Transcript
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Welcome to Scaling with Purpose, the show where we explore what it takes to build companies that aim for commercial success and meaningful impact.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: I'm joined today by Kevin van Windt, founder of Based on Skills. It's really great to have you here. Welcome.
Kevin: Thank You Yes, let me introduce myself. My name is Kevin Van Windt, I am the founder of Based on Skills and I'm happy to be here with you on air
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Beautiful. Thanks for being here. Yeah, so first thing first, Kevin, I'm really curious about what motivated you to create based on skills.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: But before we go there, I want to ask you a question on what motivates you what motivated you to start a business, to become an entrepreneur?
Kevin: Yes.
Kevin: Good question. i think I didn't have specifically the motivation to become an entrepreneur. From nature, from myself, I am an opportunist, so I see chances. So the chance that I saw was the question of the market.
Kevin: And I fulfilled that question. And while fulfilling that question, I needed to start a company. So within me, it was not, oh, I'm at home. Let me think of what company I start. No, I was just doing it. And for legal manners, I had to make that a company.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: yeah So for your for for yourself, a entrepreneurship is a tool to to provide value to people that have a certain problem.
Kevin: That's
Kevin: it.
Kevin: Exactly, exactly. I have a group. So based on skills is not only my only business. And the group is also called improving life group.
Kevin: So That's my mantra. Everything that I invest in, that I start a business with, it always has to be an improvement of the life of people. So you will never see me sell oil or something like that because it's not an improvement of the life that people live.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: No.
Kevin: That's my only thing. Let's see if I start a business, I have an ID, I check it with the mantra. Is it improving the lives of people? Yes, then we can do it.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, that's really beautiful. Yeah, funny thing is I have the same. when you know When I became an entrepreneur in the beginning, it was chasing money, being very honest.
Kevin: Nice.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: And then suddenly when I saw, okay, I reached some point where I was financially stable, I was like, okay, what now? And then I started understanding that my time had value and I could spend my time doing a lot of different types of things and still get money.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: So if I am allowed to choose what to spend my time on, then I want to choose to improve people's lives. So in that sense, I love i love your mantra.
Kevin: nice
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: It's really beautiful.
Kevin: Thanks. Yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, wonderful. So I want to ask you about based on skills.
Kevin: Yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: I'm curious, what what is it exactly that you solve? What the what is the problem?
Kevin: The problem is that for young people on the labor market, especially in the Netherlands, I can't say about worldwide, but I think they will experience the same problems, is that if you do a study and you get at the labor market at a young age, then the people are going to ask you about your working experience. But that's something you can't have because you were studying all the time.
Kevin: And the labor market in the Netherlands is so focused on a CV and the demands on that, that for young people, it's very hard to get their first chance.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Mm-hmm.
Kevin: and and And we think they are capable of that first chance, but somebody has to give them the first chance to build that working experience. And that's why we came up with based on skills.
Kevin: if you don't look at the primary things on a cv like your diploma and your working experience but if you look past that you will see that a lot of people are capable to start on the job but the market and the systems in the market are built that if not if there's not a hobby on the on the resume or five-year working experience you won't even get looked at and that's what we are trying to change with based on skills
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: it
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah,
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: yeah it's beautiful. i think I think it's very valuable. It's always a chicken and egg problem, right?
Kevin: Yes, exactly.
Kevin: Excellent.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: they they demand experience from you, but how would you get experience if they don't allow you to gain that experience, right? So how does, based on skills, do that?
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: how How does it encourage people to hire people that are not there yet, that are not experienced yet?
Kevin: That's a good question. Now, if you don't if you if you stop looking primarily at the working experience and the diplomas, then you have then you need something else to look at because still have to choose people.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, exactly.
Kevin: And we say, look at the skills people have, the soft skills, because hard skills are easy to learn. Hard skills, everybody can learn how to use words or something. But soft skills is something you have developed throughout your whole life.
Kevin: And that can be meaningful for certain jobs. So what we do is we learn companies how they could hire and and and select people based on their skills.
Kevin: We learn them which skills you need for the job because a lot of people don't know what do what does a person need to start at this job.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: No.
Kevin: and not what does he have to have to five years. No, start, you don't need five year experience. You will learn on the job a lot, but to start, you have a certain skillset that's very important. And we show the skillset of people with an assessment in the app and we present that at at the employees.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, exactly. Okay, so that's that's interesting because i've I've been on a lot of vacancy boards and it's always a very difficult job to create the vacancy text, right?
Kevin: Mm-hmm.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Especially before ChatGPT. I mean, ChatGPT helps a lot.
Kevin: Yes.
