Exploring Rotterdam's Scale-Up Ecosystem Growth

Lars 0:00

Welcome to a very special episode of the UfRotten and Podcast. It's the last episode of this season, so today I am really happy to have invited my partner in podcast, Lisette Brackenburg Van Bakken.

Lisette 0:15

Thank you.

Lars 0:15

Can I say Van Bakken or just Lisette Brackenburg?

Lisette 0:18

You can say whatever you want. I usually just say Lisette Brackenburg, there we go.

Lars 0:23

Okay, in this special episode we'll explore how our scale-up ecosystem developed over the past four years, who you found the most interesting founders and podcast this year, and basically everything you ever wanted to know about UfRotten. So this is episode 53 of the UfRotten podcast. Normally we dissect the startup and scale-up stories of remarkable entrepreneurs, but today myself, lars and Lisette we just look at what we've been up to over the past year. Now, previously, lisette was responsible for sales at Rotten's largest co-working space, cic, which many of you know, and we've been working together since the beginning of UfRotten, where Lisette has been responsible for maintaining the relationships with our top 10% founder CEOs and partners, and she deals with special projects. Maybe we talk about that in a moment. Special Special. She also sits on the board of tech advocates Netherlands. She is a CrossFit trainer and she is the producer of quite a few festivals. Of course you know Epsom Festival that we're responsible for, but also Blythop Festival and Oranje Bitter, two great festivals in Rotterdam. Lisette, great to have you on this side of the mic. Finally.

Lisette 1:35

Thank you. I am excited to be here and also a little nervous.

Lars 1:40

A little nervous. Yeah, that's actually so. That was my first question. Normally well, people might recognize your voice from the commercials, so what is it like to now be a guest in your own podcast?

Lisette 1:52

I hope I don't say any stupid things, and no, so I am. I actually have quite a major stage fright, so I don't really like to be in the spotlight, but this is nice.

Lars 2:12

This is nice, well, so there's fluorescent lighting, so there's no spotlight here. It's just us. I know you're also a great singer, but we might talk about that later because, well, this is your stage, You've done a well, you're doing a great job and it's great to maybe together dissect not just your story but, I think, the story of Rotterdam. As you know, in this podcast we always have a few statements that you can answer with true or false. Are you ready for your statements?

Lisette 2:40

I am.

Lars 2:42

The first one the market value of startups and scalabs in the greater Rotterdam region almost tripled from 2019 to 2023.

Lisette 2:52

Also very, very smart marketing you're doing there, you've read the impact report.

Lars 2:56

Okay. The second one On average, lars says kinder or kind of more than 10 times per podcast episode. True, okay, that's kind of true. Third one I literally fell in love with a founder.

Lisette 3:14

True.

Lars 3:16

By 2025,. I will live in Spain.

Lisette 3:21

I hope that's, true.

Lars 3:22

You hope that's true. No, you have to say true or false.

Lisette 3:24

Okay, I say true.

Lars 3:25

True, there we go. Okay, we got that on record. All right, let's. Let's maybe, lizette, start a little bit, also for our listeners, to see how the ecosystem has developed over the past four years. You said the market value has tripled. Do you know by heart from what to what it grew in Rotterdam? I have it here from me just in case.

Lisette 3:49

Yeah, so that's cheating. Okay, so over the past I would say six weeks to two months, we have been working on our impact reports, which involves a lot of numbers, so to ask me for a specific number by heart is very difficult. I think it has increased with 280%, but I do not know from how much to how much.

Lars 4:13

Okay, but that's the most important part in the 280. I think I'm looking, I'm reading here. So it was 12 billion in 2019 and it grew to 35 billion this year, which, interestingly, actually last year or this year was been quite rough right For quite a few companies in the valuation. So I think in general, we don't take credit for this, but I think it shows how the ecosystem has been growing. Maybe I'll just pick up some other numbers from the report. Rotterdam is the best connected city in Europe. According to FDI research. Rotterdam is the second that city when it comes to scale ups and, what not many people know, this is part of the third startup ecosystem in Europe. Do you want to explain why we're part of the third ecosystem in Europe?

Lisette 4:56

So I think that has to do with us being a part of the Amsterdam Delta region. So I am assuming you're referring to the start of genome reports, which evaluates startup ecosystems in Europe every year. Number one, I think, is London.

Lars 5:16

So technically that's not Europe anymore, right? Technically it's not even Europe. Wait, we made it to number two then.

Lisette 5:20

So officially, we are hereby promoted to the second ecosystem of Europe. I think number two is Berlin.

Lars 5:28

Yeah, I think you're right.

Lisette 5:30

So number three is the Amsterdam Delta and obviously, since the Netherlands is such a small country, that would involve Rotterdam.

Lars 5:38

Yeah, so I think they cleverly picked 100 kilometers radius around Amsterdam, which then includes Rotterdam, I think also Utrecht.

Lisette 5:46

Yeah, I think it even includes Eindhoven, really Okay. Well, so, which is smart? That's really smart, smart marketing.

Lars 5:54

Maybe somebody else is scratching their head now like, okay, but anyway, so we're a great ecosystem. I think that came out of the report. So we talked about markets value growing. Also, the investment raised by companies in our region has grown quite a bit. Do you remember how much that was? I'm sorry for putting you on the spot here, but you are definitely putting me on the spot.

Lisette 6:15

No same answer.

Lars 6:17

I do not know by heart but it so, so this more than doubled. It was 392 million between 2018 and 2020. So that's also before a broader than started, and over the past years it's been 880 million from 2021 to 2023. So that means it more than doubled, which I think. Particularly if you look at our region, it's interesting that impact driven companies energy, transition, circular economy, etc. Have been growing really fast against the market, so that's great. And finally, there's more than 49,000 people working for startups and scalabs in our region.

Lisette 6:50

Yeah.

Lars 6:50

I think that's insane.

Lisette 6:51

It's a lot, as you always say. It translates to one in 20 Rotterdamers.

Lars 6:57

There you go.

Lisette 6:58

Working for a startup or scale up.

Lars 7:00

If you don't work for a startup or scale up yet what are you even doing?

Lisette 7:03

What are you even doing?

Lars 7:04

Yeah, there's a website We'll probably see that in the commercial soon where you can go. All right. So, Lizette, let's go to our podcasts. You and I have recorded 52 podcasts in the past three seasons. 21 of those were published in 2023. Maybe can you run us through some numbers, some data.

Lisette 7:29

Yes, so the number of downloads we had grew by 52% over the last years.

Lars 7:37

That's nice. Thank you, listeners.

Lisette 7:40

People are able to listen to our podcast via their channel of choice, but most of the people I would say 57% of the listeners actually listen to it via Spotify and 21% via Apple.

