[Startup Interview] Anton Kooijman, Elwin Gastelaars, Founders, Be-Addy, The Netherlands

[Startup Interview] Anton Kooijman, Elwin Gastelaars, Founders, Be-Addy, The Netherlands

Published: 10-06-2020 15:32:00 | By: Bob Koigi | hits: 8285 | Tags:

Dutch startup Be-Addy works with media agencies and advertisers to create, optimize and automate their media plans. Anton Kooijman, Elwin Gastelaars, the founders of the online advertising company elaborate.

Introduce your company

Be-Addy is a Dutch company that provides software for agencies and advertisers to create and optimize media plans. 

Who are the founders?

The startup was founded by Anton Kooijman and Elwin Gastelaars

Anton Kooijman has sold his previous company AdCombination to Specific Media in 2012 and was Managing Director Northern Europe with Rubicon Project. Elwin Gastelaars started his career at RTL Ventures and led the international roll-out of SpotX Inc. in the Nordics and Benelux. 

Where is your company located?

The company headquarter is in Amsterdam and the development team is located in Krakow Poland.

How is your company financed?

Informal investor

Why did you start Be-Addy? What opportunities did you see?

We wanted to lower the repetitiveness in tasks for many of our former colleagues. We experienced inefficiencies in combining different platforms, merging Excel files and many more "simple" tasks like copying best-practices across campaign settings. We think that with Be-Addy we can improve this significantly.

Moreover we are frustrated that international platforms spend billions of dollars on their algorithms, however for advertisers it's almost impossible to leverage these resources across channels. A cross-platform approach is missing.

This may also not be in the interest of Google and Facebook who deliberately create their own "truth" and create boundaries around their ecosystem. With providing a meta-platform we create efficiency and clarity throughout the process in order to focus on reaching objective campaign goals.

What problem or problems does your Be-Addy solve?

Creating a media plan with different experts and brand managers can be time consuming. Be-Addy solves that problem with an automated process.

What are the unique selling propositions of your company?

Be-Addy creates automated but customized media plans and merges the overall reporting.

Who forms your clientele base?

Advertisers and media agencies

What are – in your opinion – the dynamics of online advertising?

The dominance of walled gardens like Google, Facebook and Amazon.

What is your growth strategy?

Test pilot in the Netherlands and grow a client base outside of NL. 

In which markets are you looking to establish your presence?

We started in The Netherlands and would like to grow in Europe and the US. Eventually we can scale to APAC and integrate with platforms like Alibaba, Baidu and Weibo.

What are your plans for the coming 12 months?

We plan to roll out in The Netherlands and add functionality to the software.

www.be-addy.com

www.linkedin.com/antonkooijman

www.linkedin.com/ elwingastelaars

 

Are you a startup and do you want your profile interview on this website?

Find here how to do that