Kevin: yes
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Well, it it does some part of the thinking for us. Maybe that makes the vacancies not really matching our needs, but that's a different different challenge we have as a humanity, let's say. But it's it's it's very hard to create a job description. So I'm curious because you say we help them to to to find that. How do you help them? Is that consultancy or is that in the app some kind of...
Kevin: We do a lot through our software and the first problem you address is indeed the the vacancies are too long, too big and especially this generation of Gen Z is not consuming the information how you are presenting it like the same as 1999 because some vacancies never change.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Exactly. Yeah.
Kevin: So what we say is we also have AI in our employees dashboard online, it's an online dashboard. If you would like to upload a vacancy on the app, then you have your own employees dashboard when you can fill in your old vacancy and with one press on the button, our AI tool will change your old vacancy in something that Gen Z is aspired to look at.
Kevin: running
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, so it will become fancy and and and attaching grabbing and...
Kevin: and now Yes, exactly. So you don't have to think about that anymore. That's what we are doing for you. And then we also grab the skills from the vacancy.
Kevin: And we always work with suggestions. Like we say, and not any robot, not me, not you can know what you have to do for that job. Only you, the job owner knows best.
Kevin: So we give you suggestions. You can look at the suggestions and you say, I agree with this suggestion or not. And you pick different skills. That's how we work.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, exactly. I like that a lot because I was afraid that when I would, because I would like to to check the system out, by the way, but that's a different story. But i was I was first thinking, okay, will I be guided and will it be done for me? And will I lose control?
Kevin: no you never lose control yes that's it we help you but you are always in control to say and agree with what we think because at the end of the day we believe and nobody knows your company better than you
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Because in the end...
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, exactly. And it's also a little bit, we we entrepreneurs have a little bit of pride. We are proud of our company and the culture we we are building.
Kevin: Yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: So it must fit that type of of feeling we have with the identity.
Kevin: Exactly, yes. Yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, I like the approach. And yeah, so... you have played You have put that or you have created that software, you have put that in the market. So I'm curious, how how how did you start?
Kevin: yes
Kevin: To be honest, I made a lot of mistakes because this was the first time that I started a company with this amount of potential.
Kevin: Like I started a previous company and what I say, I was selling before I even had a Dun & Bradsheet number. So that was easy.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, beautiful.
Kevin: I was selling and then making the company, but this time it was the other way around. And with this much potential, like before even going live, the idea itself had already investors knocking on my door from, hey, we would like to know what doing, et cetera.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Beautiful.
Kevin: And that was all new for me. I am not from like a wealthy family and the network when I started wasn't there with the right people to guide me through this. So I just go and go with the flow and and I fell into the trap from doing what I'm the most good at.
Kevin: And that's especially the marketing of the product. And I think a lot of founders are good at that because it's your own product, you developed it, just nobody can tell the story better than yourself.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
Kevin: So I invested and a lot of time and money in the marketing and you As you can hear, I have two targets like the B2B or the employees and the B2C on the employers.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Kevin: And I always have to the chicken and the egg. If I don't have vacancies, the employers will that won't download the app. But if I don't have employers, the vacancy won't be on the app. So balance is really the most a challenging thing for based on skills.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, I can imagine.
Kevin: but i i started with what i know about the market and i know young people gen z that's where my specialty lies so i went fully on that and we have 10 000 app downloads and a lot of users but they are not my paying customer my paying customer are the employees and that demands sales in the labor market and that was not my specialty where where I should have had always primarily sales because that keeps your company alive.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, exactly.
Kevin: I was too fond and keen on the idea of the the the social impact.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Oh, yeah. yeah
Kevin: That's nice, but that's not going to pay the bills.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Exactly.
Kevin: So,
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Exactly. Yeah.
Kevin: that was my biggest challenge like i have this company that they did that is winning prices because of the id and the outside world likes it a lot but inside we are not selling enough to to to keep this company alive so that was one of my biggest lessons i can give you a small example because like online marketing let's say social media marketing you have two options organic or paid
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Kevin: organic, the whole world sees that your mom sees that I can show it to my mom, my neighbor, everybody, it's broad.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah. It's broad.
Kevin: So that's where you can show off what you're doing, how nice and visuals, but an paid advertising is your target.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Exactly.
Kevin: do it Specifically, like say, younger people between 18 and 23, only they are going to see the ad, you are not going to sue me, I'm going to say, but that's what gets me money.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Kevin: but it's for an owner and an NNCEO and a founder. It's very difficult to make the choice for Okoye. Nobody's going to see it, but it's going to get me paid or everybody's going to see it and love the idea.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Exactly.
Kevin: And I make the mistake to go a lot of times for the second one.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, yeah
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: yeah I can imagine. It's also very, very... If you're not profit-oriented in your nature, it is very hard to bring things down to the the bottom line.
Kevin: Yes, yes, exactly.
