Winning awards is a practical or rather a modest way to gain credibility for products or services delivered by your business. In this regard, LOEY Awards has been celebrating the excellence in the Netherlands for the ninth time recognising the inspiring story of transformation and disruption in the Dutch online industry.
Adriaan Mol – LOEY Award 2018
At the recent award function, Adriaan Mol, the founder of Mollie and Messagebird, has won the LOEY Award 2018 for the best online entrepreneur of the Netherlands, this year. This announcement was made in ‘The Club’ of the A’dam Toren, in the presence of the 250 best internet entrepreneurs in the Netherlands.
The jury of the LOEY Awards has an esteemed panel of industry leaders and experts like Pieter Zwart (Coolblue), Bernhard van Oranje (Levi9), Corinne Vigreux (TomTom), Joost Romeijn (Sundio Group) and Jouk Pleiter (Backbase, winner LOEY Award 2017).
“The LOEY Foundation has awarded an annual award for the best internet entrepreneur in the Netherlands since 2010. Every year, with this award, we want to offer entrepreneurs with a unique vision, strong innovation drive and exceptional growth a platform as an inspiring example for other entrepreneurs in the online industry. Bring many successful internet entrepreneurs, of which the LOEY winners from recent years are a good example. We are very proud this year that Adriaan Mol is the winner of the LOEY Award and will be a representative of Dutch entrepreneurship for a year, “said Patrick Kerssemakers, chairman of the LOEY Awards.
Adriaan stepped into the world of the Internet at 15
Adriaan Mol stepped into the world of the Internet at the age of 15 with the game called ‘MacSnake’. He made his first money through PayPal as an entrepreneur, which in turn gave him the insight that he could build things that could be used by people all over the world.
In 2001 Adriaan started with the website MacOSX.nl about Apple, which later merged into the platform One More Thing. For several years, Adriaan started Mollie in 2004 as an SMS and telecom company. In addition to offering SMS services (later known as Messagebird), the company will be active in payments from 2006 onwards.
In 2011, Adriaan Messagebird officially separated from Mollie, so that both companies could focus on their core activity; Messagebird on SMS services and Mollie on payments. Business partner Robert Vis will from then on lead Messagebird. Particularly after 2011, Mollie is growing strongly in the number of employees and customers, now more than 100% per year.
Product-oriented entrepreneurship!
Adriaan style of entrepreneurship is always very product-oriented. In addition to Mollie, Adriaan is active as an investor in companies such as Bux exhibition app, recruitment service Homerun, Otrium fashion platform, Framer designer and sneaker store ETQ.
The most significant challenge for Adriaan is currently to grow Mollie internationally, each and every European country deal with a diverse set of payment rules, cultural differences, and nuances.
Jury chairman, Pieter Zwart opined, “Adriaan has been able to split up his company Mollie at an early stage and then both companies grow successfully, without external investments. Adriaan is very committed to his product as an entrepreneur and gets a lot of energy to make and improve the product. He knows better than anyone else what he is good at and is surrounded by the right people for other tasks. The fact that he himself is in clay with his feet is an inspiration for young entrepreneurs in the industry and is characteristic of his entrepreneurship. His own entrepreneurial story is the proof that entrepreneurship in the internet world can start from the own bedroom and can grow into something big.”
The LOEY Awards are independent prizes and aims to stimulate growth, innovation, and inspiration in the online industry in the Netherlands. In fact, the successful entrepreneurs are made visible through the LOEYs, which contributes to the further expansion of online initiatives and partnerships.
The LOEYs are a joint initiative of Endeit Capital and Peak Capital. The LOEY Awards board is led by Patrick Kerssemakers (chairman), Marijn Pijnenborg and Marcel Beemsterboer.
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