Lars 7:53

That makes you wonder the rest when on earth are. Maybe Google podcasts maybe just our websites, I don't know. It's interesting.

Lisette 8:06

We have a big Dutch listeners base 75% but we actually also have 25% of our listeners from abroad, which is the reason that we recorded in English. After the Netherlands, biggest listeners base is in Germany, followed by the US and then the UK.

Lars 8:24

Thank you, germany, and actually US and UK. We can just say thank you in English.

Lisette 8:31

You also found that, but I am immediately going to debunk this myth. You found that there's more people from Amsterdam listening to our podcast than people from Rotterdam and Delft, but I think that our listeners are very tech savvy. They all work with VPNs that tend to go via Amsterdam. Yeah, that's true.

Lars 8:56

Because the internet connection starts in Amsterdam, right, or something like that. Anyway, we welcome Amsterdamers to listen to this podcast. Okay, and now to the point where I asked you for a quote. My favorite filler word, as you might have noticed in the past 52 episodes, is kind of or kind of. I tried to use it less and less. You guessed that I said it more than 10 times. You know I like the data, so what I did?

Lars 9:26

I downloaded the past four episodes. I know it's not representative, but at least it gives you an idea. I had AI transcribe the audio script into text and then asked ChatGPT to figure out how often I said kind of or kind of, about six times. So on average, yeah, it's only six times. That's not true.

Lisette 9:50

That's also. You're cheating here, because you only downloaded the last four episodes and you have been aware of this filler word for at least more than four episodes so I would say it's definitely less now, but I think if we listen to 10 episodes ago, it might be 15 or 20 times per episode.

Lars 10:09

Okay anybody out there who wants to download all the episodes and make the analysis, please let us know. We'll give you a free upstream t-shirt, I think, if you bring it. Okay, so, listening to last year, so what were the most popular episodes that we found when, basically, we looked at number of downloads per episode in the first 30 days? So that's what we looked at. Would you take it away? Who are kind of? The winners this year.

Lisette 10:36

So, number three, do you want to do a drum roll? Oh yes, number three is Funger Ipma with his startup Arctic Reflections, who dived a bit deeper into his mission on slowing down global warming by basically spraying the ice caps.

Lars 10:57

That's. I mean, this was one of the boldest missions I think we had on the show, right? Yeah, he has a great history. He worked for Inneco, so he knows how to do things at scale, and then I think we called him the ice monster.

Lisette 11:09

Yeah, yeah, it's such a special story and he's also made the newspapers more than once with it. Obviously it's a very special mission, but, yeah, it seems so simple just spraying seawater onto the ice caps, which makes sure that it freezes faster.

Lars 11:27

So Cool story. Go check it out, funger.

Lisette 11:30

Ipma Number two is Coenburgers from SolarDuck, who I think we have to congratulate today. We can congratulate today because it was just announced that he raised 15 million euros.

Lars 11:48

Yes.

Lisette 11:49

Yes, Congratulations Coen. He also has a very, very interesting story as a founder on. Most of it is on how to prevent rookie mistakes. So I guess definitely a lot of valuable lessons for a lot of aspiring or early stage founders out there.

Lars 12:05

Yeah, he's building solar panel was basically. Basically, he's getting solar energy on the oceans, right, that's his big mission that he's going for. Also, actually an experienced founder I think he worked for Diamond Shipyards before. Yeah, yeah, great, okay.

Top Founders' Interviews and Favorite Episodes

Lisette 12:24

So that brings us to number one. Number one is Matijslee from Betelijder Systems. Congratulations.

Lars 12:29

Matijs, I'm winning this prestigious award? We do not know what the price is, but it will be an upstream. T-shirt.

Lisette 12:39

Matijslee from Betelijder. He recently raised 40 million from the European Investment Bank, so he talks a bit more about that. He also has a very inspiring story because two years ago he was the only person on the steam. In two years grew from one to 100 people, which is obviously hyper growth. So very, very interesting story. And honestly to Fongar I would say, if this is any predictor on how you are going to grow in skill, then I'd say yeah, it's a good sign.

Lars 13:11

It's a good sign. So, and obviously, when you look at this list, there's one thing that bothers both of us. I guess it's three white males, but we had some great female founders on the show as well, and other diverse founders on the show. Maybe they didn't make it to the top three, but they're definitely worth listening to, so go check them out. I think what connects these three is that they're working on some really big challenges out there right On energy, transition, climate, those kind of things.

Lisette 13:44

Yeah, and also so this is the top three, obviously, of the last year. They've taken over the past the first 30 days after their release, but actually our best listened to podcast is a female.

Lars 13:57

There we go.

Lisette 13:58

Yeah, we will get back to that later.

Lars 14:01

Well, maybe, okay, we'll get back to it later oh. Cliffhanger, so maybe from last year. Which of those stories stood out to you personally? Most of the last 21 episodes.

Lisette 14:14

So I think that is the very first episode we recorded for this season, which is Jamal Oolal and his company, social Debt, and I've known Jamal for, I think, 10 years already, when I still worked for CIC. Him and his co-founder, jermaine, were our very first tenants and and the the enthusiasm they both had was just so, so amazing. And you still see that in the enthusiasm that he has with his current company and the passion that he talks about the problem he's solving, which is Debt among young people. It's yeah, it's to me that's it's so inspiring to hear someone talk so much passion about what they're doing and actually seeing them succeed as well.

Lars 15:02

Yeah, that's a big topic and I think quite a few founders struggle with, you know, finding a scalable model in Social entrepreneurship and I think he's he's really showing the way. He's also showing that it's not easy, but he is definitely on a on a path. So I think also thank you for making the introduction there, because I think he was not, you know, standard on a list yet, but I think you also made us aware that we should interview him. I think he was great.

Lisette 15:25

Yeah, yeah, and so when we first talked to him, he was he only just began With this, with his new company, and I think by now he's grown a lot. Yeah, I'm very happy to have him in our founders community. So which was your favorite episode.

Lars 15:42

So, since you picked a social one, social debt. So, as you might know, I love tech, but I even love nature more because I think it's the greatest tech in the world. So I really, really, really enjoyed the conversation we had with oyster reef, george birch, and why I liked it. So one thing he said was that oysters are the best water filter in the world because they can Filter a hundred lead, 200 liters water per day, which, if you think about it, you know there's no filter, no mechanical filter, that can beat that and basically. So that's that's partially interesting, but I why?

Lars 16:24

What I really enjoyed about his story is that he's using nature to create a sustainable business model over time. So listen to his podcast and you'll find that he actually uses his learnings from working in asset management In restoring and regenerating nature, and I think he's doing a really great job. And he also puts a perspective on why running a business is a better idea than running it as a kind of an NGO, subsidized, etc. So I think it was really insightful. It's a long episode, but if you're into this kind of stuff, listen to it. I really enjoyed recording it, listening to a story.

