5 years of Helloprint: Top 5 factors that contributed to success of Rotterdam print scaleup

Helloprint is one name in the Netherlands which is synonymous to the most successful online printing platform and e-commerce marketplace. The Dutch-based online print platform was founded in 2013 and is now active in 8 European countries including in the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Spain and UK and has offices in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) and Valencia (Spain).

Helloprint is one of the fastest growing e-commerce platforms in Europe. The Dutch-based online print platform was founded in 2013. Hans Scheffer is one of the founders and CEO of the Dutch startup with over 600,000 customers.

The online print platform lets print producers sell their products to customers instead of producing anything themselves. This way, the print producers need not be bothered about customer acquisition, artwork and payment process. The company has three brand names – Helloprint, Drukzo and iDrukker, but operates internationally fully under the Helloprint brand.

The Dutch startup recently celebrated 5 successful years of its operation. On this occasion, Silicon Canals today takes a look at 5 important aspects of the Rotterdam based scaleup.

#1 Data at the heart

Helloprint already started early with automating their businesses and using new techniques to grow faster and has built a very strong data basis from where technique is used to grow even faster. For example, they use Machine Learning and smart algorithms to predict when their customers will turn inactive and which producer in Europe can produce which order the most efficient. Eventually, they can learn when they should improve their services to keep their customers satisfied.

The Dutch company mines its own database, tracks orders, keeps an eye on the web for search term fluctuations and tries to tweak the same for the best result. There is a strongly growing data analytics team, which predicts shifts in the market for 18 months in advance to know what influences customers. If there is a change in the weather, it can simulate the demand for related products.

#2 Challenging growth in big countries

Helloprint is expanding rapidly into various European countries. The company received major funding, which has been devoted to fuel growth and expansion. The company, which already exists in many European markets expanded into the challenging and big German market recently. They revealed the same at the FESPA 2018 exhibition in Berlin earlier in May, this year. The startup has already gained over thousands of orders from the market and is growing every week. The expansion will be continued letting customers in Germany order 2,000+ unique products. Rumor says the company is also preparing its launch in the United States, which would be a very interesting growth market.

#3 Culture at the heart: Exiting company season themes

Helloprint is fully build on its cultural fundament and the company is very dogmatic about this. People are only hired when they have an absolute cultural fit and its company high performance culture exists out of 6 important aspects. One remarkable thing is their season themes, for example their latest “Hello X” space theme, which is an ode to the Sanctity of Space and has strong relations with Elon Musk’s desire to grow. By involving the whole team in this team, it creates a winning culture. See here there great introduction movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KACmTyOVJIU

#4 Strong funding

Back in 2016, the startup received its first €3 million funding for expansion. Till date, the company has raised several million euros of funding from its investors. These investments will be spent for the benefit of the customers and in increasing the specialized print producers connected to the Helloprint system. This year, they are expecting to witness over €50 million of revenue and over 50% growth compared to 2017.

#5 Future plans

Many print producers will find it difficult to sell their products in smaller quantities to individual customers. The reason is the complex supply chain, high order costs and improper marketing capabilities. Teaming up with Helloprint will let them sell their product without any hassles or additional investment. This will definitely be an interesting option for many print producers. Due to the increase in the online orders, customers also get a superior service at a lower cost.

The startup is in plans to expand its presence to more markets this year increasing the employee base by another 100. In three years, the company reached 3000% of its growth and we expect this number to increase in the coming years.

Stay tuned to Silicon Canals for more updates in the tech startup world.