Dimitri Oosterlynck

The through-line

Dimitri Oosterlynck's recurring argument is that the constraint on a company is almost never the idea or even the market, it is the founder's energy and the people around them. He started Gimber with the last €270 he had, buying the ingredients for 25 bottles of ginger concentrate: "Ik had nog 270 euro, dat was echt het allerlaatste. Om die 270 euro heb ik die investering gedaan" [2]. Five years later the same business was doing €20M in revenue across 18 countries [1]. What he talks about is not the growth curve but what it cost and what protected it: health treated as capital, feedback treated as infrastructure, and the deliberate refusal to play defensively. "Ik heb zelf de indruk dat eigenlijk het gevaarlijkste is om geen risico te nemen" [2], which he restates as a question he puts to himself and others: "Ga je spelen om te winnen of ga je spelen om niet te verliezen?" [1].

The shift over time is in his own position rather than his convictions. He moved from CEO of a company of around 85 people [2] to a founder who reports to the CEO, hands over the decisions, and defines his contribution as "compositie" instead of conducting [1]. The underlying belief did not change, it was applied to himself: if people grow when they get real space, the founder is not exempt from that logic.

On playing to win and going 110%

He rejects the half-measure entirely. "Als je iets wil uitbouwen en je wil er een succes van maken... dan moet je er minimaal 110% voor gaan" [1], and the practical consequence was that he shut down his previous business six months after starting Gimber, because doing something 50% of the time is not a viable way to build it into a success [1]. The framing he keeps returning to is the choice between playing to win and playing not to lose [1], paired with the conviction that caution is itself the exposure: taking no risk is the most dangerous thing you can do [2]. What sustained the early effort was visceral rather than strategic. "Per fles die ik verkocht voelde ik het leven en voelde ik mijn energie weer omhoog gaan" [1].

On health as your first capital

The most insistent theme is physical and mental health as the founder's balance sheet. "Ons lichaam, dat is echt ons eerste kapitaal. Je moet dat echt beschouwen als een creditcard en telkens als je er teveel uit komt er een stuk vanaf, maar op een dag is die leeg" [2]. His advice is unambiguous: "Investeer massaal in gezondheidskapitaal, dat zal de allerbeste zet zijn" [2]. He describes the failure mode as a spiral rather than an event. When you are mentally broken you make wrong decisions, you take on one project too many because you need cash, that project makes everything heavier, and the whole thing feeds back on itself [2]; after an untreated burnout he watched his own numbers go into the red exactly this way, with declining health producing worse decisions, worse decisions damaging the business, and the business damaging his mental health further [1]. The only exit he describes is reinventing yourself with focus [2]. The counterweight in daily practice is deliberate deceleration: "Vertragen, vertragen, vertragen om te versnellen" [2]. Hiring a personal assistant, on another entrepreneur's advice, freed up half of his time as CEO [2].

On why the idea is worth nothing

He changed his mind on this, and says so plainly: "Een idee is niets waard, daar geloof ik echt in. Vroeger dacht ik omgekeerd" [2]. The impulse behind a company is banal; the company is everything built on top of it, the product, the marketing, the distribution, the people, and the millions of daily corrections [2]. The same posture applies to decisions themselves. There are no wrong decisions at the moment you take them, you only find out afterwards, so the discipline is to solve the problem when the problem actually occurs [2].

On going around the drinks industry

Gimber refused the standard route in its category, which runs horeca for brand awareness, retail for volume, and distributors for sales [1][2]. Instead it built a direct network of concept stores served by courier, a choice he calls naive at the time that became a genuine competitive advantage [1]. The logic held up: concept stores gave access to an open, health-seeking audience with virtually no competition, and it remains a strategy the company exploits [2]. He also frames the wider market as moving his way, with big brewers investing massively in alcohol-free and expecting around 25% of production to be alcohol-free by 2024-25, and one in four people under 25 in England no longer drinking [2].

