„Be honest with yourself. Maybe you’re not good at being a CEO.”— WR

„I think a little bit of stubbornness is very good. When you want to start your own business, a thousand people will tell you not to do it.”

Because it’s not good. Because you will lose your money.

Or because ___________ (fill in the blank with any other reason that only aims to stop you.)

But tell me now, who is able to stop someone that knows where they’re going?

You must believe in your story even if others don’t.

This is what the man you’re going to read about today is encouraging.

He’s been through a lot of things. And when I say a lot of things you can imagine that he even trained american soldiers, being a Jiu-Jitsu teacher.

But let’s stay in business!

His name is Wouter Reijers and he is the Honorary Consul of The Kingdom of the Netherlands.

He studied Economics and Consumer science and has a vast experience in restructuring companies so they can become successful and profitable again.

In his case, the entrepreneur journey started in 1993. Since then, he founded four companies.

He started the first business during the high school. Back in those days, he was buying tools from China and then resold them. The grind, the will to make his own money was in his blood. At eighteen, he already had a car.

One thing that helped him a lot was the chance to grow in an entrepreneurial family. Seeing his parents working on their own business.

But even if it may help a lot, Wouter considers that growing alongside entrepreneur is not a must, in order to become one. And as you know, there are a lot of successful entrepreneurs which didn’t have this chance. In the end, this thing can’t be really learned. It’s DNA, either you have the drive or you don’t.

3 things that truly matter

Wouter believes that there are things much more important than having the chance to be in an entrepreneurial environment.

1. Believe in yourself

Simple as that. The biggest problem that you’ll face if you don’t believe in yourself is that you won’t be able to sell yourself. Try to think that you’re a product, even if you’re more than that. You bring benefits, you solve problems and you’re supposed to meet expectation.

Now tell me: Can you sell meat if you’re vegetarian?

2. Don’t give up

When you’re in a crisis. When you have to deal with problems. When your patience is being tested. When it doesn’t work exactly as you hoped. Never surrender. And don’t forget that all of successful entrepreneurs failed in a way or another. And that’s okay!

3. Have a bit of luck

Whether we like it or not, you need to have a bit of luck. Or appropriate circumstances. Or planets to be aligned. Or the gods to be with you. Name it as you wish, but you got the point. And be conscious that you can force you luck in the right direction, using the first two things we already talked about.

„If I would’ve done more on the networking side, I would’ve been successful even faster.”

Since we just talked about things that really matter, Wouter remembers that he started quite young with his business, but he wasn’t a big „networker” at that time.

Is not a secret anymore that your network determines your net worth.

Never underestimate it, when thinking about how to grow your business. Is not always just about numbers or reducing each and every cost. Networking is one of the most important things.

“Never try to do something that you’re not good at. There are lots of other people who you can hire to do that.”

What’s the best advice that Wouter can give to the ones that don’t like to socialize that much?

„Be honest with yourself. Maybe you’re not good at being a CEO.”

You need to learn what are you skills. You need to find out what’s your strong point and to be aware of that! In the end, if you do not conquer self, you’ll be conquered by self, as Napoleon Hill said.

And the best story Wouter can remember as we speak about knowing who to hire is about a client of him that was the owner of a successful business… without being the CEO.

He had a nice lady that was the CEO, because he was aware of the fact that he’s better at other things than telling people what to do and how.

Be optimistic and positive. Have a good mindset. Making a mistake is just learning. Think about the children that are learning to walk. They fall several times but they try again. And because they’re too young to know what’s “giving up”, they make it in the end, and you can see them running.

“I was sitting at the bar of the hotel and next to me was an american guy. A very interesting guy.”

Going through his career, he told us a story he remembers with joy. When he finished high school he worked as an export manager for a company. He was traveling around the world.

One day, he went to Poland to hold a marketing course for the employees of a company they were doing business with.

Sitting at that bar, the evening before the event, a guy started to talk to him. The man was the CEO of a huge company and asked Wouter to take part at the course. So the next day, the american attended. He listened, smiled and didn’t say anything.

The next evening, they were both back at the same bar.

The american told Wouter that he likes him, and he truly wants him to go to the States and work for him. It didn’t matter that Wouter told him several times that he’s not interested, the american kept talking like this is going to happen anyway, and it’s just a matter of time.

“I will get you to the states” were the last words of the american.

One week later, Wouter got back to Netherlands. The door bell was ringing. FedEx was there with a small envelope.

Now can you guess what was in that envelope?

Tickets. Tickets to the States.

In that day, the american called, saying that he is expecting Wouter to go to the States.

(speaking about the importance of stubbornness)

“He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

Finally, Wouter flew to the States, and stayed even longer than he planned to.

That company was making equipment for the greenhouse industry. They also wanted to open a new office for Europe in Netherlands and Wouter was going to become responsible for that.

Time passed and after two years, Wouter chose to start his own company and stopped working for them.

He gained a lot of experience even came to Romania for the first time, in 1991.

When the biggest part of Eastern Europe started to know what freedom tastes like, the commercial part was being developed more and more. He got several requests from different companies, because of his previous work.

So he started to do some consulting for different clients. One of them was a furniture company, owned by two young and enthusiastic guys. The problem was that they were burning money faster than they were making it. In the end it even went bankrupt.

But because Wouter connected them with big companies in Netherlands that were buying from them, the guys asked him for help.

He managed to help them. But because that was the golden age of furniture, looking at the profit margins, he decided to quit consulting and started to focus only on furniture.

“We solve problems in the background.”

It’s maybe the best explanation Wouter can give about what they do in a small section from the company. They don’t write softwares, but they monitorize systems for dutch clients. They use special softwares to monitor servers that must run in certain parameters.

So what they try to do is to keep the system of clients running without them seeing it.

Doesn’t that sound ambitious? Of course it does. It is.

“When I look at the Netherlands, our mind of trade comes from the 17th century.”

We were curious to find out what does Wouter think that is missing, speaking about how to do business and build companies in Romania. So he felt that he needs to tell us the case of his own country.

More exactly, about a golden age when they were sailing all over the world to do trades. So the dutch have this history and it was never interrupted. It continuously developed.

But if we look at Romania, it was suddenly stopped. There was a period when you were not allowed to do your own trade, and suddenly, after that, you have to start all over again.

So he believes that it’s about the lack of tradition and knowledge. However, he’s optimistic and thinks that it is going to change in the near future. He can already see some companies that are very successful already.

Reorganising companies, is about making decisions.

So what does it take to make a good one?

Based on his vast experience, he always needs two major things:

1. Data

”First of all, I need to have a dash board. I need to have the indicators. It’s very important for me to see where we are standing.”

What are we doing? Where are we going? You need to track where you are going. There’s no need to say anything more than measure, measure, measure.

2. The right people.

Whatever you do, it all depends on the people you work with.

Wouter is convinced that is never about him when he’s helping companies. He’s just organizing things a little bit. It’s about the people who work with him. If the team is not good, you will not succeed.

His best advice for an entrepreneur:

„If you don’t believe in yourself, you won’t make it. Accept that you can make mistakes. Don’t give up, keep pushing forward. You always have to remember one thing:

The next day is coming. It’s not like you won’t end the day because of something complicated that you have in front of you. You will. Maybe not in the best way, but the next day is coming and it comes with a new chance.”

*This is a story with key takeaways from the Startup Grind fireside chat in Cluj-Napoca with Wouter Reijers.