Sebastiaan Veldhuisen

Full transcript: Sebastiaan Veldhuisen on London Real

0:00 I am here with Sebastiaan Veldhuisen, a recent graduate of the London Real Business Accelerator. Sebastiaan, tell us about you. About me? Yes. I didn’t expect that question. Where are you from? And most people think… I’m from the Netherlands, from the west coast. I didn’t grow up in the Netherlands, by the way; I grew up in the Caribbean, but I’ve been living there since my teenage years, in the Netherlands, and studied architecture in Delft Technical University.

0:31 And I had my own architects practice just after university for 10 years, so I was on my own for 10 years, until I went into consultancy on sustainable design and sustainable development, on urban level, on building level. And now I really want to go back into entrepreneurship, because I really like to be my own boss and to set my own course, and that’s who I am.

0:55 And if you look at my character, I really like to turn things around, switch the perspective, not go the conventional path, but really try to get another perspective to things. OK, and what was the big challenge you were facing when you were kind of looking around and found our course? Like, what were you going through with your life, personal, professional?

1:21 I knew that I didn’t want to continue as an architect, because then you always have a kind of one-to-one consultancy. You design a building or you design something for a client and you get a bag of money for that, which is nice, but then you have to find a new client, and so you have to redo this process all over. And it’s a kind of… you don’t have the influence to change big things in the world.

1:46 And my ambition is really to look at the world as a kind of possibility to design, to change it, to make life in cities a lot better, healthier, more beautiful. And because I have that ambition, I need to take it a step higher, and I think a lot higher than just designing buildings. And I also realised the times are different; until 10 years ago there was hardly any social media, so I knew that I had to somehow promote myself in a different way and tell my story in a different way.

2:26 OK, and was this a personal challenge, to go ahead and sign up to do something like this? I mean, you have to ask yourself, like, am I… do I want to open myself up for this, am I ready? No, I’m quite impulsive. You are? Except I saw it, and I started a year and a half ago with the Wim Hof Method, and I’ve done that ever since, and because of that I saw him… from that moment on I followed London Real.

2:50 And I really like this kind of long interviews where you go deep into a story and into a personality and his ideas, and you hardly see that anymore, and I thought that’s really what I look for: these stories, these ideas behind people, and how they change the world or how they attempt to change the world. So that’s what I really liked, and then I thought, OK, if you have some kind of logic to that, I would like to join and see how I can adopt that for myself.

3:21 OK, so you saw the show, kind of really fell in love with what we’re doing, telling those stories. OK, and why join the Business Accelerator? Because that’s a programme you probably didn’t know a lot about. Why decide, why pull the trigger? Yeah, I think it was really an impulsive thing, and I thought, I mean, I’m in this transition right now. My contract is ending, my games a year, so I’m on my own feet from January on.

3:53 So I’m in this transition period, so let’s spend that time in the best possible way: just invest in anything how I can grow. I mean, I have a lot of ideas. I see that that’s not a problem with me; I don’t have to look for ideas. I just need to have some tricks how to do it more clever, and how to use those ideas, how to communicate those ideas to the world in a more clever way. That’s really what I was looking for.

4:16 What were those first two weeks like on the course? Can you explain how you were feeling, when we were asking you to do challenges? That was really scary. I mean, I think I was in the train and I thought, oh no, I have to do this introduction video. When do I have to do this? And I was in the train, filming myself with a moving landscape in the background, which I really love, always, because telling stories in moving objects is one of my best things that I really like.

4:47 So my first video was in the train, but I was really excited when I saw the result. It’s so easy to make a video, tell your story and put it online. So from the first week on I really liked the approach, and it was a challenge. I mean, it was hard work every week to deliver it, but I managed to do it every week, and so I’m also quite happy about myself that I was able to do it next to my own work and my day job.

5:21 Yeah, it’s quite a lot of work. And then you went to a boat. You famously shocked the whole class when you were rowing along in a rowboat, and someone was filming you, and it looked like a professional video. It was really captivating, because you’re there in the water, in a man-powered vehicle, talking about the environment in cities. It was really good.

5:44 Well, thanks, but that was also a very impulsive thing. So I was sitting in the afternoon with this iPhone in front of me, trying to film my pitch, and, come on, this environment, my sitting room, is not good. So I had this kayak that you have to inflate, so I took it on my bike, this kayak on my bike. I called my friend, who was a photographer, and said, could you please sit in my kayak in front of me and film me while I’m telling my pitch?

6:14 I didn’t have the pitch. I mean, it was not in my head yet; it was on paper. So on my way to the water I was trying to rehearse my pitch, and I think it was 55 takes on that one. And I really liked it. I mean, you can improve it, I was looking at my paddles all the time and things like that, but I also felt that it was really good. There were people walking on the sides of the water, really reacting in a nice way.

6:45 So that was also… once you’re on the water you have a different perspective to the city, right? So The Hague, just like Amsterdam, has canals, and everybody sees the city from the street, and the canals are just part of that network of streets. But once you’re in the canal you’re a bit lower, so you look at the city from a different perspective, and that is really one of the things that I would like to send across to other people.

7:10 So I would like to take people that have influence in, for example, urban planning, in politics. I would like to take them on journeys that they don’t expect, and try to change that perspective. So I think the pitch that I did was a lot of what I’m going to do. The one that you did in the boat. Exactly, yeah. And that resonated with me, because it’s meant to express your core values, and you were obviously passionate about it, and it really clicked. So yeah, I think you should revisit that.

