Frank & the Backs 2021 was an inspiring and challenging year, in particular because of the impact of the ongoing pandemic. As a partner of WorldStartup, Frank & the Backs supports purpose driven ventures in executing a sustainable growth strategy to become successful. To accomplish this the organization works with a network of seasoned professionals and C-level executives, so called Backs. They support the ventures with necessary expertise and experience.
Business Wheel©
Recently Frank & the Backs has started working with a special method called, Business Wheel©. The method is developed to increase the chance of making an impact venture successful and is based on insights of experienced entrepreneurs and literature on how to build ventures and what can be learned of successes and failures. It’s used for the intake of new ventures to get proper insight in their current status and future opportunities. Business Wheel© analyses the different aspects of growth, like impact, strategy, team, budget, product, commerce and organization. This results in actual short and longer term actions and points out where specific support is required. Progress is regularly monitored to make sure the ‘business wheel’ is still running. In this way, the development of a venture is systematically followed. It has proven to be a useful tool, also in communications with third parties, like investors.
BackTalks and Back-to-Back meetings
In 2021 Frank & the Backs organized several events and meetings. BackTalks, a hybrid event meant for founders and Backs, took place for the first time last autumn. Over 30 interested parties attended the live event, more than 50 people worldwide were present online. The event was moderated by radio host Bas van Werven. BackTalks will be continued in 2022. Back-to-Back meetings are specifically intended for current Backs and potential Backs. Experiences, working methods and best practices are shared during these live meetings. This year two meetings took place, a third one has been postponed to next year because of corona measures.
New clients
In the past year we have welcomed several new clients. One of them is Reseda Life. The company develops products using plant based micellar technology and plant based extracts as alternative for the excessive usage of chemicals in every day products. Other interesting new clients are Infrascreen, that offers climate control to greenhouse growers, and Apex, a pharmaceutical manufacturer who develops an anti-viral treatment based on fyto technology.
Team
This year some changes were made in the Frank & the Backs team. Diederik de Stoppelaer withdrew as managing director, Egbert Ottevanger, co-founder, succeeded him. Fokko Kool, continued as legal officer and became partner, Menno Stijl and Paul Dekker joined as ‘Backs in Residence’. This year Martin Koestal, Jordie Van Hagen and Ezrah Goeloe successively worked as intern.
