My Work

(Entrepreneur | CTO | CEO | Executive | Strategic Advisor)

M4N -  money for nothing

In 1999, at the age of 25, I co-founded M4N (Money For Nothing) together with my brothers. What started as a belief in performance-based online marketing became one of the first and largest affiliate marketing SaaS platforms in the Netherlands.

As Co-founder and CTO, I was responsible for the technical vision, architecture, and scalability of the platform. We built high-availability tracking systems, attribution engines, and automated payment infrastructures long before “MarTech” became a mainstream category.

M4N scaled to:

• 40,000+ connected websites

• 10,000+ affiliates

• 400+ affiliate programs

• Over €10 million in annual affiliate commissions

We grew into a team of approximately 60 employees, leading a development team of 15 engineers while aligning product, commercial, and operational strategy.

M4N was recognized multiple times in the Deloitte Fast 50 and received the FD Gazellen Award. In 2011, the company was acquired by Zanox AG (Axel Springer Group).

The company was originally founded under the name Mbuyu — inspired by the baobab market tree in Central Africa — and later renamed M4N to create a more accessible and scalable international brand.

This exit marked my transition from founder-operator to executive leader in an international corporate environment.

AWIN - International Integration & Scale

Following the acquisition, I became CTO BeNeLux / Integration Lead at Zanox (now AWIN).

In this role, I was responsible for integrating M4N into a 350-person international organization. This required:

• Migrating affiliates, advertisers, and data streams into the global platform

• Aligning technical architecture across markets

• Leading cross-border integration teams

• Designing scalable international data feed systems

This phase taught me how to operate within larger corporate structures, manage international stakeholders, and translate entrepreneurial systems into enterprise environments.

ZEEF — Human Curation Meets Search

In 2013, I founded ZEEF.com.

ZEEF was built on a simple but ambitious idea: combine human expertise with search technology to create curated, high-quality content discovery. Before AI-driven curation became mainstream, we focused on expert-driven structure.

As Founder & CEO, I:

• Defined product vision and long-term platform strategy

• Built and led a multidisciplinary team of 13 people

• Scaled to 140,000 users and 4,000 public expert pages

• Raised €1.8 million in investment capital

• Developed affiliate and advertising revenue models

ZEEF later pivoted toward influencer and performance marketing, laying the foundation for my next venture.

LinkPizza — Marketplace Leadership

In 2017, I founded LinkPizza, which grew into the largest content, influencer, and affiliate marketplace platform in the Netherlands.

As Founder & CEO, I was responsible for:

• Vision, strategy, and organizational design

• Building and leading a team of up to 13 FTE (product, engineering, sales, operations)

• Raising €2 million across multiple investment rounds

• Developing a SaaS marketplace connecting brands, influencers, and publishers

• Scaling towards approximately €1 million in annual revenue

We built a hybrid model combining subscriptions, affiliate transactions, and commission-based structures — balancing recurring SaaS income with performance-driven marketplace economics.

In 2025, my role at LinkPizza concluded as the platform continued within a new organizational structure. This marked the closing of a significant chapter and the beginning of a new strategic phase in my career.

Investor & Strategic Advisor

Beyond founding and leading companies, I have supported early-stage SaaS and platform businesses as an investor and strategic advisor.

I have been involved in companies such as:

• Plot Projects (location-based marketing SaaS)

• Eat To Meet (networking and event platform)

• Translin (interpretation and communication platform)

My advisory focus typically includes:

• Product direction and simplification

• Go-to-market positioning

• Marketplace economics and unit models

• Organizational structure during growth phases

• Pivot and restructuring decisions

Leadership Philosophy

My career sits at the intersection of: Technology × Commercial Strategy × Human Behavior

My dyslexia has influenced my leadership style profoundly. It pushes me toward clarity, simplification, and structured thinking. I naturally focus on systems over noise, patterns over details, and scalability over complexity.

I build:

• Platforms, not features

• Systems, not shortcuts

• Teams, not silos

Over more than 25 years, I have led organizations from early-stage startup to market leader, raised venture capital, executed exits, integrated into international corporations, and advised founders through growth and transition phases  .

Today, my focus is on leadership, strategy, and advisory roles within SaaS- and platform-driven organizations — in permanent, interim, or board-level capacities.

Read The Journey.