Lisette 17:00

Yeah, it's a great story, so definitely go check it out.

Lars 17:05

Okay, and then we had a special episode around April 1st Um, rebecca, rebecca, so maybe we should ask Rebecca for it. So, okay, maybe what happened here for those that didn't listen to it. Rebecca was our April Fool's episodes, so Lars had while you do this, I take a sip of my champagne.

Lisette 17:27

Yes, take a sip of your champagne. Lars had Chad GPT write the script About a woman in, or a female founder in stealth mode working on a company, on what's the word again. Chris genome editing genome editing, but as she said, creating better humans create Chris?

Lisette 17:51

yeah, creating better humans, which is obviously Ethical question if that is an improvement to the world. But it was me who had the honor of playing Rebecca in the in the episode and I guess lessons learned. If you just have me read from a script, I sound like a robot. So people actually thought that the entire podcast was recorded with a robot, which wasn't the case. It was my actual voice.

Lars 18:20

You know what happened. I was at a drinks at 42 workspace and I will not mention her name, but she came up to me. She said plus, I always listen to your podcast. Oh, you want some champagne as well? Yeah, go. So this is the end of year, we're celebrating here. I she comes up to me, said I really enjoy your podcast and I love to listen to it. However, this episode I had to switch it off Like after 10 minutes because this woman I don't know who she is, but she really I hate because she, I'm not here If I, if I break, I hate her, but she didn't hate the voice. You know what she hated. That was the Perfect answers that she gave. It's just like horrible. I would ask her like a really difficult question and she would like immediately answer it in the most perfect way, was you?

Lisette 19:06

So I yeah, lessons learned, so next time I will be reading off a script, I have to make it sound more human even more human, be more human.

Lars 19:14

Yeah, but we had good fun. Yeah, it took us probably two and a half hours to record, so hard it's still online for those of you who want to listen to it.

Lisette 19:25

It's a very short episode because obviously, when you're reading off a script, you just run through it. So we were finished recording in 18 minutes, I think. But to make sure people didn't notice and to make sure that the podcast would still have the length of, I think, 45 minutes Is what we usually do For the last 30 minutes or so we put an AI generated song on repeat, so the entire conversation only lasts for like 15 to 18 minutes and then it's 30 minutes of an AI song on repeat.

Lars 19:54

There, you go yeah. Go check it out. It's a great song. I guess. I still hope that Rebecca will come and visit us. Upstream I think we also. We also offered people around table conversation with Rebecca and she was, she was. So we fed the jet tpt with a profile For her to look like. What's the guys?

Lisette 20:15

we, we were yeah, from we were yeah. The Document or the docu series is called we crashed and it's Adam Newman. I'm new and his wife Rebecca Newman, so we largely based her entire appearance and forthcoming on Okay, go, rebecca On AI.

Lars 20:33

Okay, so you already notched this. We talked about the favorites of last year that our listeners listen to most. Maybe, maybe, quickly what? What were the all-time favorites? Maybe?

Lisette 20:44

Yeah, so a spoiler alert. I already ruined the number one, which is Ellen Sano from from Yuki. So Ellen is a yeah, the CEO or the managing director I think is our official title of Yuki, managing two offices, one in Rotterdam and one in Antwerp and and she has a great story on how she got there. She was involved with Yuki from the very early days and Then eventually took over the position of a CEO, and she really has a great story, so I would recommend everyone to listen to that one as well.

Lars 21:18

Yeah great, restaurant tips as well. Yeah, great, that's, true.

Lisette 21:23

Yeah, number two is hon kleppen, who is the founder and no longer CEO because he stepped down of lead info. Yeah and he bootstrapped it as a single founder, which is, yeah. Also so many lessons learned, I think, or lessons to be learned for other founders, especially those who think that raising venture capital is the only way to go. I would say listen to this podcast, and Hans view on why bootstrapping is was his way to go.

Lars 21:56

Yeah, that's a good point and actually I think more and more founders, I think in the stories we had Moved away from the traditional how much money did you raise as a measure of success versus how do I build a profitable company over time. And sometimes that requires getting VC money or other money. But I think Hans story is awesome. He won the M&A award of the year. Yeah, I don't know which year, probably last year.

Lisette 22:19

When he, when he was yeah, I don't know, we have to go this year. Yeah, this year, okay, okay, it's actually his brother. Quirene Clapeau is now the CEO. Yeah family business.

Lars 22:29

Yes, yeah, great, and hon also thank you for hosting one of the dinners at your home. Yes, okay, and the number three I think he likes to be number one, should we mention is number three.

Lisette 22:39

What do you mean? He likes to be number one.

Lars 22:40

I think he's really like he's a winner.

Lisette 22:43

He's. You mentioned the number three, or yeah, oh, okay, well.

Lars 22:49

I, so this is the number three in the number of listeners. So it's Naldan who you know or not nobody's the founder of we Transfer, and he was actually working at Adelie at the time we interviewed him. I Think it was really interesting because what I learned from this conversation is you know, he founded or co-founded this great company, we Transfer, which was awfully obviously acquired, and then he started kind of in this next phase of adventuring and he talked about you know how to stay in the beginner's mindset and how to surrender. Surround yourself with the right people. It was a great conversation. I think we recorded that at Erasmus.

Lisette 23:24

Enterprise, I guess.

Favorite Moments and Initiatives in Rotterdam

Lars 23:26

Thanks for joining us there. Naldan was really nice, so there you have it. This is your top three. We have a free t-shirt for all the top three winners. Just reach out to impossible email address at uprottedamcom. We don't know where now we get a t-shirt. If you ask for it, we're not gonna send it, but thank you for being the best listened podcasts of all times. Let's shift gears, lizette. We've done so many things at uprottedam. I think there's too many things to remember. People might want to download. The impact report. Link will be in the show notes. Looking back at 2023, what? And we've been doing many things right. So we've helped founders get access to talents. We've helped them go international, find other markets. We help them raise capital. We help them connect to each other. What, if you look back, is your top three favorite moments?

Lisette 24:21

Yeah, and this is mostly about last year, but I think A lot of it just Goes back to the entire period of our brother them, and I think a bit of a background story here is that when we started up Rotterdam, we were all about Creating programs at scale that would help multiple founders in a period of, for example, three months with their Access to markets or their access to talents, and we set up campaigns and, yeah, other programs, and then at some point we figured out that what these founders are most helped with is for them to just be connected to each other and for them also to be able to take the stage. So then we sort of shifted, pivoted, from a program that creates its programs to a Program that is all about connecting people and putting them on a stage.

