A New startup feels like moving Imagine you’ve just moved to a new city. Everything feels different, exciting, and perhaps a bit intimidating. This is

I had a very aggressive rule of thumb in my first company when it came to getting our first customers: “I’d rather have 90% of

“What the hell am I doing?” I often struggled with this thought the past 2 years. Dealing with financial uncertainty is a big part of

Whatever gets results “Are we changing our way of working, again?…” One of our early employees at Funk-e, my previous company, stares at me with

Shifting team gears During our weekly meeting I literally felt something happen to our pirate team that I can only describe as “shifting team gears”

Recently we decided to scrap 40% of our plans for 2024 with Superconnectors. It happened after an introspective session with our advisory board. We chose

Beyond the personal brand hype “Hey man, I really tried making a personal brand like you are doing, but eventually it costed me way too

The perfect startup executive Leadership was probably one of my biggest insecurities when I started my career. In my early years as an entrepreneur I

In the past 15 years I have incorporated more than 8 companies and executed more than 13 business ideas in different countries. Some of these

Early morning work It’s 02.00AM and I am wide awake. Probably it’s the 8 hour time difference between Rotterdam and Mexico City and a jet

If you are like me, and millions of other professionals around the world, you have probably read Simon Sinek’s book “Start with Why”. Or at

A moment of Mancave bliss Last week my wife and son left to go spend some time with grandma and grandpa back in Moldova. And

“By the time I am 40 I only want to focus on being an investor” It’s 2018 when I wrote this down in my goalsetting

A surprising question “So what would be a breakthrough introduction I could make for you?” I ask one of the superconnectors that attended one of

Battling excel sheets It’s 01.00 AM, and there I am, locked in an epic battle with a cashflow forecasting template sheet I stumbled upon online.

For a living? “You do superconnectors for a living?” Said an almost incredulous visitor of one of our events in Berlin, just before the summer

Wisdom from the lemon stand man One of the most charismatic people I met is probably Enzo “la bomba”. Professional lemon juice maker. Enzo and

Setting up an advisory board was one of the first (and best) things I did right after we set up Superconnectors as a company. The

Fat “You got fat” My wife casually blurts out while we are sitting on our home balcony on a Sunday morning. I put my phone

Removing Funk-e from my desktop “Well, there it goes, all my old files of my now ex-company Funk-e are backed up on an external hard

Travel drama “Wait, what days are you going to be in Austin again?” My wife asks me. “Well, between the 10th and the 17th of

Basking in the momentum Its 21.00 o clock on a Saturday, and I look out my office window on the 10th floor that overlooks the

Sick It’s Monday and by now the very annoying flu I have had over the entire weekend should have been over, but guess what, it

Making lists It’s 1 day after our superconnectors event in Barcelona, and I’m sitting with Rebeka (the awesome intern) in a small cafe in Barcelona

Dressed like that? “Are you sure you are going out dressed like that?” I freeze, and look back at my wife puzzled. “What’s wrong with

“I love it” We are nearing the end of the working day when suddenly our normally quiet events management intern Rebeka pauzes, looks at me

Making connections is kinda what I do for a living these days. In a short amount of time I have met an incredible amount of

Now that I sold Funk-e, the number 1 question I got, was: how does it feel? Since I have been busy with this process for

Vocal booth It’s cleanup time. The past months Funk-e had been renting 2 offices as we slowly transitioned away from our old office at the

Superconnectors goes international As I step out of the plane in the late evening into the warm Portugese air in Lisbon, a feeling of excitement

I don’t like sales. There, I have said it. Sales can be an incredibly frustrating experience. You are constantly running after numbers the whole month,

Copy… paste.. copy… paste …copy… paste.. done! I quickly post the list of attendees in the WhatsApp group with the Superconnectors dinner attendees in Amsterdam

My first Superconnector This week I released a podcast about my first 10 years as a founder. In the first episode I took the time to

My podcast lockdown It’s so quiet that I could hear a fly buzzing somewhere upstairs in my tiny house. I am in the middle of

Maximum learning Every time I start a new project this is a question that goes through my mind: how can I learn as much as

Hello? “Hey man, what happened to this weeks Wednesday blogpost?” Says my friend from the co-founder article on the phone (see article here: https://misterawesome.nl/life-after-startup-how-not-to-find-a-co-founder/) “I

Just visiting Last week Friday I attended my first non-Funk-e monthly wrapup meeting at Varias. It felt super weird. I got to introduce myself and

Fear of failure It’s the middle of the night, my eyes are wide open and my mind is racing. Many “What if..” questions linger in

Obsession “This week I have had 56 WhatsApp conversations” I proudly tell my wife. My wife rolls her eyes and says: “You’re obsessed..” I am

A few articles ago I hinted at the fact I have been working on a concrete new project. Today that veil is finally lifted: since

A specialist and a generalist talk A few years ago I was having a conversation with a close friend of mine that works at a

It’s holiday time so for this week I wanted to reflect on identity again, through a holiday story from the past and my Dutch and

Awkward ramen A few weeks ago, a founder I recently met asked to have lunch with me. Come lunch day, it was the kind of

Negotiating for freedom The picture of what the next 1,5 year might look like, is becoming more clear. So recently, like the real adult that

It’s 17.30 on a Friday evening, I am about to call it a day and go home. Just when I am about to leave my

The bondi boyz Last weekend I visited the pre-opening party of a new co-working space in The Hague. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and

It’s 7.25 AM and our flight from Romania back to the Netherlands is about to take off, when my 1,5 year old suddenly starts screaming

Last week I visited a huge tech conference in the Netherlands called The next web. Here hundreds of hungry entrepreneurs presented their businesses, their views

Last week, my company and team moved to the same co-working space where I had gotten an office since late 2021. After 2 years working

I’m scrolling, scrolling and scrolling through random names in my phone’s contact list. And I think to myself: “This one knows a lot about marketing,

Pffffffffffffffff…. A long sigh leaves my lips flapping around for a good 3 seconds as my shoulders slouch and I stare out the window of

Now that my new podcast business was online, I was faced with the following dilemma:  Should I immediately look for paying clients (for example sell a

From managing dude to Podcast maker “Hi I’m Alex, from Funk-e.. eh wait no, from Mister Awesome and I founded a company before going solo