Wiet Vande Velde

The through-line

One conviction runs through everything Wiet Vande Velde says, and it was bought at a high price: a good product does not sell itself. The cardboard pallet venture had, by his own account, the strongest, lightest and most recyclable pallet on the market, a real engineering achievement and a production facility to match, and it went bankrupt because millions went into engineering and nothing into sales, in a market with extremely long sales cycles running through airlines, pharma and logistics [1][2]. From that he draws a rule he now applies to everything: "Eerst sales en dan engineering" [2]. The corollary is blunt: "Bedrijven met matige producten die zeer goed verkopen zijn veel succesvoller dan bedrijven met fantastische producten die niet verkopen" [2], and behind it the arithmetic that makes it non-negotiable, "Elke euro die ooit gefactureerd wordt zal ooit eerst moeten verkocht geweest zijn" [2].

What has shifted over time is the scale at which he applies the lesson. Early on it was about survival and about the discipline of doing one thing properly instead of five things badly. Later it becomes about fundamentals compounding: ten years of self-funded focus on EnergyKing, every euro left in the business, revenue doubling five years in a row, and eventually a company solid enough to be private equity ready and to lead a Belgian consolidation play rather than be picked off by foreign buyers [1][2]. The motivation changed too. He began driven by a need to earn money fast and later recognised that as a flawed motive that made him skip the fundamentals [2]; today he states it as a principle: "Het idee of de doel van een bedrijf is nooit geld verdienen. Dat is altijd iets naar de wereld brengen dat de wereld een betere plek maakt" [1].

On sales before everything

The clearest expression of the principle is what he calls, informally, the McDonald's test: nobody believes McDonald's makes the best hamburger, and yet they sell the most, which he treats as proof that a strong sales and marketing plan rather than product quality is the basis of every healthy business [1]. "Het idee dat een goed product verkoopt zijn eigen niet. Sales en marketing moet altijd on point staan" [1]. His restaurant gave him a controlled experiment on the same point: waiters who actively sold reached nearly double the average ticket per table compared with order takers, same menu and same establishment, which tells him selling is a matter of approach and not of product [2].

He also rejects the idea that selling is an imposition on the customer. "Mensen willen verkocht worden, mensen willen enthousiast worden" [2]; a customer walking into a shop is effectively asking to be made enthusiastic, and good salespeople are liked, with only the pushy and incompetent ones resented [2]. The three pillars he names for his company follow the same order of priority: a product that has a market, a team of motivated people who need not be brilliant, and relentless focus on sales [2].

On building a sales machine rather than hunting for talent

He is realistic about who is actually available to hire. Only around 10% of people are natural top sellers and you will never manage to recruit them, so the answer is to build systems, tools and weekly training that let the 80% of average people sell well, which is the version that scales [2]. Management of that machine runs on evidence rather than optimism: "Wij zeggen hier niet wat je gaat doen, we zeggen eigenlijk alleen wat je gedaan hebt" [2]. He does not want to hear what is in the pipeline; he wants to hear what has been closed [2].

Recruitment is treated the same way, as a selling problem solved with candour. A brutally honest vacancy, saying he wanted someone cheerful and that bad days were fine, prompted eight out of ten applicants to remark that the posting stood out, which he reads as evidence that authenticity in employer branding attracts people who actually match [2].

On focus and the cost of doing five things at once

After the Palletkraft bankruptcy he was running four or five scattered activities at the same time, in pallets, a restaurant, solar and working at heights, and concluded he was doing everything and nothing really well [1]. The correction was full focus on a single project, sustained for ten years and self-funded, and that concentration is what he credits with the fundamentals that later made the company attractive to institutional capital [1].

On a rich entrepreneur or a rich company

He argues that the choice between becoming a rich entrepreneur and building a rich company is made very early, often unconsciously and often at the accountant's table [1]. He and his partner left every euro in the business, and the logic is simple: a euro left inside can be turned into two because you invest it, while a euro taken out privately is gone tomorrow [1]. He is equally sceptical of the milestones entrepreneurs celebrate. A million in turnover mostly disappears into working capital, stock and pre-financed VAT, so privately you see none of it [1].

