What was your dream job as a child, and what is your dream job now?

My dream was to become an inventor. I tried to build something fun with anything I could find. I once built a pinball machine and a vending machine for candy. When I got access to my first computer, I became fascinated with the stock market. Could I invent an autonomous trading system? This was way before we had internet at home, so I connected the computer with a TV cable to read stock quotes from TeleTekst. Thank goodness the system was trading with fake money!

My ambitions are still the same. I love building product and technology to solve big questions. But, along the way I realised that you need more to make impact. How do you build a team and company, to scale your solution? That’s my dream job today: to empower entrepreneurs to make impact.

How did you get your first job?

I started working in my second year of studying actuarial science, because I was curious to learn how the theory worked in practice. So, I joined the Study Association for Actuarial Sciences, Econometrics and Operations Research (VSAE). They organised many company visits. Of course, it was also nice to earn some money. I found a balance of working 2 days per week, that’s the minimum (and maximum) I would advise for students. I met many people who inspired me and I’m still in touch with quite a few of them.

What is your current position, and what do you do?

I’m the founder and CEO of Crunchr, a People Analytics Platform that helps improve the workplace for people and business. We basically use data that companies have available and turn these into workforce insights. With (advanced) data analytics, you can tell if everyone is offered equal career opportunities, why people leave companies, and what the best strategies are to prepare for the future of work. We are based in Amsterdam and have a team of almost 40 people, and we are raising our Series A to grow internationally. Even during Covid we doubled our revenues and got fantastic new clients from around the world.

What do you like most about your job?

The opportunity to explore answers to very interesting questions, where we can make positive impact to workplaces. For example, what are the traits of great managers? What are exciting career paths? These questions are not new. They were also relevant 30 years ago. But theexplosive growth of data, elegant mathematics, and computational power, can help us give better answers.

The other thing that I find fantastic are the immense learning opportunities. How to find product-market-fit, build go-to-market strategies, learn how to build a brand, sell your product, fight competition, build a team, get funding, monitor if everything is on track? How do you fall, cry and get up again? No matter what role you play in a growing start-up or scale-up, you will learn 10 times more compared to most corporate jobs.

How would you compare being an entrepreneur in the US to being an entrepreneur in the Netherlands?

Right after I finished my Master’s degree, I knew I wanted to move to New York. I was attracted by the energy of the city, the adventure, and the possibilities. Back in the Netherlands, I had realised that Human Resources had lots of big questions about the workforce, but no clear answers. I was curious to learn if the data companies have on that workforce, could help find those answers. So, when I was 25, I moved to New York and founded Focus Orange, a data driven consulting firm on workforce strategies.
Of course, it was scary, but a thrill at the same time. I was very fortunate to get to know a small team of absolute top-notch consultants from whom I learned a lot. Being an entrepreneur in the US was a dream. Soon, I was flying around the world and working on very interesting projects. Anything was possible if you think big. Fearless growth. In the Netherlands, the work culture is different. We appreciate things like work-life balance and consensus. There is no good or bad. But it is different. At Crunchr, we try to combine the best.

What are the most challenging aspects of your job?

The biggest risk for an entrepreneur in a green field domain, such as people analytics, is tunnel vision and confirmation bias. You want to keep yourself from working on making the fax machine faster, with more colours, while the world is moving on to email. It comes down to keeping a balance between making impact today and staying relevant tomorrow.

This also leads to a second challenge. If you want to make sustainable impact like we want (improving the workplace for people and business), you must realise it’s a long-term play. We are building a People Analytics Platform for larger organisations, and this takes years. Just think about the foundations for security, high-performance infrastructure, and scalability that nobody sees. Initially, the earnings are limited, but monthly expenses are huge. How do you get investors, analysts, clients, and future employees excited, while the financial results take years? You need to design a dual strategy and that is complex.

How do you apply the knowledge and skills you gained during your studies to your job?

The direct knowledge application is limited, but the skills I apply every day. To give you an example: As an actuary, you learn how to calculate the premiums for car insurance. The insurance company does not know how many accidents you will cause, how big these accidents will be, and they invest your monthly premiums on a volatile stock market. And the consumer wants to know to the cent how much they need to pay for the car insurance!
I don’t use my skill in calculating these insurances, but the skill to translate an uncertain future into financials of today, I use a lot. It’s about making investment decisions with ambiguity or helping clients with building data driven workforce strategies. You never know how the company is performing in 2 years, but if you want to build new competencies or change your workforce and cost structures, you better start today.

What career advice would you give students and fellow alumni?

Don’t focus on what you learn but on what you like. No matter if you join a company, pursue an academic career, or join a start-up. You should create an environment for yourself where you keep learning and get excited with the work you do and the people you work with. Life is too short to do boring jobs or take default careers. Surround yourself with people who are inspiring and are better than yourself. And once you have learned things that are worth sharing, give back. Inspire others.

I am very grateful that I got the opportunity to teach at the Amsterdam Business School and give back (thank you Corine Boon and Marc Salomon). And I can’t thank my Crunchr team enough for their endless energy and passion. I still learn every day.

We thank Dirk for sharing his story and answering our questions with such enthusiasm and depth!

Questions? If you have any questions for Dirk, you can find him on LinkedIn.

We hope this month’s alumnus was an inspiration. What kind of Economics and Business career would you like to know more about? Let us know, and we will try to arrange an interview with alumni who have experience in that field for a future instalment of Alumni in the Spotlight!