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Updates

Check out the latest news about Upstream Festival.

Are Dutch founders playing it too safe? Building a European culture of ambition

What does it mean to win? It sounds like a straightforward question.

Too early, almost wrong, finally inevitable: Siete Hamminga on surviving before the market catches up

What happens when you build the right solution at the wrong time?

Recognising when it is time to exit: Arosha Brouwer on finding the right window

When should a founder consider an exit? For many entrepreneurs, it is a question that feels almost uncomfortable to ask.

From pitch to partnership: how SolarDuck and Q*Bird turn ambitious technology into real-world projects

For some startups, winning a customer can happen quickly. A product is demonstrated. A contract is signed. The solution is deployed within weeks.

Fundraising when no one believes in you: Matt Welle on resilience, rejection and learning to control the room

What do you do when investors keep telling you that your idea will not work? You improve the story. You keep building. You find the people who understand the opportunity. And when the moment comes, you learn to take control of the process.

Too early in Europe, inevitable in the US: Iggy Harmsen on finding the right room for a big idea

Have you ever found yourself in a room full of people doubting your idea? They might tell you that it is too ambitious. Too difficult. Too early. Or simply unlikely to work.

Not every startup needs to feel like a family: Liselotte Graas on building a high-performance culture

How do you keep moving quickly when a startup becomes a scale-up?

Founder turned investor: Thijn van Helvoirt on building with data and raising with purpose

What makes someone a better investor? For Thijn van Helvoirt, the answer was to become a founder first.

Two sides of the cap table: what founders and investors need from each other

Should founders bootstrap for as long as possible? Does founder–market fit matter more than market size? And when a startup is ready to raise a meaningful round, should it immediately look beyond the Netherlands?