Silicon Canals
TRENDING
  • Mobility
  • AI
  • FinTech
  • Software & SaaS
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Ukraine
    • Startups
    • Scaleups
    • Coin Canals
    • FinTech
    • AI and chatbots
    • Travel & Mobility
    • Software & SaaS
    • Health & Medtech
    • (Crowd)funding
    • Blockchain
    • Internet of things
    • Hardware
    • Accelerators
    • E-commerce
    • Cybersecurity
    • Gaming & Virtual Reality
    • Drones
    • COVID-19
  • Features
    • How-to
    • Knowledge & Insights
    • Guest Contributions
  • Partners
    • Amsterdam
    • Rise by Techleap.nl
    • Fintech Files by AWS
    • Scaling-up in Europe
    • Blue Tulip Awards
    • Partner with us
    • Promoted content
  • Jobs
  • About us
    • Partner with us
    • About
    • Team
    • Newsletter
  • Contact
  • Home
  • News
    • Ukraine
    • Startups
    • Scaleups
    • Coin Canals
    • FinTech
    • AI and chatbots
    • Travel & Mobility
    • Software & SaaS
    • Health & Medtech
    • (Crowd)funding
    • Blockchain
    • Internet of things
    • Hardware
    • Accelerators
    • E-commerce
    • Cybersecurity
    • Gaming & Virtual Reality
    • Drones
    • COVID-19
  • Features
    • How-to
    • Knowledge & Insights
    • Guest Contributions
  • Partners
    • Amsterdam
    • Rise by Techleap.nl
    • Fintech Files by AWS
    • Scaling-up in Europe
    • Blue Tulip Awards
    • Partner with us
    • Promoted content
  • Jobs
  • About us
    • Partner with us
    • About
    • Team
    • Newsletter
  • Contact
No Result
View All Result
Silicon Canals
No Result
View All Result
This article is produced in collaboration with our partner Rise by Techleap.nl

René Janssen, co-founder of power skills training platform Lepaya: ‘The world is now prepared for us’

Dennis de Vries by Dennis de Vries
August 10, 2021
in Edtech, News, Promoted content, Rise by Techleap.nl, Startups
Lepaya founders Rene Janssen Peter Kuperus

Lepaya founders René Janssen (l) and Peter Kuperus (image: Techleap.nl)

133
SHARES
LinkedInTwitterWhatsAppFacebook

As a leader of an Asian online retailer, René Janssen struggled to train thousands of employees. So he decided to quit his job, move back to Amsterdam and co-found a business to make that easier. Today, Lepaya is rapidly growing, expanding internationally and serving some of the fastest-growing and largest companies around, allowing them to properly train their employees. 

Working hard on soft skills

The Amsterdam-based Lepaya is an online training platform to teach professionals all-important soft skills. Employees of organisations can work on their management styles, learn to focus, practice their decision-making or hone their team-building skills or any other of the numerous training on offer. Lepaya teaches these through, what they call, a ‘unique blended method’. It combines short classroom sessions with online learning via their app.

- Partner content -
EIT Digital
EIT Digital Challenge 2022 is here!
Calling all European deep-tech scaleups for EIT Digital Challenge 2022Show More
Calling all European deep-tech scaleups for EIT Digital Challenge 2022 Show Less
Read more

Janssen’s journey started at Boston Consulting Group. On his very first day, he met with Peter Kuperus, who started his career there at the same time. They became friends and stayed in touch when their paths led somewhere else. Kuperus stayed in Amsterdam, occupying leading roles in Travelbird. Janssen moved to Asia to be a leader of pan-Asian online retailer Lazada. 

Missing something

This is where Janssen felt there was no good way to train his thousands of employees with the skills that would help them further their careers. At Lazada, Janssen missed the company he was about to found. 

Now Janssens and Kuperus’ product is in high demand, according to the wide range of fast-growing or already massive companies Lepaya can call its clients. Large international corporations like KPMG, ING, Microsoft and Philips use their service. But younger companies, like food delivery unicorn Just Eat-Takeaway, Dutch online grocer Picnic, online auction house Catawiki or ethical smartphone manufacturer Fairphone. 

‘Good-looking names’

An impressive list by design, explains Lepaya CEO and co-founder René Janssen. “In the first couple of months, we really focused on bringing in some good-looking names as clients. We wanted the word to spread and it helped us to scale up later on,” he says of the logos of well-known companies he can put as a customer on his site. “If you can show logos that people love, then they’ll be more motivated to work for you as well.”

