The first seeds are planted

Hi! Welcome to my first post of (hopefully) many about building a business. If you have any comments about my posts, send me an email 👋🏻

#BuildingABusiness

Since november ‘20 I’ve been working at Coffee IT. A small team of 20+ developers and designers focussing on developing the best mobile apps. Started by three young software engineering students. They worked for their first clients out of a small dorm room. My task when I joined was clear: get the company visible to the right potentials clients.

Now, exactly two years later. We doubled in size. During the pandemic the client base kept on growing. Brought many talented developers from all over the world to Utrecht. Those three guys, who started in their dorm room in 2014, are now running a multimillion business. Inspiring.

As the development teams grew, also the clients started asking about more services. Coffee IT always wanted to be full-service to it’s clients, so why not also offer the marketingskills we use for Coffee IT as a service. The first clients asked for some minor marketing work: a single LinkedIn campaign, a report to improve organic ranking in the App Stores, graphic video. After a couple of months, we could build it to a solid revenue stream. We had something going…

Around that time I had my quarterly talk about my personal growth within the company. During this chat with Fabian (my manager at Coffee IT) we talked about the possibility of Coffee IT setting up a separate business to offer app focused marketing services to businesses outside of Coffee IT’s client base. In the last year I witnessed first hand how much potential this market has and I have the skills to serve the customers. So, what if I joined als a partner instead of an employee?

The first seed sprouted

In the following weeks we started talking more and more often about a collaboration. I went to diner with the owners of Coffee IT. They wanted to check if I had the entrepreneurial spirit and vice versa, I wanted to know if they believed in this idea and our partnership.

During that diner they told me that they also wanted to explore the idea of getting more experience and skills aboard this new venture. This would be a former employee of Coffee IT, a marketeer that worked with them in the early days of Coffee IT. My first thought wasn’t positive. Why would we ask a marketeer, that’s hasn’t worked in the tech space for years now, to join this new business? The ship doesn’t need more captains on board.

But, that idea needed to grow on me. I thought: let’s see where this path will take us. So we planned a meeting with that guy en started talking about the business. After a couple of nights filled with pizza and beers, I came to the conclusion that he would bring extra skills en experience to the table. Let’s quit talking and set up this business!

Progress is never linear

In the following months, we started negotiating about shares and the investment we needed to make. The other marketeer eventually came to the conclusion that starting this adventure wasn’t the right time for him. A well thought out decision. We respected that. The only downside was that we wasted many months of talking about the business, instead of building it. So that path had a dead end.

On a personal note, I realised that, should my girlfriend and I want to buy a house. This is the right time to do it. In The Netherlands getting a mortgage as a new business owner is very hard. So, we bought a house. Like we wanted. In the middle of a forrest with a garden that’s bigger than we could ever dream of. I took almost 4 weeks off to get the house in order. That also meant that the new business yet again got pushed to the background.

A plant needs water and sunlight

We decided this is gonna be the team. The three founders of Coffee IT and myself. Fabian (Coffee IT’s CCO) and myself will take care of the day-to-day of the new company. Fabian will be responsible for sales and acquisition and will act as CEO. Myself will take care of operations and as CCO/CMO). Thijs (Coffee IT’s CFO) handles finance and legal. Job (Coffee IT’s CCO) will assist anyway possible and share his knowlegde about running a service-based company. We decided about the investment it would need and agreed on the distribution of shares. Time to build!

The name

I remember so clearly. We wanted to test the waters before we all committed to this new adventure. So we build a website within a couple of hours and agreed on the name Coffee Digital. A design intern at that time make a logo and we we’re up and running. Fabian famously said the words:

‘If we’re gonna go with Coffee Digital just for now, we’re never gonna change it. You know that right?’

I knew he was right. So, from that five min brainstorm we decided on the name: Coffee Digital. It has a clear connection with it’s roots: Coffee IT and Digital because we’re a business focussing on the digital space.

Energy and time will grow the plant to a mature tree

Now we have a business, a product/service, name and even a website. So the groundwork is done. Of course we did more than just brainstorming about the name. But the proces of deciding on the focus/product of a business is a story on it’s own. I’ll share that in the near future.

Coffee Digital is officially going live on the first of January 2023. What this next chapter will bring, we will find out soon. In a perfect world I want to post about my experiences on a monthly basis. Let’s see where this path will bring us.

For now. Let’s get back to work. 🚀