Kevin: Exactly. Yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, so you're you're looking at other metrics, like how many likes, how many followers, how many views, right?
Kevin: yeah
Kevin: Yes, yes. And how many people we help. It's like this company is so big and and touches so much touching points. Like we are software, but we are also recruitment, but we are also helping young people work.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin: So it's social impact. We are are very good at at marketing because a lot of a lot of brands, a lot of companies are not good at reaching the younger target.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Kevin: So they ask us,
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Exactly.
Kevin: Can you help us reach the younger?
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Exactly.
Kevin: So we have so many touch points. And in the early stage, yeah, we do it all. I go to schools and give seminars and do this and do that.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yep.
Kevin: But the core business is that we are supplying software that makes it possible for two targets to get in touch with each other. That's employees and employers. And this year we said we're going back to the basics and how nice everything sounds and every opportunity sounds. Sometimes you need to say no and focus on your core business.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, it's just the marketplace. We're going to match these people. And then, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin: Yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: And I think even if you're looking at the profile at the impact side, actually, you're saving the world, right? and I think if you if you move from saving the individual,
Kevin: Yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: towards saving the world, then then it automatically turns into a a folk more focused type of system, right?
Kevin: Yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Because if you're focused, if you are yeah if you have your engine running and and the engine gets bigger bigger bigger, bigger, bigger, then you can save the world.
Kevin: yes
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: But if you keep tracking the individuals and and trying to reach the individuals only, and not creating the system, then yeah in the end, you're saving people, you're saving a group, but you're not bringing changing the job market for Gen Z.
Kevin: Yes.
Kevin: Yes. It's not scalable also. Yeah. Yes. Yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: And that is and an interesting insight. Lovely. Lovely. Yeah, it's it's actually very cool because you have a marketplace and you can take you can look at your marketplace from different viewpoints.
Kevin: Exactly, yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: But in the end, you should go and look at it as a marketplace. Then it works.
Kevin: Exactly, yes. and And the key of a marketplace is balance, like enough vacancies for enough job seekers and enough job seekers for the vacancies.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. Yeah. and And what I want to ask you, because and this is a very clear challenge you had and I think you have the right insights to improve on that on that part but what has it done with you as a person?
Kevin: As a person, it it like along the way, you don't see that you're taking the wrong way. Because what you're doing, you're enjoying what you're doing.
Kevin: You get very nice attention for what you're doing.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Kevin: Because what I said again, a lot of people that are not my target group, that like above Gen Z... For example, you, they love the idea, what you're doing.
Kevin: So you get invites, you get you come come speak and everywhere.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Kevin: And like, I'm the person that goes from, okay, nice, let's go, let's do this. i Along the way, people are are loving the idea and wanting to make their,
Kevin: but let's say, share to to help bring this idea to life. So they are saying, I can help you with a marketing campaign. I can help you with this and with that and with CEO and SO in your Google and And everything is is is good with a good intention, but it also costs money.
Kevin: And it's not like in one time, like 100K, because I'm not stupid, I would say no. But it's like a thousand here, 10K there.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Kevin: And at the end, and I'm also not that good financially. I know the basics, but I'm not a financial guy. And at the end, when your're your year your annual year is done and you see what amount you have spent on, for example, marketing, that's crazy.
Kevin: I could have hired two account managers to do the sales, but it was not like in one time that amount, but bid, bid, bid, bid.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin: And at the end,
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: And then it it stacks.
Kevin: It stacks. And at the end, when I realized that, I felt like I failed, to be honest.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Kevin: I felt like I failed. I felt like, could I rewind the time? Can I go back in time? If I had the same amount of money, I would spend it this time very differently.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Kevin: I need a second chance. And and that's how I felt the in the beginning. But at the end, I know this is part of the journey and this makes my story.
Kevin: I'm now better. I'm now smarter financially. i took the right measures and I know what to do now. And I see it as like I get a second chance and I start from zero for based on skills internally, not externally, but internally I start from zero with learnings from the past two years, knowing what to do and what not to do, especially.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah. Yeah.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Exactly. Yeah, some lessons are expensive, but but they they are very valuable.
Kevin: Yes.
Kevin: Yes, they are very valuable. It was like a a really painful thing to see that i that my turnover was 2.2 million, but my costs were 2.1 million.
Kevin: so
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kevin: So it's a smack in the face to say it nicely.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, I can imagine. But i' also, if we're looking at the startups and in this phase, you're you're you're not an outlier, right?
Kevin: Yeah. Yeah.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: They're all not making a lot of profit in in the phase you're at.