Lars 25:23

Yeah.

Lisette 25:25

And that's that's what we both like best as well. So I think, looking back at Mostly last year, my favorite moments all have to do with those yeah, those two pillars so putting people on the kind of getting them known out there and connecting them to each other, yeah, yeah, okay.

Lars 25:43

What's your number three?

Lisette 25:44

Okay, so number three is the icons campaign, and we launched half of it this year and we'll launch the other half early next year, and for this we basically Selected ten founders and we put them on a stage, and what that means in practice is that Hopefully, you've been seeing some of them already Overtown on the different billboards and abris spread out over Rotterdam. We interviewed these founders on what drives them and what led them to their, the company that they're founding, and and the whole thought behind that was to make these innovations and these companies and these founders more Almost tangible to the average Rotterdammer.

Lars 26:28

There's such a thing as an average Rotterdammer, but yeah, but I guess ones that are not connected to tech and startups, and yeah ones that are not necessarily involved in Innovation on a daily basis.

Lisette 26:40

So these people will probably use the innovations of these founders on a daily basis, but they'll have no idea that that it was created right under their noses in Rotterdam. So we wanted to sort of make a bridge between yeah, the Rotterdammer and these, these special founders, in our icons campaign.

Lars 26:58

Yeah, there we go. That was my number three icons campaign.

Lisette 27:01

very nice yeah number two is the tech socials. Love it which, yeah, was the idea of the lovely team at 42 workspace, where they wanted to create a safe space for founders to come together and basically bounce their challenges off each other and learn from each other. And, yeah, they put their money where their mouth is and Created the Rotterdam tech socials, or I think right now They've just rebranded it to tech socials.

Lars 27:32

Yeah, branching out to the rest of the Netherlands.

Lisette 27:36

Exactly and it basically means that in a, in a mastermind setting, but then in a pressure cooker period, because it lasts for about an hour or an hour and a half you are connected to four other founders. I think it's a groups of five and you just go around in a setting talking about your challenges and then the other founders can basically Briefly pitch their ideas to you and hopefully it's it helps you tackle the challenges that you deal with and these these socials have become immensely popular and the last time one was held and is a Few months ago already, but I think the next one is planned for February, so coming up again.

Lisette 28:17

So I would say, keep an eye on the LinkedIn page, oh, check it out.

Lars 28:20

What I really like is that it's run by founders. So the the last one I was at was run by Guy from Idri day, which is a large scale up here, and I think that really helps putting founders on the stage. You know what another fun fact is? Actually Inovat, which is the scale up program in Los on, switzerland has copied the idea of tech socials, or landed or borrowed anyway, but I think that's a great detriment of its success, because they were looking for a format. We hooked them up with oh hot and and they were really happy with it.

Lars 28:53

So tech socials go check it out.

Lisette 28:55

Yeah, also worth mentioning. So this was, I think, initially the idea of 42 workspace, but by now it's really become a community driven event where they do it in collaboration with the Erasmus Center of Entrepreneurship. I think, yes, delft, next delft.

Lars 29:10

So yeah, yeah, very cool, very cool. Okay, and now up to your number one number one, slightly biased, obviously.

Lisette 29:17

What else am I going to say then? Upstream festival.

Lisette 29:20

I was guessing you would say this yeah it's a yeah, it's one of the, the proudest moments in the year for me. Every year, our Three-day or actually spoiler, the next year today innovation festival taking place in the city center of Rotterdam, where we not only bring the entire ecosystem together but, yeah, serve the the founders of our community and also beyond our community With their yeah, we help them with their main challenges in Finding investors, finding corporate clients, finding Dell and and connecting to each other upstream festival, so that would also be one of my favorites.

Lars 30:01

But since you've already picked this one as your number one, I have to find another number one.

Lisette 30:04

You picked your three before. Oh yeah, that's so you can say this, but I knew you were gonna choose this Now, but go check out upstream, upstream festivalcom.

Lars 30:12

Go sign up, be there. It's gonna be awesome. And also, is that I Mean? I say this to you quite often, but I think Big thanks to you for using all your skills as a event organizer next to all the other great things you do, in making this success, because I think we've also learned over time what works and what doesn't work, and I think it's a strength to you know Make decisions over time that make the festival better. So you have a very important role in that. I want to thank you for that.

Lisette 30:43

Yeah, I like how we also wait. Every year we change Things, not minor things, quite major things actually, because we we find out what works and then, yeah, our setup, our format isn't holy, so we change it if it's necessary. Yeah, it works best. There we go. There's no holy format.

Lars 31:01

We make it better time, All right you're top three my top three and you said I couldn't cheat, so I'm gonna try not to cheat, but I probably will. No, you can't not cheat, okay. So, to introduce this, all my top three moments have to do with connecting founders. I can't help it, but I think, from everything we do, connecting founders is the most important one and social thing I like most. Number three is, you know, we organize deep dives where we really bring a few founders together to share their challenges with each other, and Sometimes we bring in a special guest. And my number three is actually the deep dive we did with a very special guest, dedeek Hommers.

Lars 31:44

I Think we had eight founders at upstream it after you VIP roundtable and we invited Dedeek Hommers as the outsider in the group.

Lars 31:52

And I think Something remarkable happens when you have a group of scale-up founders, ceos, who always talk about, you know, access to capital, access to market, all the stuff that comes with a scale up and then all of a sudden you bring in an outsider, somebody who, in this case, works in as a, you know, in a big hospital and has been responsible during co-vids for managing well, quite a complex crisis. And I loved how this conversation went, because it we had a meta discussion more on how do you kind of navigate big Moments or crises in you know, your life, in your organization, and we also like this. Obviously we had quite a few founders in there with a medical Business, but also founders who were just interested, and I think the funny thing is, after this deep dive one of the founders actually said I'd love to see how a hospital innovates, and then Dedeek invited him To come over, so he actually spent one or two days on the In the on the hospital floor to see how tech could yeah, it's kind of a small internship.

Lisette 32:53

He calls it an internship. He went on a sniffle stash, sniffle stash. There we go Erasmus. Yeah, such an awesome story.

Lars 33:00

And I think that's just great how these walls come together. So deep dives in general, but I think deep dive with Hommers is my number three. The second one this year Was also a deep dive, but there was a special one, I Think. As we said, we tried to help founders to go abroad, and that also means taking them to scale up and start up events. There's one event we go to we went for the third time this year which is slush in Helsinki, november in Helsinki. So that's minus 20, but it's a great event because it brings together 5000 founders, 3000 investors and then a few other interested people, highly curated.

