17 Aug 2026 · 1 h 8 min · Spoken in Dutch

From a Small Belgian Start-Up to a 1.4 Billion Unicorn

With Jan Hollez, Co-founder of Posios and Deliverect. Hosted by Stijn Van Daele and Jeroen De Broyer.

Jan Hollez, co-founder of Posios and Deliverect, explains how Deliverect grew from a small Belgian start-up into a global company. His lessons: build a first version with a real customer problem, track the number of locations first, add process only when the stage needs it, and enter new markets with entrepreneurial launchers.

Jan Hollez built software for the hospitality industry twice. With Posios he made a point-of-sale system that ran on an iPad, which later merged with Lightspeed. With Deliverect he solved a problem his customers kept raising: restaurants juggling orders from many delivery platforms. In the conversation he looks back at how the company expanded across many countries in a few years, and what that meant for sales, marketing, culture and the metrics they followed.

This episode is spoken in Dutch. The summary and quotes below are our own English version of what was said.

Key lessons

Build the first version, then iterate with real customers

Both companies started with a basic first version that did the minimum a customer needed. For Deliverect, that was getting orders into the till at the right moment. Hollez says perfectionism is a trap: you only have a real product when customers are willing to pay for it, and that is when you know you solve a core problem.

Founders sell first, then you add people who have done it before

Early on, the founders sold themselves, which helped with decisions about features and with winning difficult first customers. Referenceable customers make selling easier for the team that follows. The founders also brought in a co-founder who had run go-to-market at Lightspeed, so the sales machine did not have to be invented from scratch.

Early on, track the number of locations

In the first phase, the number of locations was the most important metric. More customers means density in a market and cheaper marketing. Revenue per customer, churn and time to value became more important as the company grew. Hollez also stresses time to value: how quickly a new customer sees the product working.

Match processes and efficiency to the stage you are in

In the early days efficiency matters little and growth matters a lot. Processes slow a small team down, but with more people and more teams you need them to keep efficiency. Doing efficiency from day one would have cost too much time to build. There is rarely one golden trick, you have to do the right thing for the stage.

Open new markets with entrepreneurial launchers, city by city

A launcher is someone who opens a market and builds the first sales. Hollez looks for commercially driven people who are entrepreneurial enough to work alone in the trenches, often from the existing network and culture. Before entering a market the company checks how many delivery platforms exist, what customers can pay and which cities can make the difference, and it conquers a city before a whole country.

Hire for drive and fit, then train hard on culture

Skills can be learned, but grit and drive sit in a person. Values were documented in a handbook that employees helped write, new colleagues spent their first two weeks on culture and product training, and for a time a culture coach supported fast expansion. The aim is that each office feels like the same company.

Some markets were harder than expected

Hollez names Germany as a market that never went smoothly: customers were more sceptical about software as a subscription, selling needs to happen in German with local people, and running it from Belgium did not work. Mexico was entered a bit too opportunistically. His lesson is to either commit fully to a hard market or buy a local player.

Central strategy, local autonomy, and metrics that can be gamed

Strategy is global, with room for regions in execution. Local sales teams usually want their own marketing, but keeping marketing central makes it easier to measure and control cost. Hollez also warns that metrics can always be gamed and that no metric is perfect, so goals should be revisited when people reach them in a way that is not best for the company.

A second product should fit a large share of customers

Going from one product to several was a difficult moment. A new product that only suits a very small part of the customer base is not worth building, so Deliverect aims for products that around 30 percent of customers could buy. He also advises launching the next product or vertical when the current growth curve is at its top, so several curves stack.

Ambition only counts when you execute it

Hollez credits setting a very high bar from day one. He argues that people are capable of more than they expect and that stretching them matters. But speaking the ambition is not enough: you need to lead, inspire and be able to substantiate it.

In his words

Short quotes, translated from Dutch. Times are approximate.

You only have a real product when there are customers who want to pay for it. Then you know you are solving a core issue.
Jan Hollez, around 7:30

You quickly notice that 80 percent is actually good enough. Two times 80 is better than one time 95.
Jan Hollez, around 16:30

Metrics can always be gamed, and you never have the perfect metric.
Jan Hollez, around 48:00

Chapters

1:00 Who Jan is and what Posios and Deliverect do
5:00 From the till to delivery: why Deliverect started
6:00 Validating fast with a basic first version
8:00 Why networks and platform access mattered
10:00 Commercial excellence: from product-led to a sales machine
15:00 Founders, co-founders and a founding team of four
18:00 Which metrics matter in year one
20:00 Onboarding, time to value and efficiency
26:00 Launchers and opening new regions
30:00 How to choose markets and cities
35:00 Keeping speed and culture as you grow
39:00 Mistakes in Germany and Mexico
44:00 Global versus local marketing and sales
48:00 Metrics that can be gamed
55:00 Small hacks, compounding and S-curves
1:02:00 Ambition and what holds other scale-ups back
1:04:00 The next project: a fund for space and defence