The Big Exit Show: Recent Episodes
Peak
In The Big Exit Show by Peak and NP-Hard our hosts Johan van Mil and Anke Huiskes talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the route on making a successful exit.
We kick off this new season with not only new guests but also a new co-host, Anke Huiskes. A startup operator and angel investor building NP-Hard Ventures, an early-stage VC fund investing in product-obsessed founders, creating the building blocks of tomorrow.
In this episode Rudo and Esther shed light on Th3rd's innovative journey. Starting with the creation of the website Human Alloy, which generated high-quality 3D models that attracted big brands like Adidas and Nike. As 3D models and augmented reality gained popularity, Th3rd shifted their focus to creating digital 3D models of products for marketing purposes. Brands were seeking a full surface solution, which initially posed a challenge for Th3rd.
The journey to the acquisition was not without its share of setbacks and nerve-wracking moments. Join our hosts and guests as they reveal the stress and challenges faced leading up to the deal, including the loss of assignments and the impact of the pandemic. They reflect on the significance of signing the contract and the gradual release of stress that followed.
The acquisition has brought both excitement and pride to Th3rd's team as they become one of the standards for 3D asset creation worldwide. Discover how having a big company like Snapchat as a backer gives them confidence and simplifies working with prominent brands.
Want to know more about our guest?
Rudo Bisschop
Esther Bisschop
Th3rd
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The Big Exit Show is an initiative by Peak and NP-Hard. Want to know more about Peak and the ventures we back? Check out our website. Want to know more about NP-Hard? Have a look at our website.
Feedback for our podcast or want to be featured on our show? Please reach out at podcast@peak.capital.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Hendrik Witt of Ubimmax. Witt sold his augmented reality solution to Teamviewer in 2020. A story with many valuable lessens:
- How to bootstrap your startup, by doing consulting on the side
- Successfully working together with innovation department of big corporations
- The importance of momentum and why you need to close a deal as soon as possible
In The Big Exit Show our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
The Big Exit Show is an initiative by Peak. Peak invests in early-stage SaaS, marketplace, and platform companies ran by kick-ass teams. Want to know more about Peak and the ventures we back? Check out our website or send us a message! Feedback for our podcast or want to be featured on our show? Please reach out at podcast@peak.capital.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to serial entrepreneur Hannes Klöpper. Hannes is currently building a new company called HelloBetter, but sold his previous company that specialized in Massive Online Open Courses - Iversity - in 2017 to Springer Nature. It wasn't the exit you hope for as a founder when starting a company, but nonetheless a story with many valuable lessens:
- The challenges when building a company with large education institutions as a customer
- When you know it might be the right time to hand over the company
- Why you should make an exit, even if the forecast of the company isn't looking too bright
In The Big Exit Show our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
The Big Exit Show is an initiative by Peak. Peak invests in early-stage SaaS, marketplace, and platform companies ran by kick-ass teams. Want to know more about Peak and the ventures we back? Check out our website or send us a message! Feedback for our podcast or want to be featured on our show? Please reach out at podcast@peak.capital.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Olaf Molenveld who sold his scaleup Vamp to one of the world's most popular CI/CD platforms - CircleCI. You will learn:
- When to pivot your initial business idea
- How serendipity works, even when exiting a company
- What to do when you found a dream partnership for your company
In The Big Exit Show our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
The Big Exit Show is an initiative by Peak. Peak invests in early-stage SaaS, marketplace, and platform companies ran by kick-ass teams. Want to know more about Peak and the ventures we back? Check out our website or send us a message! Feedback for our podcast or want to be featured on our show? Please reach out at podcast@peak.capital.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Stian Rustad who founded the Norwegian ERP cloud solution 24SevenOffice in 1997. Rustad, who currently lives with his family in Bali, took his company public twice. You will learn:
- How to take a SaaS-scaleup public to the stock exchange to raise funds
- How to choose the right exchange
- When to hire a full time ceo, so a founder can focus on other tasks such as internationalisation
In The Big Exit Show our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
The Big Exit Show is an initiative by Peak. Peak invests in early-stage SaaS, marketplace, and platform companies ran by kick-ass teams. Want to know more about Peak and the ventures we back? Check out our website or send us a message! Feedback for our podcast or want to be featured on our show? Please reach out at podcast@peak.capital.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Henk Jan Bijmolt who founded the webshop Gadero that specializes in large wooden objects such as fences for gardens. You will learn:
- What to do if you get into an argument with your co-founder (in the case: your brother)
- How to balance new ideas you might have while also running a company
- Why you should keep a 1% stake in the company even after you exit
In The Big Exit Show our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
The Big Exit Show is an initiative by Peak. Peak invests in early-stage SaaS, marketplace, and platform companies ran by kick-ass teams. Want to know more about Peak and the ventures we back? Check out our website or send us a message! Feedback for our podcast or want to be featured on our show? Please reach out at podcast@peak.capital.