Lars 33:39

What I really like is that we did a round table there and why I picked this up as my number two. It was a round table for impact. In fact, impact entrepreneurs hosted at the Ambassadors residence, so it was a really nice spot Three tables with three investors on on the table as well. We thought organizing something at slush, you have to oversell because there's gonna be a no-show. On fact, we had zero no-show, which I mean I think the ambassador still things like we were in this Living room, in his dining room and in the hallway, so the house was packed, but I think it was a great success because the founders that were there really enjoyed the conversations with each other and had a really big warm-up for the rest of slush.

Lisette 34:24

Yeah, I loved it.

Lars 34:25

Yeah, it was a really nice yeah yeah, oh, and also good to say, we organized this together with Amsterdam, which basically says we brought the two biggest startup ecosystems together there, and then, on top of Dutch founders, we also had founders from the UK and from the Nordics there, so it was really international very nice. And then my number one which is where you're going to cheat. I am going to cheat because I cannot shoot. It's like choosing between your children. I cannot choose here.

Lisette 34:52

So you're just picking 12 events I.

Lars 34:56

Picking 12 and I'll explain to you why. So number one I choose the founders dinner by filling whatever name you want. Basically, we've started organizing founders dinners. Well, actually not we. We ask our founders to open up their homes and it's our job to then, next to that, invite six other founder CEOs to the table and make sure there's a nice, nice food on the table. We have a great chef to do that and to me, these evenings Are most special because I think that's where a lot of magic happens, because you're in a private space of a founder, in his or her home, and the conversation really goes deep after, I think, the first course.

Lars 35:42

So, and it goes from everywhere, kind of how do you be, how you're resilient as a founder, sometimes really tactical on how you build your sales, but it goes all over the place and I think after an evening, not only there's a lot of exchange of Experience and challenges, but also just new networks created. So I think this is the most sustainable thing that we do. If the head, if I have to pick one, he said because I see you nodding I'm probably gonna pick the one that we just had recently, which was great.

Lisette 36:11

Yeah, it's a Christiana and Daniels yes.

Lars 36:13

Christiana Daniels us, and also because they've built such an epic house yeah, by the way, there are two founders, so that's also really nice and they said, no, the house not ready, the house not ready. But we were there, it was awesome.

Lisette 36:24

Yeah, it was a great group.

Lars 36:25

Yeah, and a great group it was a great group.

Lisette 36:27

Yeah, I liked the mix there in Like serials senior serial founders who had specific tips from. Make sure you put this in your contract.

Lars 36:39

Yeah.

Lisette 36:40

And, and you saw everyone just grabbing their phone to write it down yeah, yeah and one of the founders also said he exited.

Lars 36:46

Right, I think twice how you need to, you know, keep working on stuff that you like, otherwise you get bored and you're in your bathrobe all the time. So moving forward All right. So that was my top three, and then there's probably 25 other things that we're also really happy with, but we don't have the time. So Before we go to the break, that you will probably record is that I'm not sure what you're gonna put in the commercial this time. Maybe also think about what has been the hardest thing for you this year, and I know you had to think about this for 45 minutes Before we started, so what has been the hardest thing for you?

Lisette 37:20

Lars showed me the setup of the conversation An hour before we started to record, so basically, he shows me the main questions he wants to ask me and For the last hour I have been staring at the, at the ceiling, and some boy, lars, asked me are you okay? I have been staring at the ceiling because, yeah, this question what has been the hardest for you this year and for the life of me? I cannot think of something that I considered to be so hard that it's it's worth mentioning in this podcast or something that has just stuck with me. But I guess if and I wouldn't call this hard but something I've been slightly struggling with over the last year Is how to base myself, basically, and not just pace.

Organizing Founder Retreats and Prioritizing Activities

Lisette 38:13

Yeah, not just myself, the entire team, because there's so many amazing things that we do and also things that we want to do. So we've we've talked about writing a book to organizing Founder retreats abroad.

Lars 38:32

So we talk about the founder, talk about a little experiment we did online.

Lisette 38:38

Okay, let's talk about that, no, okay sorry, we'll keep that.

Lars 38:41

Yeah, no, let's talk about it. You can always cut about it if it's too long.

Lisette 38:43

Yeah. So we thought about yeah, because we're already recording for 42 minutes. So this podcast is definitely going to be too long, or whatever. We had a little poll on LinkedIn asking our founders what they'd be most interested in, and I can't even remember what the other two options were but the most popular option was a psychedelic retreat abroad, and I really I'm super curious about that too.

Lisette 39:10

But, not just a psychedelic retreat, I think organizing a retreat abroad with a very small group of founders, so I would not bring more than 10 people yeah, basically taking them to a nice place outside of the Netherlands where they're outside of their normal environment and having them talk to each other, almost in a way like the best designers for the Dutch listeners here.

Lisette 39:40

I think that'd be so valuable. But so that brings me back to the point of all of the things we still want to do. Yeah, it just makes it hard to prioritize, and then how to pace yourself.

Lars 39:51

Maybe we can combine this last point with going to Spain. Maybe we need to do a test on Spain.

Lisette 39:58

Maybe that is that will be. Yeah, because I want to move to Spain, but no clue what I'm going to do there.

Lars 40:03

So maybe let's start with an offset. But I think you're, and I fully agree. We have a very small I like to call our team small and mighty. I think we we've set ourselves up as a startup. I think the team on average has five and a half employees, six because now our marketing lead is gone temporarily. I think we do a lot with a few people and I think we also try to bite off more than we can chew. So I fully agree with that being the hardest part, or a hard part, ok yeah, 45 minutes underway, lars.

Lars 40:37

That's OK, people, if you if you're still here, we're going to talk about. We're going to have listeners questions soon. So I mean, I don't you have nothing else to do. It's Christmas, well, it's probably. This is when you're listening, this yeah.

Lisette 40:49

I don't know Definitely yeah, so you can choose.

Lars 40:52

Now you can choose now either be with your parents in law or listen to this podcast. Thank you for being here. Are you still in the toilet? This is nice. It's a nice started podcast you can come back to every now and then. All right, cool, thank you for asking me the question. What has been the hardest part for me?

Lisette 41:10

OK, lars, please. What has been the hardest?

Lars 41:12

part for you.

Lisette 41:13

I thought we keep it for after the break. Oh let's know no, no, no, let's. Let's talk about it now.

Lars 41:19

So you know what, for me, is the hardest part. We talk about scaling things up and doing things at scale, and I think we also want to leave a legacy of scalable things. But I think quite a few of the things we do are very unscalable. And I'm not sure if I and bothered by it, but it kind of changed my mind quite a bit because I wanted to build formats and programs and things you can replicate, but I realized that the most valuable things we do are actually not scalable and, for instance, I mentioned the dinners. I'd like to double or even quadruple the number of dinners that we do. So we need to find a different way of doing it and I know we've been working on quite a few things. I also know what energizes me most. So balancing those unscalable things with the scalable things, I think, has been the hardest part for me, because it's the unscalable things that energize me. Yeah, which is weird. Maybe it's good. No, it's not weird.

