How is your startup called?

#SAM, sam stands for together (samen).

What year did you start your startup?  

The company got founded in 2021 by Ronald Mets and Fleur den Horn. Starting from September 2022, #SAM had an official BV.  

What is it that #SAM does?

We enhance the health of employees within organizations. This all is being done with a learning environment for coaching, self-study, and exercises. We deliver trainings with different topics about mental and physical health. These are mainly meant to enhance the awareness and self-direction of employees. The goal is to create a healthy lifestyle.  

Lastly, we use experiences, reactions, and data of attendees of the trainings to improve our current content. A self-learning system is being developed this way; people start improving their own wellbeing.

You got assigned a coach from our network, who is this and how did these conversations go?

Our coach is called Bas van Heel, an experienced consultant with an imposing track record at BCG. After signing up for coaching, Graduate Entrepreneur brought us into contact with Bas. Since Bas had experienced stumbling points himself within the world of employee wellbeing, he felt a connection with the proposition. We got into contact and decided to continue the conversations.  

How often did you meet each other?

The intensity of the meetings is more important in my opinion. Already before the first meeting Bas asked me to send him everything I had. This way we directly looked into the business model, our ideas and long-term visions. Our first meeting took us two hours and was of high quality. Bas showed us his big potentials and we immediately wanted to continue our conversations. Since then, we had ± 12 hours of meetings within 3 months.  

Which important lessons did you learn from your collaboration?

Business management principles of customer needs or technological roadmaps are in real life helpful to take strategical decisions. Tons of situations can appear randomly which causes you to lose the overall overview.    

Bas reintroduced me to the analyses and models I learned in university, since he has been working with them for years and knows how to directly come to the core of the problem. This gave me more control over the overall process, it feels internally within the team as if we work structured and goal oriented. This is pleasant, we have a clear vison and a practical housing to develop in.  

Did the conversations influence the way you work within #SAM, if so, how?

Yes, 100%, in the startup phase you are inclined to accept everything that might be able to give you revenue. Still very important since revenue gives you money and money gives your company the opportunity to continue to exist. But if these projects do not add to your long-term vision or developments, you need to be careful. You only have a limited amount of time, and you need this time to work on your long-term goals.  

Do you still talk to your coach?

It depends on the period we are in and the critical moments we face within the company. Every, one and a half month we have a meeting from ± 2 hours. In between we speak to one another to discuss the developments on the discussed themes.

Our bond is good, we managed to get on online line. Our main goal is to give everyone a healthy and happy work life.

This brings us closer to many people since it is a common goal. As long as we keep this in mind and work towards it, I believe we will stay in contact with Bas!  

What is the biggest benefit of having a coach?  

High quality advice and an outsider's opinion that realistically can give you his or her opinion!  

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Are you also curious to what a coach could add to your startup? Do not hesitate to apply for coaching via the following link! https://www.graduate.nl/forms/coaching-request1

We are also always looking for new bright minds that want to share their visions and knowledge. Maybe you will be the next perfect match for a startup! Apply to become a coach of our network here: https://share.hsforms.com/1Ss_ENy1JRPWme4YrEAbrJg5n77o

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