"I'm always looking for the best and brightest startup founders in Marketplace, SaaS and Data Companies. What I’m looking for in a founder is ambition, energy and real executions skills." —Johan van Mil, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Peak Capital
Simply put, he's a serial entrepreneur turned investor—from The Netherlands.
Here's a little bit n terms of sheer numbers:
- He stands just over 6 feet tall.
- He has 2 beautiful children
- He's founded 12 companies.
- He's written 1 book (Ondernemen doe je!).
- He taught Applied Economics and Entrepreneurship at at the Masters Program of the VU University Amsterdam for 4 years .
- He's currently invested in 15 startups (after 3 recent exits to listed companies)with a total fund size of €18,000,000.
On that last point,d gekfe hfgez when we say "he," we mean he and his fellow co-founders at Peak Capital—a Dutch venture capital investment firm. They invest in fast growing Marketplaces, SaaS and data startups.
As such, Johan was one of the many rockstar judges sitting on the panel of the Marketing2020 vertical last month in The Pitch Tower at TNW2018 in Amsterdam.
Story Chief, alongside other disruptive SaaS startups, had the privilege of being grilled by Johan. His questions were unconventional, which makes sense since he's not your average run-of-the-mill investor.
But now it's our turn to ask him some questions.
Q1: Let's rewind a bit, go back in time to 1990, to 19-year-old Johan van Mil. Where were you and what were you doing?
I was studying in Belgium, actually, at the University of Antwerp.
After my studies, I worked at several corporate enterprises until I realized that having my own company was more interesting for me—both financially and career-wise. During my studies I'd already started a few companies.
Q2: What was your thought process in going from serial entrepreneur to investor?
Actually, a lot of people came to me.
They asked if I would invest in their company, as a hands-on investor, and to help them succeed.
In 2007, I asked myself, "I've already had 7 startups so what can I do to help other entrepreneurs?"
I decided I'd rather take the route of helping others and combining that with launching a venture capital fund. So I, along with some good friends who also happened to be entrepreneurs, founded Peak Capital.
We continue to invest not only money but hands-on support in fast growing technology startups.
Q3: Okay. You've mentioned this "hands-on" approach more than once now. How do you do this with 15 companies in your investment portfolio? Can you elaborate?
Yes, well, for example...I'm on my way to one of the startups now.
We meet with each of our portfolio companies every two weeks, sometimes once a week. If they're up and running and everything's going right, like Catawiki let's say, then there's less involvement on our part.
It's a matter of asking ourselves, "How can we speed up this company and make them more successful?"