Lisette 42:22

I think it's good. I think, honestly, to be able to skill isn't the purpose in life. Sometimes the things that make most impact are small. It doesn't have to be big and hopefully there's there's sort of a ripple effect where the founders that we have in our dinners decide to organize a dinner for themselves and then they invite someone outside of our network and then that person goes back to wherever they live and they organize a dinner. So I don't think that being able to skill is the holy grill in life.

Lisette 42:51

You're right, small things are nice.

Lars 42:52

So then I don't have a problem anymore, you don't?

Lisette 42:54

have a problem.

Lars 42:54

Thank you for solving my problem. Stop complaining, yeah.

Lisette 42:56

Oh OK.

Lars 42:57

Well, so, as you know, we'll go to a very quick break and then we'll be back with listeners questions.

Lisette 43:03

You're listening to the podcast of Uproaderdam. We help start up skill and grow their business by offering access to talent, access to international markets and access to capital. Curious how we can make the network work for you? Go to Uproaderdamcom. This podcast was made possible by the city of Rotterdam.

Lars 43:22

Welcome back to this drunk end of year episode.

Lisette 43:26

We're not drunk, we're not drunk.

Lars 43:28

We have a bar, so I have a favorite restaurant, and I bought a bottle of their house champagne, which is Hon Rieu Brut Sauvignon. I probably this is the reason we don't do it in French, but it's really nice.

2024 Startup Support Reflection and Future

Lars 43:38

You also don't remember the name of your favorite restaurant, which is quite recent which is true, so we're not drunk, but the bottle is more than halfway gone, so I think we need to end this episode very soon. Yeah, this and just for the record, this is the first time we drink on an episode. We figured it's a nice end of year thing experiment, yeah. Anyway, I think we talked about quite a few things and maybe the listeners questions will add a bit to it, but I think it's nice that we reflected on how the ecosystem has developed, what we've been doing, what we liked best episodes. So we'll put all the links in the show notes, but particularly maybe the episodes we mentioned to go check it out. It's the end of the year, maybe look forward. What is what is 2024 have in store for us?

Lisette 44:28

I think 2024 will be a weird year. No, I'm serious, I think it's going to be a very strange year. So obviously we're in a position where we will take our learnings on what works best. Take that to next year. So, basically, god out everything else, everything else that we do, that we just did to fill up the program but doesn't have any results. So we're basically filtering down to the most valuable parts of our program, but we're also working on scaling up, uprotter them, basically to no longer be uprotter them but uprotter them delft, the Hague and everything in between.

Lars 45:16

The right stage. Yeah, up, up, the right stage.

Lisette 45:22

And yeah, so we are having those conversations are actually we're beyond the conversations. We are doing this investigation with the MRDH, the Metropolitan Region of Rotterdam, the Hague. We have given the assignment to Ruben Niebuijsch and he is conducting research on how a regional scale up program would work best, which means that for next year, we're probably not going to be doing a lot of new things. We're just going to be maintaining what we have, focusing on what works.

Lars 45:54

Yeah, maybe for those listening. So we do already work for delft. So, although we're called uprotter them, we've always been working for delft and also schiedam, and actually, if the occasional the Hague founder calls us, we're obviously very happy to help. But the program has always been funded by Rotterdam, schiedam, subtermir, delft yeah, that was right, and now we're. I think there's 23 cities, 21. 21. We're not going to name all the MRDH.

Lisette 46:18

Please name the 21 municipalities within the MRDH. Yeah, no, it's a good trivia question.

Lars 46:22

So anyway, so the scaling up the program, and then you say, focusing on what works yeah, just doing what works. And maybe good news is because people have been asking what's going to happen to a broader them. So a broader them will stay right. So we're here to stay. Don't worry, we're going to be here for my change. But I think it's great that the municipality of Rotterdam has said that it's important that we're delivering big results so that they're continuing this also as part of their larger program in supporting SMEs, small media enterprises in what I think is the coolest region of the Netherlands. I agree too much commercial.

Lars 46:58

No no no, it's actually, it is truly. Come to the Netherlands and then come to the Rotterdam region. You figure out why. Okay, doing great stuff. As always, we have listeners questions and obviously, if I go get some listeners questions out, I have to figure out who to ask. I decided to choose people in this case to reach out to people that actually are close to you. So there's no founders in here. Well, that's actually one. I made up a question for him.

Lisette 47:26

You made up a question for him.

Lars 47:27

Yes, I think so. No, there's definitely entrepreneurs. Anyway first question is from Akeem Sinser. Akeem is the public leader of Rotterdam, so where I have the pleasure of being the private lead, she's the public lead. Basically, she deals with all the governmental stuff. Where we deal with the more private stuff. She has two questions. First question is what was an eye opener for you when it comes to supporting startups and scalabs?

Lisette 48:00

That's a very good question, An eye opener for me. I think honestly also has to do with what we already spoke about, where initially I thought that they would just want to have concrete handles on how to perform a specific task, such as not a specific task, but a specific action, such as expand to Germany or raise to million. I truly thought that helping them gather the necessary contacts, information, network, et cetera to reach their goal in that aspect would be very helpful, but not so much and I'm not saying that it's not helpful at all. But I think founders just want to learn from other founders.

Lars 48:54

So we've already talked about this, so they don't need advisors or consultants. They just need other founders who have done the same thing and then ideally multiple founders so they can compare notes and also listen to what worked and didn't work.

Lisette 49:07

It's also not that they don't need advisors and consultants, I guess especially, for example, venture lawyers et cetera, those are very necessary. But then they will still reach out to other founders to learn about what venture lawyers they have used and how. So the connections between them is.

Lars 49:25

I think we've also compiled a list of favorite business providers or agencies, et cetera, from our top 150 founders. So if you are a scale-up founder and if you don't have access to that list, go to.

Lisette 49:38

Yeah, and so there's another thing I want to shamelessly promote here. Well, not shamelessly, because it's not our thing, but Friso Schmidt from Startup Fountain has embarked on a mission to get more transparency in service providers. So, I'm sorry, I cannot find the name of it right now, so you're going to have to go on LinkedIn and look for it yourself.

Lars 50:03

Three classes of champagne. Yes, but very helpful. Yeah, I will put it in show notes. So go there if you want to figure out who are the agency's partners, business partners you want to work with. To scale up Okay, great, that's a great eye opener. They listen to each other. Akeem has another question which I think is more personal. She phrased it really nice in Dutch. I tried to translate it it's what touched your heart this year.