Even the very first customers were big fish. Lazada was one of them, as Lepaya’s offering was basically conceived with their organisation in mind. Bol.com, one of the largest online retailers in the Netherlands, also instantly jumped aboard. This was right after Janssen and Kuperus locked themselves in a room for a Google Design Sprint: the five-day process to design and validate a product. “We did it in four days”, likes to emphasise.

Four days of creating Lepaya

“On Monday, we worked on an MVP. That same afternoon we started reaching out to HR managers at large companies to get a feel of what they needed. On Tuesday we sketched out the feedback we had gotten. For Wednesday we hired a designer for mockups. And on Thursday we got back to those same HR managers to ask them to have a look at what we made.”

The reaction they got? “Overwhelmingly positive”, according to Janssen. “Everybody said ‘we want what you are making’. For a moment we even thought they were just overly polite. But in the end, it is also the product I would’ve wanted to have back at Lazada.”

Eight months to success

“So I called my bosses at Lazada and told them I was leaving.” A big step, as it meant leaving Asia and moving back to the Netherlands. “We said from the start that we wanted some criteria for success. We gave ourselves eight months to have a certain amount of customers and revenue, or we’d stop. It was a conscious choice. We didn’t want to let it drag on and keep on adding another month every time.”

Another important benchmark for Janssen and Kuperus’ company was fun. Janssen: “We want to be entrepreneurial and professional, but have some fun at the same time.” 

To measure that particular benchmark, Janssen reached back to his days in the consultancy, where the ‘airplane test’ is conducted. “Imagine you’re about to take a flight with someone. Sitting next to this person for hours on end in a plane, a taxi afterwards.” If that is something to look forward to, that person passed the test. Janssen wanted Lepaya-people to pass.

Lepaya’s first day

Before having people passing aeroplane tests, there needed to be people in the first place. “We decided that if we wanted to start up Lepaya, we wanted to do it properly. On a large scale.” That meant an office on the Amsterdam canals from day one. “We also had interns starting on our very first day. They came to us asking what they should do. ‘Everything, I guess!'” 

Janssen also landed on a name. The initial ‘Learning Experience Pathways’ sounded too corporate, he thought. “So we added Aya. It means ‘beautiful’ or ‘well-designed’ in both Japanese and Hebrew. We also wanted an available .com-domain. And having it sound like fun was also important. We weren’t going to settle for blah-blah-training.com or something dull.” Their name also proved to be fertile ground for fruity inside-jokes. “Our first developers used papayas in all our test products. Sometimes we still encounter papaya in some legacy code.”

Funding, expansion, acquisition

From then on, things moved fast for Lepaya. They conquered the Dutch and Belgian market and raised seed funding with Amsterdam-based Tablomonto. Last year, they added another €5 million Series A funding from Belgian Mediahuis, acquired hard-skill expert Smartenup and expanded to the German and Swedish market. 

“We thought Sweden would be an easy market for us”, says Janssen. “It seemed much like the Netherlands, with the decision power being very low in the organisation.” That does come with its challenges when selling your SaaS-product, Janssen found. “In Germany, you have to work hard to convince one very senior executive. In Sweden, there’s always a group making the decision. People operate based on consensus.”

Next stop: UK

The next logical step for Lepaya would be to expand to the UK. The scaleup is busy with reconnaissance, according to Janssen. “There’s a lot of talent available there and our product is ready for the language.” After the UK, Asia is on the roadmap. “We believe we can make an impact with acquisitions. We hope to announce something shortly.”

Rapid growth, expansion, funding. In the weird year of 2020, none of that was obvious. COVID nearly threw a wrench in Lepaya’s oiled machine. “When the pandemic hit, we were just before closing our funding round”, remembers Janssen. “Sales slumped, investors were hesitant. It gave us some sleepless nights.”

‘We didn’t lose any revenue’

“Within the first days of the lockdown, we determined how we could address our customers’ problems. Within a week we decided to change our offering. Our classes went online free of cost. We weren’t cancelling anything.” That also meant many classes had to be re-written for an online environment. Lots of work, but it did get them lots of credits from their customers. “We offered solutions, we didn’t lose any revenue. That’s also what we were able to show to investors. That helped.”