7:33 What was one of your biggest challenges in the course, where you struggled with it, you had a hard time? I think that was the webinar. All the weeks until the webinar that I had to do, I was fine. I thought, OK, I can do this, this is quite easy. Well, not easy, it’s a challenge, but I can do it. Then the webinar came, I think it was week six or so, and then I thought, well, wait a minute, I’m not really selling a product to an individual.

8:12 So I’m not trying to change the life of one individual, so I’m not working on personal performance or things like that. Actually, my client is the city. And how I see it, the city has problems like traffic, water management; there’s a lot of things that we can improve in the city. So my real client is the city, but the city doesn’t have a credit card, and I cannot invite him to join my webinar. So how do I do that?

8:42 And that made me realise that I need to invest a lot more in myself as a key person of interest, and to build my network. So it wasn’t possible to do that just after week five, and I thought I really need to invest more in these networks, get connected to those people that really have the influence in the topic of sustainable development. And if I have that network, then I can try to do this, and maybe the webinar is not a good vehicle for me.

9:07 But I mean, since then I’ve built on that network, which is quite good. Every week I have talks with people, and every time I come back from a conversation with a lot more ideas. And really, so in January I already start with quite many things. But the webinar was really an eye-opener maybe, so it wasn’t difficult; it changed my perspective on how I should handle my business.

9:32 OK, yes. Sometimes you have to do a bunch of things to realise what works for you and what doesn’t, to help you figure out your message. What will be your biggest takeaway from the course, the thing you will use the most? Is it the fact that you’re comfortable on camera now, is it the fact that you understand you need to build yourself up as a key person of influence, or the networking aspect? Which is it?

9:56 Yeah, so the key person of influence is really the biggest one, and then using the media, like video and social media, to express your thoughts. But I also really need to give lectures to people and to audiences. I mean, I’ve done that in person; I’m quite comfortable on the stage. So I think that is really what I need to do if I want to change the perspective, the minds of people, to thinking about the city.

10:29 Because everybody takes the city as it is, right? I mean, everybody has a car and nobody thinks about selling this car. I sold my car a year and a half ago, and I realised that actually in my life the quality of my life increased not having a car, because I rearranged my life. My daughter is at a school at walking distance, I do my groceries there, I use my bike, and if I go long-distance, like to London, I take public transport.

11:01 So not having a car really increased the quality of life, and that kind of thinking is quite difficult for people who are completely stuck in their daily habits. And that is actually what I want to do, and it takes a lot of investment to change the minds of people from that. What does next year look like for you? Say we’re talking a year from now, what is Sebastiaan going to be doing?

11:25 Absolutely crazy, because I’m already in quite different projects. One is a product development for an urban water management system, so that is really a physical product for under squares and streets. The other thing is working on a strategy for the city of Amsterdam, so that is a strategy for 10, 15 years from now: how work changes the way we live in cities, so work and living is more combined, it changes mobility. And so I’m working on that strategy together with four other experts.

12:07 And I’m going into a kind of travels, knowledge travels, together with a Belgian friend and a German friend. So we’re going to take fifty, two hundred people on a journey of a week or ten days, and we invite some experts on that journey and dive deep into one topic. And that topic could be how to protect our coastlines, so you can have a journey along the east coast of the United States, visiting all those vulnerable places.

12:41 And so it’s really crazy, because I have a lot of… I’m already, I mean, developing those ideas into real things, not wasting time. Now, where would you have been if you had decided just to not take the course? Walking in circles, thinking and thinking a bit more, having a lot of ideas and writing in a little red book, because I’ve been doing that for two years, writing a lot of ideas in the book.

13:06 And then I recognise, if I turn a few pages back, I had an idea already earlier and now I have it again. So I think I would have been there, just developing ideas without taking real steps. And I think the Business Accelerator really helped me to do it. I mean, you’ve mentioned it a few times, just do it, and that’s really good, as I need a kick sometimes on my behind to get things.

13:40 Oh yeah, good, that’s good. Yeah, we ask a lot of things in those eight weeks, and I think sometimes it’s just good to let people see that they can get a lot done. And like you said, you were knocking things off, and it’s not easy at all, that stuff. Just talk to me finally about the class. How would you describe the people inside the accelerator, the other students?

13:56 No, that’s really quite amazing. From the first moment on we had quite intense contact between the different participants, not only in our group; there are different groups, right? So our group was about 17 people, but also outside of my group. And what was really special is that one person in our group class, who is a doctor, had a kind of thinking that was so related to my thinking that somehow there was a huge link.

14:27 And I had it with a few people, so not only him but also with old and comes and other people, that somehow influenced my way of thinking, but from a completely different profession. And I have been amongst architects for many years, and I was never confronted with somebody from the Army, or some doctor that worked in Africa. And that really opened my mind to things, and it really works, and still, after the accelerator stopped, we keep having contact with these people.

15:07 Nice. Yeah, every group is amazing. Now, Sebastiaan, you are going to be a key person of influence. I can’t wait to see the things you’re going to do. I love your passion, and you’re really aligned with what you’re doing, and I think people can feel that in your videos right away. And so I remember our first call that we had, you and me, our personal call, and it was just like, you use your passion. So I look forward to seeing what you’re doing next year, and thanks for being a part of our course. No, I was really happy. Go get it. OK, thanks guys. Thank you.