Kevin: Well, exactly. But it's not the profit for me, but spending the money otherwise.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Kevin: it's it's it's And the the biggest lesson I've learned is that you can take guidance, you know. Like I have these lessons. I hope that if someday a young Kevin is out there and wanting to do this, I hope he finds me so that I can help him not make the same mistakes that I have made.
Kevin: like that was think the biggest lesson how i could have saved a lot is to have a mentor or something like that to invest because i was not like stubborn so i was not the guy like i don't want an a mentor no but i was not willing to invest the time to find mentor that's that's how yes
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Totally the same here, unfortunately. and if you If you haven't learned to search for a mentor, it's not like very logical.
Kevin: Exactly.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: the the next logical thing to do.
Kevin: Yes.
Kevin: Exactly.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: and Yeah, so so you need to learn that along the way that it's valuable and it's important. So I have an interesting question, and and this this is something when I first met you, I had it in my mind, but I never asked the question.
Kevin: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: How do you do recruitment yourself? how How do you build the team?
Kevin: So that's the funny part. I was already my whole life recruiting people on skills without knowing it. So I will give you the first example. I would work at at a retail store.
Kevin: And they were searching for new people and i would and I would just love to work with my friends. So it was not for me like I'm going to recruit. No, I just wanted to work with my friends. So I helped my friends with a resume so they could work at my at the same place as I did. And it was like I was like 16 years old or something.
Kevin: But I already knew that if the resume that they had, if they send it to the company, they wouldn't get a chance. So like a little bit of illegally, I...
Kevin: changed their resume so that I made sure that they would get the job. But it's not the focus on that I changed the resume. I already knew that they were good for the job.
Kevin: I just had to convince the company that they are good and I convinced them with changing the resume.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, exactly.
Kevin: Because you can change the resume, but you cannot change the the people. So the people are good.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: It's the packaging.
Kevin: Yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: It's the packaging.
Kevin: but they would never have looked at the people if I didn't change the resume. So that's the problem still today.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Kevin: the people are good, but their resumes are not good. But that that wouldn't say that they are not a good fit to work at your company.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, exactly.
Kevin: So I was doing this long before I knew that I had this skill of recruiting on on skills. And even later with my first company, Young Ambition, that is a coaching company that works for governments and schools to guide young people to a soft landing in after school.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, beautiful.
Kevin: This goes about their life after school. and and and And that was my first company. And every coach that I hired was not a coach. They not graduated as an coach.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Oh, yeah.
Kevin: But I saw how they personally were. And I knew you could work with young people because you have the mimic and and and everything. So come work with me. i don't I don't care that you don't have the diplomas or the working experience.
Kevin: I see you and I think you're fit for this role. And I did it for so many people. i think more than 30 people, I supplied a job on this way, like changing their whole career.
Kevin: Like i'm talking about university people who were bound to have the way of of the South us, but changed there for their impact that they were willing to make.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Kevin: so purely based on their skills.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, interesting. Yeah, that last point is really funny, actually. We think people with university degrees are ready for the market.
Kevin: No, even it isn't it isn't. They are just like us with zero experience, just a lot of school time.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, interesting. Yeah, they very very, very, very nice presentation. to to hear this back from you that you are using that methodology actually for yourself and it is something you live by because we see quite often a lot of stuff let's say I talk to a lot of startups and what I see is they provide a certain service and then when they need to do it they do it otherwise in another way
Kevin: Yes. yeah.
Kevin: yeah
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: But you are bringing Kevin into the application to help actually these companies to do it like you do.
Kevin: Yes, I'm the biggest proof of concept. If you ask me, you can get a good reverence that this method works.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. All right. i think we can talk for for another hour, but I will try to not take all your time.
Kevin: I think also, yeah.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: I really enjoyed the conversation, Kevin.
Kevin: Me too. Really, yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: And i want to thank you for your time.
Kevin: Thank you.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: But before we close, I want to ask you if people want to find you and follow you, because what you're doing is really wonderful. You are changing the world.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: to match how Gen Z works and things. And I think companies need that change, need to communicate in a different way, need to help Gen Z understand them.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: And we need to help Gen Z understand the companies and that it goes both ways, right?
Kevin: Exactly. Yes.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: If we don't do that, then there there will be a huge mismatch between Gen Z and the working environment. So I do believe that people want to follow you. So where can they follow you?
Kevin: On LinkedIn, I'm the most active on LinkedIn. So my name is Kevin van Wind and you can follow the journey on LinkedIn and then at LinkedIn, you see also my companies. You also see the business page of Based on Skills, the website www.basedonskills.nl and on all the socials, the name Based on Skills fortunately was free. So we have the the best name, I think, and it's on all socials and online.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Yeah, beautiful. Thanks a lot for your time and hopefully we'll meet up again later.
Kevin: I hope so. Nice. Thank you.
Mohamed Alkaduhimi: Right.