On investors and what money is for

The Austrian investor Gimber took on after only two years was not brought in for the capital. What Dimitri wanted was their knowledge of scaling in the German-speaking market and the broadening of the company's worldview that came with it [1].

On people and hiring

"Ik denk dat wij eigenlijk het potentieel van onze mensen zeer zwaar onderschatten" [2] is the sentence underneath most of his organisational choices. The bottleneck at Gimber was never demand, it was the speed of recruiting and onboarding the right people [2], which is why his strongest structural advice is to put an HR lead among your first five hires if you have real ambition: someone who anticipates which profiles you will need in six months and owns onboarding. Not doing that cost Gimber a lot of time [2]. His selection filter is vibe rather than CV. Would he be happy standing next to this person at a trade fair, or sitting twelve hours in a car with them? Enthusiasm is much harder to fake than experience or references [2].

The belief in underestimated potential also produced his most consequential decision. He promoted his managing director Tim to CEO after a few months rather than the planned one to two years, inspired by Pascal Danneels handing the keys of his construction company to a 32-year-old, on the conviction that people develop when they genuinely get space and responsibility [1].

On feedback as infrastructure

"Feedback is echt de view van succesvolle ondernemingen, dat besef ik elke dag" [2]. He institutionalised it rather than leaving it to culture: near-monthly sessions in which every manager holds two prepared ten-minute feedback moments with all colleagues, plus a "shoot at the CEO" event where the team could fire any question at management for two hours, which defused real tension in the organisation after a dismissal [2].

On ownership and aligned noses

Gimber's management buy-in and ESOP means every manager put personal savings on the table and had to convince someone at home to allow it. "Iedereen wil winnen, want iedereen heeft er een stukje van zijn spaarcenten voorgelegd en iedereen heeft wel iemand thuis moeten overtuigen om het te doen" [1]. He accepts that co-owning managers can bring conflicting interests into decisions, and argues the alignment is worth more than that risk [1]. He extends the same idea of buy-in to customers: "Elke fles die gekocht wordt is een stem voor Gimber: we geloven in jullie, we geloven in je project, we willen er een stukje mee bouwen" [2].

On the founder as composer, not conductor

His metaphor for the founder's evolving role is musical. "Als je een bedrijf begint ben je eigenlijk een beetje de singer-songwriter: schrijf je een muziek en je speelt die eigen muziek... en als founder ligt effectief op vandaag mijn meerwaarde voor het bedrijf veel meer in de compositie" [1]. In practice that means product development and branding rather than running the company: he reports to the CEO and accepts the CEO's decisions [1]. The football version is blunter still: "Mijn rol vandaag: ik ben een middenvelder die assists moet doen en dat hij kan scoren samen met het management team" [1].

Takeaways

• Treat your body as a credit card with a finite balance; every overdraw takes a piece off it and one day it is empty [2]. Invest massively in health capital, it is the best move you can make [2].
• Burnout is a spiral, not an event: broken judgement leads to bad decisions, cash pressure leads to one project too many, and the weight compounds until you reinvent yourself with focus [1][2].
• If you have real ambition, put an HR lead in your first five hires, someone who anticipates the profiles you will need in six months and owns onboarding [2].
• Hire on vibe over CV: would you be happy standing next to this person at a trade fair, or sitting twelve hours in a car with them? Enthusiasm is far harder to fake than experience [2].
• Give people the keys earlier than planned; Tim went from managing director to CEO in months rather than one to two years, because people develop when they genuinely get space [1].
• Institutionalise feedback with fixed formats: two prepared ten-minute peer sessions per manager on a near-monthly cycle, plus an open "shoot at the CEO" session [2].
• Take investment for knowledge, not capital; the Austrian investor was brought in for German-speaking market expertise and a wider worldview [1].
• Skip the default channel if it is crowded: concept stores served by courier gave Gimber an open, health-seeking audience with almost no competition, where horeca and retail would have meant fighting for share [1][2].
• The idea is worth nothing; the company is the product, marketing, distribution, people and the millions of daily corrections built on top of it [2].