On partners and letting the best idea win

He rates the choice of a business partner as high as the choice of a spouse: "Een goede vennoot vinden is mogelijks misschien nog moeilijker dan een goede vrouw of man" [2]. The benefit is alignment several times a day, which gives speed and removes the loneliness solo entrepreneurs live with, and it is not something external advisors can replicate because they are never that involved [2]. The governance rule he applies with partners and with his private equity backers is the same: "Het gaat over het beste idee moet winnen" [1], never your idea against mine.

This connects to a piece of self-knowledge he states plainly: your greatest strengths become your biggest pitfalls when overused, and his own persuasiveness meant he was perfectly capable of getting everyone enthusiastic about a bad idea [2]. Hence "Ik ben blij als ik ongelijk heb, want dat is teken dat er iemand verweer heeft gegeven" [2]; being beaten by a better idea is evidence that he has the right people around the table [1]. Alongside that sits a clear sense of his own irreplaceable function: "Ik ben een ondernemer, ik ben een business developer. Ik moet met de ideeën, met de strategie, met de visie kunnen komen. Ik moet liefst een jaar voor het bedrijf lopen" [1], and when the subject of the company continuing turns up, "En dan denk ik ja maar niet zonder mij hè" [1].

On failure, debt and starting again

The bankruptcy came with a €300,000 tax debt and a period of fatalism, and what pulled him out of it was becoming a father [2]. He is unsentimental about the mechanics of failure: the limited liability company was invented, with the Dutch East India Company, precisely so that a failed venture would not destroy the individual behind it, and a failure handled with integrity is exactly what that structure exists for [2]. The instruction that follows is short: "Als het mislukt: de lessen leren en opnieuw proberen, en niet met een kop toe laten hangen" [2]. He also traces his early motivation honestly, to his father leaving when he was nineteen and three years of watching his mother cry every day, which produced an obsession with earning money quickly that he now identifies as the reason he skipped the fundamentals [2]. Losing his grandmother's money at twenty-two sits in the same early chapter [1].

On consolidation and choosing a private equity partner

The move to institutional capital was defensive in origin. Watching large consolidators emerge in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, he concluded that waiting was the worst option: "Als die mannen hier morgen binnenrollen dan kopen ze ons één voor één uit tegen elkaar en ik w een Belgisch eh een Belgisch verhaal" [1]. Going to market first meant building the Belgian consolidation story rather than being absorbed into someone else's [1].

In selecting the partner he deliberately did not take the highest valuation, choosing instead a fair price with the best team, on the reasoning that the transaction was a new start rather than an exit [1]. He also considers the old caricature of private equity as sharks outdated, because capital is abundant and the market has become so competitive that behaviour has changed [1].

On what a company is actually for

Underneath the commercial discipline sits a plain definition: "Uiteindelijk is een bedrijf niet anders dan een groep mensen die samen iets waardevol voor andere mensen proberen te doen" [2], and its purpose is never to make money but to bring something into the world that makes the world a better place [1]. His view of responsibility within that is individual before collective: "Als iedereen voor zichzelf zorgt, dan kunnen we veel beter voor elkaar zorgen" [2]. He also thinks entrepreneurs have a structural advantage that public life does not offer, namely the luxury of a long-term vision, because politicians are punished for short-term pain, which he gives as the reason so few entrepreneurs are willing to go into politics [2].

Takeaways

• Put sales in front of engineering. The pallet venture had the best product on the market and failed because the money went into the product and not into selling it [1][2].
• Judge sales people on closed business only: "Wij zeggen hier niet wat je gaat doen, we zeggen eigenlijk alleen wat je gedaan hebt" [2].
• Do not wait to hire the 10% of natural sellers you will never find. Build tools, systems and weekly training so the average 80% can sell well [2].
• Decide early whether you are building a rich entrepreneur or a rich company, and remember that a euro left in the business can become two while a euro taken out is gone tomorrow [1].
• Treat turnover milestones with suspicion, since a million in revenue largely disappears into working capital, stock and pre-financed VAT [1].
• Make "het beste idee moet winnen" the governance rule with partners and investors, and treat being proven wrong as proof you have good people [1][2].
• When consolidation is coming, lead it. Going to market first prevented foreign buyers picking off Belgian players one by one against each other [1].
• Choose an investor on team quality at a fair price rather than the highest valuation, if the deal is a new start rather than an exit [1].