Interview with an Entrepreneur by Federico Bley and Mariles van Laarhoven
Helmer Schukken is a Dutch entrepreneur who is putting his education and work experience to good use. After graduating he started as a consultant and went from biomass broker to co-founding Zonline, an online platform for homeowners who want to convert their homes to solar energy. In 2014 he co-founded Social Impact Ventures, a social enterprise growth fund that invests in and provides support to social ventures. I visited him together with Marlies Van Laarhoven, co-founder of the IEM Caring Foundation, in his office in Amsterdam to ask him about entrepreneurship, values, and how to succeed in the jungle of markets that are thriving today.
How did you start with entrepreneurship?
After my studies I worked in Indonesia and wanted to stay there, but my wife wanted to come back so I joined her. When I returned to the Netherlands, I had two things on my mind: I wanted to be an entrepreneur in a field that would allow me to go back to Indonesia, and I didn’t want to do it on my own. Firstly because it’s not as much fun doing it alone and secondly because I have a lot of shortcomings, so I needed people to fill those. From textbooks I had learned that it is easier to be an entrepreneur in a growing market than in a non-growing market.
At the time, it was all about green energy. There’s a lot of green stuff in Indonesia and there’s a big demand in European power companies. I knew the power companies from prior work as a consultant so that sort of came together naturally.
I was invited to go and see Al Gore and there was one thing that resonated with me: he said that it’s not about money, it‘s really about how you invest your time. Are you going to spend it on the next generation of oil drilling, on super-fast glass fiber so you can trade faster, or do you want to invest your time in something that’s going to make you proud when you’re a grandfather?
You said that you had shortcomings and needed people to fill them. How important do you think that self-awareness is when you want to be an entrepreneur?
I think there are two answers to that. One is that it is very important because nobody can do everything that needs to be done in a company. The other one is that if you start to think about all the things that need to be done in advance you probably never get started. You also have to ignore a couple of things and just work it out. When I started I didn’t know anything about finances. I was an engineer and I ended up doing all the finances so I basically learnt as I went along.
You’ve co-founded Social Impact Ventures. What projects are you currently investing in?
We’ve been preparing Social Impact Ventures for two years and are operational since last summer. We’ve looked at about 850 companies and we’ve invested in two of them. We generally segment companies into six impact segments: 1) cleantech, greenhouse gas emission reductions; 2) biosystems, bio-based economies; 3) economic development, redistribution of wealth towards the beginning of the value chain; 4) civic engagement, allowing people who are distant from the labour market to become active; 5. education; and 6) health and well-being.
How do you measure the success of your projects?
We are an impact fund. We are neither an impact first fund nor an investment fund. This means that we believe that it’s equally important to generate financial return as it is to generate an impact return. The first thing we do is define whether we think the company is a social enterprise. It’s not a strict definition but if I had to summarise it in one sentence, I would say it is a company that solves a societal issue in a purely commercial and measurable manner. Let me give you an example: We invested in Taxi Electric, which is an all-electric taxi company that primarily hires drivers who are over 50 years old and have been unemployed for a long time. There are two impact levels: on one hand, we reduce fine dust emissions in the city by driving electric cars and on the other hand, we give a job to 40 people who have been long-term unemployed. It’s very difficult to get a job in the Netherlands if you’re over 50 years old.
How do you raise money for your company?
It’s very different for an investment fund than for a company. To be honest, I was much more confident raising money as an entrepreneur because I knew the team that I was managing. I also knew the market I was in and the clients who wanted my product, whereas as an investment fund you’re basically selling trust.
Before Social Impact Ventures you co-founded Zonline. What was your incentive to do this? Was it your previous career?
