Toine Habets

The through-line

The recurring position is that almost nothing is finally closed, and almost everything compounds. A rejection from a licensor is not a wall but a bearing: "Soms kreeg ik wel een nee, maar die nee gaf mij vaak een richting van waar de ja zou kunnen zitten" [1]. The same logic runs through how disagreements between four co-founders get settled, how markets get entered, and how growth is understood over time. The counterweight to the optimism is a sober read on timescales: "Bijna iedereen onderschat... overschat korte termijn impact... maar onderschat de lange termijn impact en dat is het compounding effect dat gewoon consistent effort wel met zich meebrengt" [1].

That belief in compounding turns into a standing complaint about self-imposed ceilings, aimed as much at himself as at anyone else: "Ik weet niet hoe ambitieus dat is, maar waarschijnlijk mag ik nog veel ambitieuzer zijn. En dat geldt denk ik voor best veel mensen" [1]. The advice to people early in their careers follows directly, with student years framed as the cheapest window available: "Studentijd is één van de allerbeste momenten om te ondernemen... Begin gewoon en geloof in jezelf" [1].

On licensing as the growth engine

Licences are treated as the single highest-leverage asset in the business, and the evidence is blunt. BubblyDoo launched its first Paw Patrol book on 27 November, just before Christmas, and "Omzet de week daarna gaat maal vier" [1]. Deals with Disney, Paramount and Studio 100 underpin growth of 95% year on year to more than €5M in revenue across 25 countries [1]. The value is not only the character but the credibility it confers: a licence buys instant recognition in a new market, which makes international expansion materially easier than it is for most companies [1].

Getting those deals is a matter of never accepting finality. No rejection is treated as 100% closed, because each one reveals where a yes might sit and licenses the next re-approach, which is why Disney US and BBC's Bluey remain live pursuits rather than dead files [1]. Once inside the process, the only variable within his control is his own responsiveness. The licensing giants take ten working days to review; BubblyDoo answers in one, so the licensor is never the party left waiting [1].

The competitive question is answered from the other side of the table. Disney has no reason to compete, because licensing is one of its core low-risk business models [1]. Large publishers could in theory move in, but they sell B2B through retailers and have none of the direct-to-consumer personalization learnings BubblyDoo accumulated [1].

On the cash-flow inversion of print-on-demand

Every book is printed only after it is sold, which flips the usual e-commerce working capital problem. Revenue arrives before the production partners are paid a month later, and that gap is what funds faster growth [1]. The same mechanic has a quality dividend that is easy to miss: because nothing sits in inventory, every print run can carry improvements, so the product gets better continuously rather than in stock-clearing cycles [1].

On when to raise money

The rule is about the intersection, not the absolute state of the business. "Als mensen kunnen zien dat het goed gaat en je hebt geld nodig, is dat geen probleem. Als mensen kunnen zien dat het niet goed gaat, maar je hebt geld genoeg, ook geen probleem. Maar als beide tegelijkertijd vallen, dan heb je een probleem" [1]. Keeping those two conditions from landing at the same moment is described as one of the central jobs of a scale-up founder [1].

On teams, not families

The family metaphor is rejected outright: "Een team is geen family, want een family is onvoorwaardelijk en dat blijven dezelfde mensen forever. Terwijl ja, een team is als een sportsteam" [1]. The operating consequence is that performance is crucial and that people who do not fit culturally or do not perform exceptionally should be let go sooner rather than later, summarised as hire fast, fire faster [1].

On deciding things with four co-founders

Disagreements are not resolved by counting votes. The default is to open up the underlying reasoning on each side and argue from there [1]. When that fails to settle it, the tie-break is empirical rather than rhetorical: run a quick test. Three students were each incentivized to close deals in a different channel, and one of those channels produced the Belgian football association publisher [1].

On what they actually sell

Eighty-five percent of customers are moms or grandmas [1]. That number reshaped the product calendar; Father's Day products launched first, and the current heavy investment is going into Mother's Day, with family-event products already worth more than €1M in revenue last year [1]. The framing of the offer is not the object but the outcome: what parents are buying is happy kids and beautiful moments [1].

On the four pillars of growth

Growth is deliberately decomposed into four workstreams: improving the core business model and its unit economics, landing global licences, market expansion, and product expansion around family events [1]. Market entry has a repeatable shape. Launch a small product range with broad advertising, watch what performs, then iterate toward a tailored approach for that market [1].

On screen time and the next product

The next step is personalized interactive and audio digital books, launching in the US this year, positioned explicitly as a healthy reading alternative to YouTube Kids [1]. The reasoning is a claim about what children are already doing: under-8s average 2.5 hours of screen time a day, consuming addictive short-form content that damages literacy [1].

Takeaways

• Treat every rejection as directional intelligence rather than a closed door; the shape of the no tells you where the yes sits, which keeps targets like Disney US and Bluey in play [1].
• When negotiating with slow, large counterparties, optimise the one variable you control: they take ten working days, you take one, so they are never waiting on you [1].
• Print only after the sale. Collecting revenue before paying production partners a month later inverts e-commerce cash flow and funds growth, while allowing quality improvements on every run [1].
• Raise when perception is strong or when you already have cash. The failure mode is letting "looks bad externally" and "needs money" arrive together [1].
• A team is a sports team, not a family: hire fast, fire faster, and move on people who do not fit culturally or perform exceptionally [1].
• Break co-founder deadlocks by interrogating the reasoning, then by running a cheap parallel test rather than voting; one such test produced the Belgian football association publisher deal [1].
• Know who is actually buying. With 85% of customers moms or grandmas, the product calendar and the pitch both change; the thing being sold is happy kids, not books [1].
• Set ambition against long-horizon compounding, since most people overestimate short-term impact and underestimate what consistent effort produces over time [1].