Lisette 50:31

Oh, what touched my heart this year? That is a very good question, and I don't think there's one specific example or moment that I can name, but I am usually most inspired by a story of a founder, and I guess this is also why I no, sorry, that's not relevant what I was about to say. I'm also not going to cut this out. It's fine, we will just leave this in the conversation, now what I was going to say.

Lisette 51:15

I am most inspired by stories of founders that came from a personal background. So, for example and that was not the past year, but we had Heesham Chateau in the podcast the founder of Le Quest and his entire background story was so special to me and he talks about the importance of quote unquote having an uncle and I think that's it's super, it's super true.

Lisette 51:49

And it's very relevant and yeah, so I'm sorry I don't have a more satisfying answer to this question, but I guess the stories that touched me are the stories that come from personal background, the founders with, yeah, just eye-opening personal background stories.

Lars 52:07

Even in the case of Heesham, a great founder and also a big supporter of what we do, and we support him in any way we can. But who's your uncle is also because startup founders often also come from kind of advantaged backgrounds, right, and I think it's important that we recognize that talented entrepreneurs can come from everywhere. And what can we do to actually help them grow? So sorry, in many ways that story touched me as well. Akeem, great questions, and I must say thank you for being the other part of me when it comes to running this program, because I think what Akeem is doing without her we could also not run this program, because basically, the seat of Rotterdam is really a big support or sponsor of everything we do and it's Akeem's role to make sure that that keeps going. So thank you, Akeem, for doing that.

Lars 53:01

All First question comes from Miss Selfie, who has been well. She's known for many things. One is that she is the Selfie Queen because she takes a selfie everywhere. I stole that from her. But she's also, I think, one of the most active corporates, startup liaisons that I've ever met MYA from KPN, who runs the scale up afternoon with a lot of scale ups, and he's a big friend of us, I think also privately, not just through it. Our first question is is that what has been your most brilliant failure and what did you learn from it?

Lisette 53:40

I wish I had time to prepare. That's the thing about it. Now you know what we put our guests to Next year.

Lars 53:44

We'll do it. You interview me okay.

Lisette 53:48

My most brilliant failure and what I have learned from it. I need time to think about this. I just told you that I spent an hour thinking about what I found hardest in the past year. I have a lot of failures, so that's why it's so difficult for me to pick my most brilliant failure. I mean, people who know me will know that I am an open book, so I often respond from emotion and you can tell by my face how I think about something.

Lars 54:31

That's very true. I can definitely second that.

Lisette 54:34

But it isn't always useful in certain situations. So probably my most brilliant failures will have to do everything with me being very unsubtle, very incorrect at certain times. Not so much incorrect, but just not thinking about the consequences of my actions. There's a lot of that.

Lars 55:00

Okay, we'll do a special episode just on failures, that's failures. Thanks for bringing it up. Maybe she's trying to take a point. By the way, she made a great recommendation for her. She's also my great recommend restaurant recommender, Anyways. Okay, so she has another question. I have to ask this one as well, Because she knows you use JetTPT quite often. I think you are the most avid JetTPT user. Her question is what are your biggest time savings in your daily work with AI? Translation is the number one.

Lisette 55:42

I use JetTPT mostly to quickly translate tasks. Obviously, everything we do is in English, so I find myself having to translate a lot of stuff. So that would be my first AI. I tend not to ask GPT any knowledge questions.

Lars 56:03

Because he or she I don't know what it is lies Lars and I had a very big discussion about this.

Lisette 56:08

I'm not saying JetTPT lies, but JetTPT takes its information from the web and there's a lot of false information on the web. So if you ask it any knowledge, questions it's not necessarily going to give you the truth.

Lisette 56:21

Which is why I prefer to use Google, find a number of sources and then sort of try to distract the truth from that, which is also not always possible. But I will not use JetTPT for that, and I guess honestly too, and this is actually quite funny, but we have to or let me take this personal I have to basically translate a lot of the things I read on a daily basis and simplify it for myself. So obviously we work with founders that have amazing innovations. 90% of the time, I have no clue what they do.

Lisette 57:10

So let me take Near Field Instruments as an example. So the chip industry? It's a mystery to me. Also battle-izer systems, hydrogen batteries I have no clue. So then, what I tend to do is take I don't know a part of their website, or I just put in their websites or whatever, and I ask JetTPT to explain it like I'm 10 years old. Which is the best prompt in the world, because it will truly talk to you like you're a 10 year old.

Lars 57:45

And then I understand Wow, this is a great tip. So the translation I had, but now I will also try to do the 10 year old.

Lisette 57:52

Explain this to me like I'm 10 years old.

Lars 57:54

Maybe by now I can ask explain this to me, like I'm Lizette.

Lisette 57:58

And then it will give you the 10 year old. Not sure how much it learns.

Lars 58:01

That's a great tip. So anybody out there doing advanced, sophisticated stuff, like we do with important founders and groundbreaking things in the world, put it in JetTPT. Great tip, great questions, mj, and now I know that you will be even smarter, also with all those complex KPN questions. Putting them in JetTPT, explaining them to a 10 year old. Okay, here's the question I made up. A founder called Hans asks what is your favorite food to eat in bed?

Lisette 58:29

Wow, this got very personal, very quickly. Wait, does this require some background information?

Lars 58:42

That's allowed, if you want, if you think it's necessary, okay, yeah, no, maybe you should, because now nobody knows who Hans is.

Lisette 58:48

Yeah, I think a lot of people here do know so. Hans Geffer, founder CEO of HelloPrint, but also his new company that is not the CEO of, but one of the founders, Engage, and a number of other companies, is also my boyfriend.

Lars 59:08

You met at the first edition of Upstream.

Lisette 59:10

We met at the very first edition of Upstream Festival, which was online, and he was one of the speakers. So yeah, that was very nice. Hans works in saying hours. Honestly, I lose track.

Lisette 59:26

But, he works in saying hours. Basically, to put it in a Gen Z term, hans has no chill. So sometimes at the end of the week and I say sometimes, but honestly it's quite a lot we tend to spend the entire Sunday in bed and we order Chinese food and then we eat baby pangang in bed. So that's Chinese food, obviously not actual Chinese food. This is very personal and I have no clue how many people are going to listen to the story and now know that, hans and I eat baby pangang in bed.

Lars 1:00:00

If you've made it this far, you deserve the right to know.

Lisette 1:00:05

I also don't know if he's going to be thankful for me putting this in the podcast. Well it depends.