This was weeks after my Al Gore moment, so I decided to stay in cleantech because I knew a little bit about it and I thought it was the right thing to do. As you do in the Netherlands when you want to do something new, you start drinking coffee with people you know might have contacts to people who are relevant, so I started doing that. There were three or four people running around with this idea — it was not my idea, the biomass was not my idea either, it was never my idea. This investment fund was not my idea either, I always come in just after somebody else had a great idea. Zonline, which is now part of Sungevity, claims they are part of the rooftop revolution; every rooftop in Europe, or in the world for that matter, should be covered with solar panels because we’ve got an unlimited source of energy and all you need to do is stick it on your roof and it works for 25 years. The question was why everybody with a roof doesn’t have solar panels on it. They did some market research and one reason was that it’s too complicated and the other reason was financial; it’s too expensive. So the basic concept of Sungevity and Zonline was to make it easy, fun and affordable. They had an offer for the customer with an edited picture of their house with solar panels on it including information about guaranteed cost savings. The second step is that we don’t only guarantee it, we also finance it. Instead of paying for electricity to a utility company, you pay us the same amount and you start saving and paying less. That’s the promise in the US, but in the US you have bigger roofs and more sun so it works better. It’s also about service, being able to create a community of people who share the rooftop revolution, and to make it fun to create apps so you can say “oh, I saved this much and my neighbour has done that” and this kind of gamification.
How did Zonline start? Were you invited to drink coffee with friends?
Yes, that’s it. I think with all three startups it has always been about people. You’ve got to believe in the concept but in the end, especially if you’ve been a consultant, you can always find a reason not to do it. It’s much easier to say no than to say yes. For me, it’s always been about smart people who I trust and I know that something good will come out of it in the end.
What would you recommend to someone, especially a student who just finished his studies, who’s full of ambition but devoid of ideas?
Drink a lot of coffee… No — I started with consulting and I think that’s been a great start for me. There are only smart people in consulting, you get to work with great companies and it changes every couple of months. I learned a lot and I think it is important that you start working for a group that can teach you what work is about. It’s different for everybody. Some people just start being an entrepreneur from day one. The most important thing I learned in consulting was to write concisely; to write and present properly, which as an engineer is not the most important thing during studies. I think it’s extremely important, for whatever you’re going to end up doing in life, to be able to write and communicate very clearly.
What was it like going through bankruptcy with the biomass factory in South Africa?
In retrospect, I think it was great. My brother was doing an MBA (Master of Business Administration) at the same time, and I invested about the same amount of money in the factory as he invested in his MBA. He told me that I went through a whole MBA in the same period of time, that I did everything that they teach you in a MBA from an idea to bankruptcy and everything in between, but it was real life, so I learned so much more than him because he did it only in an academic way, which I can’t judge because I never did an MBA.
When you start a company, is there anything else that could help you in finding the balance between the drive, the persistency and the risk?
I think it’s much easier to get help than you think. You just have to reach out to somebody who’s an expert — and there are experts everywhere. It’s amazing, but simple phrases like “Can you please help me because I’m trying to achieve this” and the fact that you’re sincere about it, incites good people to just help you. I should have done that more. What I also would have liked is to have a bit more of a father figure/business coach/mentor who could have forced me to take a step back. In this group, a lot of people told me that, as a technical guy, I’m always inclined on having the numbers right, working on strategies, and being very analytical about doing investments. Here in our company, very often, people say “What does your gut feeling say? Take a step back.” And I think that’s what I missed in the beginning. Sometimes it’s important to take a step back and to think “Are we really doing the right thing?”
Anything else you’d like to say?
To people who finish university and don’t know what to do, I recommend doing something, anything, doesn’t really matter what. I think my Al Gore moment is much more present with millennials, people who are graduating now. Whenever I try to explain what we’re trying to achieve with Social Impact Ventures, the younger the person I explain it to, the easier they understand it. It makes me very hopeful and I think there are a lot of people who are studying now who not only understand the need for doing it but also have the urge. My sense is that nowadays students are more balanced on what it’s about in life and I think it’s more important to have a purpose in your work. I see that with bigger companies; they have more and more difficulties attracting talent compared to smaller companies because they miss that element of purpose. This makes me very positive about where I think our economy and our society is moving towards.
When you look for interns, who are in a way the leaders and entrepreneurs of tomorrow, what qualities are you looking for?
I think there are a number of things that play a role here. Firstly it’s got to be a person who’s fun to hang out with. Secondly, they need to understand and be positive about what we’re trying to achieve and thirdly they need to have a couple of skills we simply need. We need to run spreadsheets, do analysis, market research; you’ve got to have some skills in that area. But finally, I think it’s fun to have young people who come in with new ideas. I find young people much better at finding data, googling, basically doing research. They are just much better at it than me. And they got other ways of thinking about problems and that’s good to have in a team; diversity.
Credit: 51st issue of ESTIEM Magazine (2016)
You can now read the whole 51st issue on ISSUU Platform!