In this short story of The Big Exit Show Emma Tracey of Honeypot explains how they solved the “chicken and the egg problem” and got supply and demand for their marketplace startup. Listen to more stories from Emma in the third episode of The Big Exit Show.
In this short story from The Big Exit Show you hear entrepreneur Emma Tracy who sold her company Honeypot to XING about starting in the tech world without a tech background. If you want to hear the entire story of Emma, you can listen to the third episode of The Big Exit Show.
In this audio snippet of The Big Exit Show by Peak, Geert-Jan Smits answers what the main points of discussion were while raising money for Flinders from Peak. To listen to the whole story of Geert-Jan, you can visit the first episode of The Big Exit Show.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Bernd Gross who founded IoT-platform Cumulocity in 2010 in Düsseldorf. He sold the company nine years later to tech giant Software AG for an undisclosed amount - but the mathematical wizards of Peak Capital will do an informed valuation of the deal at the end of the episode. You will also learn:
- How a smaller company can compete with large scale competitors like Azure and AWS
- Why you need to focus as a startup to be credible to end customers
- Why you need a M&A advisor when selling a company.
In The Big Exit Show our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
The Big Exit Show is an initiative by Peak. Peak invests in early-stage SaaS, marketplace, and platform companies ran by kick-ass teams. Want to know more about Peak and the ventures we back? Check out our website or send us a message! Feedback for our podcast or want to be featured on our show? Please reach out at podcast@peak.capital.
In this audio snippet of The Big Exit Show by Peak, entrepreneur Geert-Jan Smits of Flinders explains why he had to sell his house in order to fund inventory. You can listen to the complete story of Geert-Jan in the first episode of The Big Exit Show.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Paul Veugen who founded Usabilla, which was sold to SurveyMonkey and the iOS app of the year Human.co which was acquired by Mapbox. He is currently building a new venture called Detail.co to help creators make better video. Detail.co was funded with over 7 million dollars. In this episode you will learn:
- Why Paul got kicked-out of his investors office, after he shared he wanted to step down as CEO of Usabilla
- What his experience was living in San Fransisco for a couple of years
- How nobody knew in the company he was working for at the time, he just made a mega-exit
- How Paul managed to secure an exit for Human in a couple of weeks time
In The Big Exit Show our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
The Big Exit Show is an initiative by Peak. Peak invests in early-stage SaaS, marketplace, and platform companies ran by kick-ass teams. Want to know more about Peak and the ventures we back? Check out our website or send us a message! Feedback for our podcast or want to be featured on our show? Please reach out at podcast@peak.capital.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Tuomas Toivonen who sold his Finnish neobank Holvi to the Spanish multinational BBVA, only to reacquire it 2021. In this episode you will learn:
- What it is like to sell a company to a multinational and work as a subsidiary
- Why the company decided to quit its activities in the UK and focus on other markets
- How Holvi had to let go of some staff to be more cost-effective, but made sure they all found new jobs
- And of course... our estimation for how much Tuomas sold Holvi and for how much he reacquired it
In The Big Exit Show our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
The Big Exit Show is an initiative by Peak. Peak invests in early-stage SaaS, marketplace, and platform companies ran by kick-ass teams. Want to know more about Peak and the ventures we back? Check out our website or send us a message! Feedback for our podcast or want to be featured on our show? Please reach out at podcast@peak.capital.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Dr. Gero Decker who sold his Berlin-based software firm for business process automation Signavio to technology giant SAP. In this episode you will learn:
