The entrepreneur from South Holland remembers exactly where he was when the call came in. “I even remember the time. Ten past five.” In December 2019, Stephan van den Bos was on the verge of being acquired. A major investor and supplier had set its sights on Hygiënepapier.nl, Stephan’s online retail business. That party wanted to acquire the Dutch and Belgian branches of the webshop. It was a long and arduous process, but by the end of the year, the deal was closed. They had just toasted with champagne when Stephan’s phone rang. Stephan: “I was told, ‘We’re not going to do it after all.’ A dispute had arisen over the bonus I was supposed to receive. That detail caused the acquisition to fall through at the last minute. That was a real blow.”

Stephan also faced a major setback when it came to his health. “I almost kicked the bucket,” he says of that period. One day, he felt excruciating pain in his upper body. Because he had been so busy with the takeover, the doctors thought it was a heart problem. It turned out to be a ruptured appendix. “I walked around with that for four days. My whole body was being poisoned from the inside out.” It took a month before he was back on his feet.

A financial commitment

Just before that difficult period, Stephan came across Straight-Line Leadership Int. “I had just started my Leadership membership and was immediately sidelined for a month. Once I had recovered, I knew I had to get back on track. I knew I had to take control of my business and my future. I was going to do it myself. The only question in my mind was: what is the best path to take?”

Stephan decided to start working one-on-one with Johan van der Put. In addition to his membership, he would now receive personal coaching. Given the financial commitment, it wasn’t an easy decision, but it was a necessary one for Stephan. “Working with Johan was the best choice I could have made at the time. For me, 2020 is the year I truly started doing business. The year I really began to see things I hadn’t seen before.”

Hackers

The failed acquisition was a turning point in Stephan’s life: “It was necessary to reach the level I’m at now.” With Johan’s support, Stephan began making growth decisions he hadn’t even considered before. “I certainly wouldn’t have been here.” He shows a photo of a field lined with rows of cream-colored portable buildings. “The picture says it all. This was my office in 2019. Don’t get me wrong, I was happy there, but the game I’m playing now is completely different. No matter how you look at it, if you’d driven onto this property and seen a warehouse and a few of those units, you’d have had a very different impression of my knowledge and expertise.”

Recently, the entrepreneur invested in new premises, data systems, staff, and the stability and security of internet usage. “There are miles of cables running through the walls here. It’s like a bunker,” he laughs. It seems excessive for what is essentially an online store. Stephan sees it differently. “We sought out a new IT partner to handle this at a high level. Because if you stick your head above the parapet, you’re more likely to catch the attention of hackers. As I see it, we’re not a retail business but an IT company. There are a lot of entrepreneurs who think: we need to do something with that online store because everyone else is doing it. But they don’t focus on it. They treat the online store as an afterthought and, on top of that, underestimate what really matters: analyzing data and how to use the results strategically for your business. We’re growing so fast because those other guys are leaving it all on the table.”

Tripling and Misunderstandings

Last year, Stephan tripled his revenue. That was the ambitious goal he had set for himself at the start of 2020. He admits that the pandemic did give him a bit of a boost. But when he first voiced his goal, he still had his doubts. “It’s okay to admit that. When I told Johan, a big part of me thought: there’s no way in the world that’s going to work.” But it did work out, thanks in part to major investments and the expansion of his team. Now I think twice before acting. “Do you even know what it takes to get into the European market?” But because I’ve experienced what I can achieve by making growth-oriented choices, not being afraid to make big requests, and focusing on data, I have no doubt it will work out.” In February, the first step was taken with the German branch of Hygiënepapier.nl.

The rapid growth of his company presented a number of unexpected challenges. “As we transitioned from a startup to a scale-up, we had to establish new guidelines. Not everyone was able to adapt to them. A number of people were let go or resigned. I realized then that I wasn’t checking in with my team enough and wasn’t being clear enough. For example, there was a woman who had been working for me for six years and had all sorts of expectations about her role. Because I hadn’t been clear from the start, a misunderstanding arose, and she eventually refused to speak to me. I blamed myself for that.”

The Champions League

Stephan realized how important his people were to building his business. “I always saw employees as a necessary evil. You need them, but I’d rather do everything on my own. I’ve come to see that in a completely different light.” His people gave him the space he needed to focus on the future of his organization. “Because I had little interest in my employees, I rarely spoke to them. When I started doing so, I discovered they were capable of much more than I thought. Learning to talk to them and truly be present in the conversation helped me enormously.” Once he knew what their strengths were, he could help them grow in their work and delegate more himself. “I always had my hands and my head full. I had absolutely no time to do what I actually needed to do.” He learned how to connect with every level of the company. That helped him get everyone on board with the bigger picture. “I support Feyenoord, but the guys in the warehouse are Ajax fans. So I told them: we’re Ajax now, and we’re already national champions. Time and again, we’ve shown we’re the best in the Netherlands, so that’s no longer a challenge. Now we’re heading to Germany and the rest of Europe. Together, we’re going to win that Champions League. That day, output immediately increased by twenty percent. That really opened my eyes. Why on earth didn’t I do this sooner? Why didn’t I come down from my ivory tower sooner and become part of the team?”

A big bag of money

Looking back now, Stephan is grateful for the opportunity he was given in December 2019. Call it a blessing in disguise. “That acquisition was supposed to be the easy path to a big pile of money. In the end, this path is definitely not the easy one. But now I’m really playing a game. And it’s a game that gives me much more joy and energy.”