Smooth Sailing

At Smooth Sailing, we’re joyfully ending the year with a team making magic happen behind the scenes! ✨👇 Wishing you Happy Holidays and a year of Smooth Success!🎄

We are still glowing from last week's Impact Meet-Up 🤩 , where we brought together an exceptional group of founders & investors, all driven by a shared mission to create positive change—whether in climate tech, energy solutions, or solar management. 💚 The night was a mix of insightful conversations and meaningful exchanges, sparking ideas and connections that left us all inspired. A huge thank you to Nick Van Berckelaer from ecoinvent, who shared how their Life Cycle Assessment data models are being used across sectors to drive innovation and how they manage their products successfully. Our very own founder, Hannes D'Hulster, provided invaluable tips on achieving a Minimal 𝐕𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 Product, shedding light on the field of tension whether to hire a salesperson vs. a product person first when striving for product-market fit. These insights sure fueled some thought-provoking discussions. ⛵ Thanks to Start it Accelerate | @KBC for facilitating this dynamic session, which set the stage for a night full of collaboration and inspiration. We wrapped up the evening with a cosy dinner at Skybar Antwerp, where the conversations continued in a more relaxed setting. Thank you, dear impact community, for taking the time out of your busy schedule and bring these great vibes to our event. You can almost feel the vibes through the screen, as they were greatly captured by Jannes Van den wouwer! 📸 Here’s to more of this community, innovation, and impact. 🫶 #impactmeetup #impactfounders #communitybuilding

At Impact Us Today, the mission is clear: make energetic renovations for homeowners as smooth as possible, tackling financial challenges and innovating along the way. But scaling a vision requires more than ambition—it demands the right partners. 🤝 Together with Smooth Sailing, they rebuilt the platform completely from scratch, which was set up less than a year after they gave the briefing to revamp the product. It launched one month later than planned—but what is one month in the life of a startup? dixit Jef Daniëls, CEO of Impact Us Today. “Looking back, we never had any quality issues after release. The entire team—Smooth Sailing and our developers—kept a high bar for quality. Maybe we could have launched earlier, but by waiting, the platform met all our expectations." At Smooth Sailing, we believe that impact is achieved not just by launching fast but by launching right, which means that it’s important to get the right feedback (not only bug reports) from our users. Helping purpose-driven companies prioritize quality while scaling their vision is what we love most! ⛵ #impactinnovation #productdevelopment #sustainablegrowth #qualitymatters

Meet Ramzi Bouzerda, the pioneering founder of Droople | B-Corp™️. Droople dives deep into the mission of digitizing the world’s water-based assets to protect and monitor them. Ramzi has lived and learned the impact founder ways for many years now, and shared these great insights with our host: 💡 "You need to be stuck to your mission, be anchored to it and your principles. We are often seen as early believers, even as prophets. So it’s crucial to accept that you will sometimes have to build your vision with people who don’t necessarily share your beliefs. Accept that it’s not perfect, that it will take time, and that many will appropriate themselves your message and values." Ramzi, you are a wonderful & inspiring example. It’s great to see you leading the charge in making our world more water-conscious! 💧 #impactleadership #waterconservation #sustainability #innovation

A focused specialization in teams leads to faster success. 🚀 Read more about our specialties below in this post from Smooth Sailing's founder Hannes! 👇

Made it back from Web Summit last week and Hannes & Christina's heads are still buzzing of the connections we made and the vibes they experienced under the Portuguese sun. ☀ Smooth Sailing had the honor of hosting a pitch competition at the Impact Shakers & Startup Guide Summit in the inspiring Casa do Impacto. Over 15 amazing impact founders took the stage in a church, showcasing diverse ideas that have the power to make a tangible difference. Congrats to coobi, SEALEO & Peripear Ltd as the winners! 💥 Looking forward to some of the female founders we'll be seeing soon for our #100interviews" 🤗 Gordana Ilic, PhD (BetterSea), Raina Sun (ReloSync) Partnering up with Yonca was an absolute no-brainer: we love to be at the heart of this impact community and to support them in any way we can, also in amplifying their potential to achieve product-solution fit faster. By helping founders prioritize what to build first and create maximum value for their customers, we aim to fuel their success exponentially. ⛽ Thanks to the organization (Sissel Hansen, Lucija Matic, Yonca Braeckman), our expectations for event venues, in any case, have been raised to heavenly heights from now on! 😇 #impactcommunity #pitchcompetition

Smooth Sailing is navigating around Web Summit in Lisboa, exploring the wonderful impact eco-system at one of the biggest tech conferences of the year! ⛵ As a cherry on top, we’re collaborating with Impact Shakers & StartupGuide Summit to host a firing pitch competition at the Casa do Impacto today. 🔥 Christina & Hannes will introduce 14 passionate impact founders and their pitch on how they are creating real change! Great to join forces with Yonca Braeckman, Lucija Matic and the team! 🙌 #impactentrepreneurship #sustainability #pitchcontest #changemakers

As an impact founder, you’re not just running a business—you’re navigating uncharted waters with a map made of your biggest dreams. ⛵ The tricky part but also the trick to success? Balancing your mission with the practicalities of business. It’s like climbing a mountain with a heavy backpack, where every step counts. 🏔 If there one thing we heard from the many impact founder-interviews we did, it's this: a key strategy is to highlight financial benefits to customers and prospects first. Show them how your product or service can deliver value and drive financial gain before diving into the details of your sustainable mission. This approach helps build a stronger connection and demonstrates why your offering is a smart choice. 💹 Focusing solely on positive impact isn’t a straightforward path to success. While making a difference is important, it’s not enough on its own. You need a solid financial strategy to make sure your venture thrives. Without this balance, even the best intentions can fall short. ⚖ How do you tackle these challenges in your ventures? Let’s swap strategies! #impactentrepreneurship #strategy #foundertricks

Stijn Gysemans 💚🌍🤝, is one of the 100 impact founders our host Christina Hadinoto is interviewing. He is one of the visionaries behind ClimateCamp, a collaborative SaaS platform focused on connecting suppliers to tackle real emissions and drive impactful sustainability projects. He shared with us that clarity in the mission often only becomes apparent in hindsight. The early stages of any journey are filled with uncertainty, and it's through navigating the challenges, engaging with customers, and staying deeply immersed in the problem that a clear vision eventually emerges. So if you're finding it difficult to see the bigger picture right now, know that it’s a natural part of the process. Exactly the advice every founder needs sometimes.🙌 Thank you, Stijn & team, for your inspiring leadership in the fight against climate change! 🌍 #sustainability #impactleadership #climateaction #startupjourney #entrepreneurship

Our Smooth Sailing team is getting bigger with more bright people, and we are loving it! ⛵ A BIG welcome to Sigrid Lenaerts- she’s a pro at turning big ideas into user-friendly products and uses several AI tools to her advantage like it’s absolutely no big deal! With her laser focus on product vision and strategy, Sigrid’s all about creating solutions that people love today—and will still need tomorrow. When she’s not busy aligning tech with the bigger picture, you’ll find her trekking off the beaten path, soaking in creative fuel from art, culture, and adventure. 🌍 With Sigrid on deck, let’s sail full speed ahead! #teamexpansion #productvision #smoothsailing