Solutions at Rise

Scaling up rapidly as Lepaya does, requires reflection. That’s what Janssen recently got out of joining the Rise programme, organised by Techleap.nl. “It’s good to take time and ponder some key aspects of your business. Ask yourself how to scale, how to approach international go-to-markets. Take a step back and think things over.”

He also got the opportunity to share experiences and challenges with companies in similar growth stages, like Brenger, Fixico or Kaizo. Janssen: “You’re connecting with companies that are already doing really well. And Techleap.nl also brings in some big names, people that made it. The solutions they offered are very real.”

World is ready for Lepaya

An example: Janssen realised they are always serving two customers at the same time. “We learned that even though the end-users are the ones with our product in hands, the HR manager is paying the bills. They decide whether or not we’re scaling. That’s who we should focus on.” 

“The market has changed”, says Janssen. “The pandemic has accelerated what we have been doing for a while. Our customers now see that too. Eventually, we’ll return to the more physical way of teaching, but it will remain more online than before. Now we can offer the best value and have the most impact. In a way, COVID has prepared the world for Lepaya.”

 - Partner content -
How cybersecurity scaleup Intigriti conquered the world?
How cybersecurity scaleup Intigriti conquered the world?
Catch our interview with Paul Down, Head of Sales at Intigriti.
Catch our interview with Paul Down, Head of Sales at Intigriti. Show Less
Read more
Tags: featuredinterview
Share9Tweet33SendShare53

Partner content | Work with us

Tokenisation is the future of the financial services industry, and Luxembourg’s Tokeny is at the helm of this change

Copilot for growers: Source.ag’s Rien Kamman explains how it helps growers increase their fresh produce with AI

Waste problem is complex, but Seenons has a solution: CEO and co-founder Joost Kamermans explains the plan

Want to scale your business in Germany and Europe? Here’s how the Scaleup Landing Pad Hamburg can help

Is your deep tech scaleup aiming high? The EIT Digital Challenge 2022 can get you there

Silicon Canals | Jobs


Breaking news from Amsterdam | Partner

Amsterdam-based CarbonCancel, a company that helped offset carbon footprint, shuts shop: Know more

Accenture acquires Amsterdam-based Sentia’s business in three countries: Know more

Amsterdam’s Flow Traders announces dedicated corporate VC unit with €50M initial commitment

Amsterdam’s Just Eat Takeaway pilots grocery delivery service through its own dark store in Berlin

Advertisement

  • About Silicon Canals
  • Partner with Silicon Canals
  • Contact us
  • Newsletter
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy (UK)
  • Cookie Policy (EU)
  • Terms & Conditions Silicon Canals

Silicon Canals 2014-2022 | Website: Bright Idiots

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • Ukraine
    • Startups
    • Scaleups
    • Coin Canals
    • FinTech
    • AI and chatbots
    • Travel & Mobility
    • Software & SaaS
    • Health & Medtech
    • (Crowd)funding
    • Blockchain
    • Internet of things
    • Hardware
    • Accelerators
    • E-commerce
    • Cybersecurity
    • Gaming & Virtual Reality
    • Drones
    • COVID-19
  • Features
    • How-to
    • Knowledge & Insights
    • Guest Contributions
  • Partners
    • Amsterdam
    • Rise by Techleap.nl
    • Fintech Files by AWS
    • Scaling-up in Europe
    • Blue Tulip Awards
    • Partner with us
    • Promoted content
  • Jobs
  • About us
    • Partner with us
    • About
    • Team
    • Newsletter
  • Contact

Silicon Canals 2014-2022 | Website: Bright Idiots

Stay updated with the Silicon Canals daily and weekly newsletters.
We promise we won't spam you. You can choose to unsubscribe anytime.
Stay updated with the Silicon Canals daily and weekly newsletters.
We promise we won't spam you. You can choose to unsubscribe anytime.
Silicon Canals
Manage your privacy

To provide the best experiences, we and our partners use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us and our partners to process personal data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.

Click below to consent to the above or make granular choices. Your choices will be applied to this site only. You can change your settings at any time, including withdrawing your consent, by using the toggles on the Cookie Policy, or by clicking on the manage consent button at the bottom of the screen.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Statistics

Marketing

Features
Always active

Always active
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
Manage options
{title} {title} {title}
X
X