Entrepreneur #23 out of 100: Robert-Jan Verheggen, co-founder of Klippa

Building a startup is hard. Staying in it for almost 10 years is even harder. Doing it with six co-founders—and successfully exiting together? That’s rare.

In this episode, I talk to Robert-Jan Verheggen, co-founder of Klippa, a Dutch tech company that recently made a successful exit after nearly a decade of building. He started Klippa with six technical co-founders, and together they navigated the full founder journey: from idea to team formation, through cashflow stress, competing job offers, motivation dips, and finally, to the finish line. Two months ago they sold the business, with the same 6 founders they started with.

We talk about his personal journey, how they picked the founding team (or maybe how it picked itself), and the realities of building a company in the Netherlands.

In this episode:

💡 How to keep going when you're building with a large founding team

💡 What happens when the money runs out

💡 How to make big decisions—like selling the company—together

💡 And if selling your business is needed to make it all worth it

A conversation about founder drive, finding fun in building businesses and what it takes to keep a founding team together.