- How Signavio got big brand companies to sign on, even as a small startup
- The strategy of Signavio to conquer the US
- How to ask for the right price during negotiations
- And of course... the amount of the mega-exit
In The Big Exit Show our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
The Big Exit Show is an initiative by Peak. Peak invests in early-stage SaaS, marketplace, and platform companies ran by kick-ass teams. Want to know more about Peak and the ventures we back? Check out our website or send us a message! Feedback for our podcast or want to be featured on our show? Please reach out at podcast@peak.capital.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Arco van Nieuwland who started the accounting software giant Exact in 1984 which he sold many year later. He started another SaaS-accounting tool called Yuki which was sold to Visma last year. In this episode you will learn:
- What it was like starting and scaling a software company in the 80s
- Why Arco started a new company while still being one of the largest shareholders in Exact
- Why you shouldn't always sell to the highest bidder
- How much he eventually sold Yuki for to Visma...
In The Big Exit Show our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
The Big Exit Show is an initiative by Peak. Peak invests in early-stage SaaS, marketplace, and platform companies ran by kick-ass teams. Want to know more about Peak and the ventures we back? Check out our website or send us a message! Feedback for our podcast or want to be featured on our show? Please reach out at podcast@peak.capital.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Thijs Verheul and Sjuul Berden who sold their online marketplace for vintage fashion United Wardrobe to Lithuanian competitor Vinted. In this podcast you will learn:
- Why the company's bet to conquer France did not pay off
- When Thijs said "we will cruch you" in a conversation with a competitor
- Why a previous exit deal of United Wardrobe got cancelled at the last moment
- The dynamics between multiple founders and how to decide who will be ceo
In The Big Exit Show by Peak our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Jochem Wijnands who sold his magazine-app startup PRSS to Apple. You will learn:
- Why Jochem sold his company within two years to Apple
- How to negotiate with a technology giant
- What it is like to work at a company after selling it
In The Big Exit Show by Peak our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Eline Vrijland who sold her medtech startup Nightbalance in 2018 to Philips. You will learn:
- How Eline is approaching multiple VC’s at the same time.
- Why pitching your company is valuable in the startup phase.
- When to be realistic about the valuation of your own company.
In The Big Exit Show by Peak our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Emma Tracey who sold her job platform for developers Honeypot in 2019 to the publicly listed XING. You will learn:
- When you need an NDA in the process.
- Why exiting a company takes a lot of time.
- How they celebrated the exit with their staff.
In The Big Exit Show by Peak our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Jeroen van Velzen who sold his corporate travel SaaS-company Roadmap in in 2021 to the American conglomerate Emburse. You will learn:
- Why Jeroen never reads a contract.
- How to get clients like Nike, Microsoft and Pfizer.
- Why you should keep your customers happy, even if a company is failing.
In The Big Exit Show by Peak our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the lessons and pitfalls of a successful exit.
In this episode of The Big Exit Show we talk to Geert Jan Smits who sold his design furniture e-commerce company Flinders in 2021 to the Danish Nine United. You will learn:
- How to get multiple potential buyers for a company.
- Why Geert Jan did all of the negotiations himself.
- When to focus: opening a store in China was not a profitable business.
In The Big Exit Show by Peak our hosts Johan van Mil and Remy Gieling talk to tech entrepreneurs about scaling their companies and the route towards making a successful exit.