From the lab to a company a customer will sign with.
Many Dutch startups start with excellent technology and a founding team of researchers. The business around the technology is usually built by whoever has time.
Where early-stage companies lose ground
Founders from Delft to Wageningen tend to hit these four:
Strong science, weak commercial plan
The product is proven and the route to a paying customer is not.
Grants fund the first years
Public funding and credits keep the company alive, and the reporting that comes with them takes a founder's evenings.
No one owns the numbers
The cap table, the burn and the runway sit with a co-founder whose training is in something else.
The first sales hire carries the strategy
One person is asked to find the market, price the product and write the pitch, with nobody senior to check the result.
A fractional executive brings the judgement of a funded company to an early-stage one, for as many days as it can pay for. They build the commercial and financial layer around the technology so the next stage finds a company, not a prototype.
Who this is for, and who it is not
Best for
- Founders wearing every hat with no senior cover where it matters most
- Pre-seed to pre-Series A companies that need structure before they can fund it
- Teams that need investor-grade finance, reporting or operations at speed
- Startups scaling headcount faster than their processes can hold
- Founders who want to protect the cap table while adding senior leadership
Not for
- An idea with no product or traction to build structure around yet
- A role a capable full-time hire is already ready to own
- Founders looking to outsource a function rather than lead it
- A single deliverable an agency or contractor could hand back
What comes with the operator
A research-led team rarely knows what good commercial leadership looks like yet. We stay involved so you do not have to judge it alone.
A second opinion on progress
We check the work against the brief with you at agreed points, and say early if the commercial plan drifts.
Answers from people who built companies
A first round, a pricing model or a regulatory pathway can go to colleagues in our collective of 800+ who have been through them.
The company owns the brief
The role belongs to the company rather than the person in it. If your executive moves on, we start the next search from what we already know about you.
Matched to a research team
We match for leaders who respect the science and still push for a customer. A pure salesperson will lose the team in a week.
From first call to embedded operator
We move at startup speed.
Tell us your stage
Where are you in the journey? What are the gaps? What does the next 90 days need to deliver?
We match the right operator
From our vetted collective, we introduce the fractional executive matched to your stage, sector, and culture.
Embedded within days
Your fractional embeds with your team, begins the scoped work, and operates with real accountability.
Scale the stack
As you grow, add further specialists from the collective. We coordinate them so they work as a coherent team.
Which leader for your stage
The gap that slows a startup changes as it grows. Here is where most founders feel it first, and who owns it.
The right fractional executive depends on your stage
Start with the widest gap today, then add roles as you scale.
Operators from the region's defining startups, and beyond
