Zsofia Kollar
Human Material Loop
Paul Veugen
Detail
Sharief Mohamed
Huppa
Vidya Peters
DataSnipper
Jens Visser
Partnify
Ruben Brands
SeaO2
Beau-Anne Chilla
Forward.one
Chris Obdam
Betty Blocks
Bob Jansen
Firmhouse
Wendy Bogers
BeatsWell
Daniel Gebler
Picnic
Graciëlla van Vliet
Closure
Claire Tange
Borski Fund
Oz Har Adir
Vio.com
Christina Caljé
TINTT
Victor Knaap
Monks
Michel Abdel Malek
Delphyr
Esther Bisschop
Th3rd
Jesse van der Pluijm
WeTicket
Jolanda Kooi
tex.tracer
Rogier Fischer
Hadrian
Justin Halsall
rrweb cloud
Niels 't Hooft
Immer
Anne Marieke Eveleens
The Great Bubble Barrier
David Vermeulen
Inner Circle
Arosha Brouwer
TrueTribe
Joris Machielse
The Hacker Building
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten
TNW
Ingeborg van Harten
7people
Roland Sars
Media Distillery
Hans Ober
TicketSwap
Liselotte Graas
Weheat
Job van der Voort
Remote
Estefania Hernandez
Everday
Tamar van de Paal
Mindro
Laurens van Nues
Magnet.me
D Alcausin
Meevee
Wouter Kroese
Pacmed
Hicham Shatou
LeQuest
Thom Trentelman
Send AI
Anelya Grant
JustPaid
Niki Sie
BRYQ
Anna Brandt
Invested
Duco van Lanschot
Duna
Eric Klaassen
Crisp
Bibi Jorissen
umob
Adriaan Mol
Mollie
Sohrab Hosseini
Orq.ai
Ruud Visser
Lasso Moderation
Robert Gaal
Klime
Antigoni Kourou
NEKOD
Chingiskhan Kazakhstan
Selana
Charlotte Kjellander
Touchwaves
Taco Potze
Open Social
Sam Beek
VEED
Lotte Vink
LABFRESH
Grant Shaddick
Tella
Adnan Oner
Farmless
Alexandra van Viegen
Onboardly
Mathys van Abbe
Playbook
Evelien Nieuwenburg
Dembrane
Pepijn Meddens
Billink
Bob van Luijt
Weaviate
Rolf Dröge
Kollekt.FM
Ingrid Romijn
Q*Bird
Koen Thijssen
Insify
Kianti Figler
New Dawn Bio
Matthijs Ingen-Housz
Ingen Housz
Eva Rennen
Nostics
Bas Swaen
Scribbr
Jankees van Woezik
WBSO.ai
Hossein Kazemi
Xeco Labs
Wout Eggink
Twin AI
Rogier Klimbie
Kickstart AI
Marjolein van Tilburg
ChatLicense
Onno Eric Blom
Herprogrammeer de Overheid
Marsha Goei
Breeze
Daniel Cramer
Upgraid RE
Stefan Borsje
Glass
Thies Edeling
eHour
Anke Huiskes
NP-Hard Ventures
Joren Tangelder
Hydryx
Manouk Draisma
LangWatch
Derk van der Have
Brenger
Janneke Niessen
CapitalT
Sander den Hoedt
DELMIC
Piet Hein van Dam
Clear.bio
Maxim Romain
Dott
Faviola Brugger-Dadis
BrainBoostXR
Job Rietbergen
Kilo Code
Adriana Pereira
The Fabricant
Richard Burger
Eccasion
Konstantinos Kouzelis
Coolset
Daan Weddepohl
Peerby
Kasia Fojucik
Earnest
Wout Laban
Wonderful
Amanda Marochko
Buffer
Matias Tesolin
GoDutch
Clare Jones
Polarsteps
Lucien Burm
Dutch Startup Association
Patrick de Laive
Animo
Yohan Runhaar
Reef Support
We photographed a hundred Dutch startup founders and ecosystem builders and asked them one question: what do Dutch startups need to succeed?
Watch: Minister Heleen Herbert receives our magazine →Their answers clustered around four themes.
- Fix employee equity: Tax stock options when they become real money, not on paper. Make equity simple to grant and standard in compensation, so startups can compete for talent and today's employees can become tomorrow's founders.
- Enable team agility: When it's not a fit, let both sides move on quickly and fairly. If the risk of hiring is manageable, founders can commit to growing their teams faster, creating more jobs in the long run.
- Build the pipeline: Teach entrepreneurship in schools early on. Invest in STEM for underrepresented groups. Make startups a real career path, not a detour.
- Win the global talent race: Faster visas help bring in key talent quickly. Keep the 30% ruling. Make it easier for international hires to actually settle here.
- Buy from us: Government and corporations, stop treating startups as experiments. Procure from them. Pay them. Be an early customer and invest in the things with a high risk-reward ratio.
- Rules that scale with a company: Not fewer protections, but smarter ones. Lighter compliance for early-stage companies. Standardized templates. Regulation that fits the stage.
- Reform subsidies: Replace application theater with outcome-based funding. Reward milestones and builders, not consultants and paperwork.
- Make collaboration real: Structured, long-term partnerships between startups, corporates, and public institutions. Not one-off pilots that go nowhere.
- Open the door to experimentation: Regulatory sandboxes. Faster permitting. A true EU single market that works in practice, not just on paper.
- Make angel investing attractive: Offer tax relief and deductible losses for investors who dare to commit early. The real bottleneck is first-check money.
- Close the growth gap: Too many Dutch companies sell early to US firms because Series B–D money isn't here. Create public-private growth funds, as seen elsewhere in Europe.
- Put pension capital to work: The Netherlands manages €1.5 trillion in pension assets. Virtually 0% goes to Dutch startups. Even 1% would be transformative.
- Celebrate the builders: Support those who take the leap, whatever the outcome. Respect the attempt. Stop treating entrepreneurship as a risky hobby.
- Think bigger, aim global: Stop celebrating comfortable exits. The benchmark should be global category leadership, not "sold early for millions." Shake off the calimero complex.
- Normalize failure: Failure isn't a waste. It's how innovation produces knowledge. Reward attempts, not just outcomes.
Made possible by
Concept
Robert Gaal Wesley Verhoeve
Photography
Wesley Verhoeve
Editing
Wesley Verhoeve Maxwell George
Design
Maxwell George
Essay
Robert Gaal
Production
Sanne Koemeester Robert Gaal
Photo assistants
Joseph Frank Simon Ducos
BTS photography
Harry Orange
BTS video
Alain Galje
Social media
Margot van der Krogt
Studio
Studio 13
Newspaper Club
Special thanks to Techleap and the Dutch Startup Association for their support for this project and the ecosystem as a whole.