Lars 1:00:09

If you spill, it's fine. I hope that Kalyne will listen to this and I'm going to suggest also eating baby pangang in bed.

Lisette 1:00:17

Honestly, I would recommend to everyone yeah, no, it sounds like the one thing to do, wow.

Lars 1:00:25

But to your point, I think Hans is not only a very big supporter, I think he's also our most critical voice when it comes to what we do. I really appreciate everything he brings and he has brought, I think from the beginning of UproptoDem. He's been part of our co-creation group and he represents everything I think that a Scalep founder has or should have, also when it comes to challenging a government that wants to set up a Scalep program, and he's a great advisor on what to eat in bed.

Lars 1:00:56

Yeah that's it. Thank you for now. Seriously, thank you, hans, for being a part of our journey and for letting us be part of your journey. And I must say we are actually recording this in the Office of Hello Print because Hans offered us office space this month. We move around with UproptoDem every four months. We moved to a different location and we were homeless for a month and he kindly suggested, I think, we took his quiet room in Hello Print.

Lisette 1:01:26

We robbed the Hello Print employees of their quiet room.

Lars 1:01:29

Yeah, if there's one thing we're not, it's quiet.

Lisette 1:01:32

I think I gave them some very valuable information in return right now. Oh, it's fine. Yeah, the fact that we're in the Pachnokin bed, Wow okay, there you go.

Lars 1:01:42

Okay, anyway. So if you listen to this, if you want to use this against Hans, come check us out. We'll give you a free T-shirt to make sure you don't. Is that a good thing?

Lisette 1:01:50

True, we're running out of T-shirts All right.

Lars 1:01:52

final question from another good friend, I think friend of the program but also personal friend. We talked about him, ohat, who has many things but I think mostly known as the father of 42 workspace, I think one of the greatest tech workspaces in the world that is based in Rotterdam. His question is what are the plans of clamshells and whipped cream for 2024?

Lisette 1:02:19

Wow, he really ruined that secret community.

Lars 1:02:22

Well, we can stop talking about it.

Lisette 1:02:24

And then, because it's secret, we will not answer this question.

Lars 1:02:27

Sorry, Ohat, you know how you can get an answer this question. Especially for this episode, we recorded a secret episode.

Lisette 1:02:37

We did you can only access it.

Lars 1:02:41

We're going to put a link on the website where you can put your donation. It can be really small or can be really big. We prefer really big, but it can be small, but just any kind of donation. This is going to be our experiment, where we will not only answer the question what are the plans of clamshells and whipped cream in 2024?, but we will also put all the recorded audio of this episode. That is stuff leading up to this conversation. That is everything during the break. It might be some things in Dutch. It also includes what do you call this?

Lisette 1:03:13

Asemair.

Lars 1:03:14

Asemair. So there's this weird thing of making weird noises. So at least at the night you had an experiment with all kinds of Shall. We give a sneak preview on that. No, maybe leave it.

Lisette 1:03:24

No, we have to leave it Asemair.

Lars 1:03:27

So for those of you who don't know, what that is. It sounds, I think for all the fetishists out there also. Check it out. Really, there's going to be a link. If you click on that link, do a small Christmas donation. You know what? Any money that comes in, we will give that. Do we know a nice place where we should give it to?

Lisette 1:03:46

Christmas spirit. So since we've been in the Hello Print office for the last month, I know every Wednesday part of their team cooks for the Ronald McDonald's house. Like eight people every Wednesday who cook a meal for the Ronald McDonald's house. So I would say let's donate it to the Ronald McDonald's house.

Lars 1:04:09

Very nice, so find the link in the show notes. You'll get the answer to the plans of Clamshell and Whip Cream. You'll get all the intermediate chats with the we're not drunk yet, there's no use at during the break and before the break, and you'll get the crazy sounds. Okay, how does that sound? Okay, wire all your cash and money to us and I'll let you know there. Okay, on that note, that's the cliffhanger. We've answered all your listeners' questions. Lisette, it's been a true pleasure finally having this conversation with you, opening the microphone not just to Rebecca but to you. So my only question is going to be Well, suggestion question is going to be I hope we hear your voice more often in the next season of Uproaderdam podcast.

Lisette 1:04:55

Yeah, it will be nice.

Lars 1:04:56

It will be nice yeah okay, see, I've seen how we can do it, and we can also do it without champagne, but it was just nice to do this. From this position, I really want to thank you, lisette, for sharing your story of working with me here, but also really thank you for everything we've been doing over the past couple of years with Uproaderdam. Without you, it would have not been possible to do this and it would also not have been so much fun to do it. So thank you for being my partner in crime on this.

Lisette 1:05:24

It's been a pleasure.

Lars 1:05:26

Also the rest of the team, but a special thank you to you for hanging out there. So, since this is your podcast today, we close off with a song that you have selected. Would you like to explain which song and why?

Lisette 1:05:41

Yeah. So I was doubting, because I have one song that is my favorite song in the whole wide world, and I also have a lot of songs that I like to listen to when I'm working, just because they energize me. But for this, I chose the song that I tend to listen to when I want to relax or when I want to put things into perspective, because when I listen to the first notes of this song, I immediately find myself somewhere in the mountains, just in like a free space, just relaxing and sort of realizing how tiny we are in the grand scheme of things. And that song is from Fleetwood Mac and it's called Dreams, specifically the 2004 remastered edition. Yeah, it's one of my favorite songs.

Yearly Reflections and Hope for Future

Lars 1:06:46

I think I love it already. I just listened to it quickly. Thank you all for listening. Hope you had a great year. We hope to see you again. Listen. Well, we hope to speak to you again in 2024. Subscribe, like, share our content, listen to Lisette's song and, until next time, keep it up.

Lars 1:07:28

Well, whoever I keep you down, wish all the right things should play the way you feel it, but listen carefully to the sound Of your loneliness, like a heartbeat that you made In the steel of your cell membrane, what you have and what you love, and what you have and what you love.

Lisette 1:08:15

Thunder only happens when it's raining. Players only love you when they're playing. Say when they will come and they will go when the rain washes you clean, you'll know, you'll know, you'll know.

Lars 1:09:03

Now, here I go again. I see the crystal vision. I keep my visions to myself.

Lisette 1:09:20

It's all in me who wants to wrap around your dreams and have you when it dreams you like the cell Dreams of loneliness, like a heartbeat that you made In the steel of your cell membrane what you have and what you love, and what you have and what you love. Thunder only happens when it's raining. Players only love you when they're playing. When they will come and they will go when the rain?

Lars 1:10:24

washes, you clean, you'll know. Thunder only happens when it's raining. Players only love you when they're playing. Say when they will come and they will go. When the rain washes, you clean, you'll know, you'll know, you will know, you will know.