From student to agency founder: “Helping businesses work better using AI: that's my mission.”

Value, challenge, friendships.

Before my studies, I had never programmed anything, so I learned not only how to do that but also how to use those skills to solve business problems. My studies wouldn’t have been the same without the lecturers. For example, I will never forget the professor who used to teach an IT and law course. He was so passionate about the subject, even though I found it quite theoretical and dry, and his enthusiasm inspired me. Gradually, I started building my company during my Bachelor’s in Business Information Technology because I thought that was a good time to start doing what I loved, applying what I was studying, making mistakes, and learning from them.

I have a lot of great memories, and one of them is a study tour to Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia during my bachelor’s. I chose it as my elective, although there were other options, such as taking courses from different programmes. During the trip, we visited the Dutch Embassy in Singapore, went to companies, and completed different assignments, such as interviewing CEOs. For me, that study trip sums up what student life is about: making friends, exploring, learning, and making memories.

The company I started in the basement of my parents’ house ten years ago now employs 17 people, some of whom are also UT graduates. My role has changed a lot over those years. I was dedicated to building software, but now my responsibilities are different, even though I still keep my finger on the pulse of what we are developing. I am mostly involved in sales, making sure our clients remain happy and that the team performs optimally.

We help a wide range of organisations use AI to work more efficiently. Helping their employees work faster is essential, but we go further: we build software that they actually want to use. For example, we have helped a large Dutch towing and roadside assistance company reduce their response time to accidents by 50%. We have built an app and a dashboard that predict the likelihood of a road accident based on historical data, traffic conditions, and data from a popular Dutch navigation and traffic app.

Recently, there was a heavy snowfall in the country, and our client was on the Dutch news. Their planner talked about traffic accidents and shared that they use our tool. Everybody at Bullit Digital was proud because it showed we had built something people use every day to make a difference.

The best example is one of our products: Floortje. Floortje is a digital colleague who helps caregivers find suitable technologies for their patients. Let’s say a Parkinson's patient struggles with applying eye drops, which some people need to use six times a day. At the same time, there is a pair of glasses with a tiny opening that stabilises the eye drop bottle: an amazing technology. There are thousands of such technologies, but few people know they exist, and thanks to Floortje, they can easily find them.

We recently secured an investment in Floortje, and we are now developing a digital avatar that can talk with you and arrange everything from finding the most suitable technology for a specific case to ordering it and even storing the information in the patient’s electronic medical record.

I appreciate that the Master's is focused on technology adoption. In the end, if nobody uses what you have developed, the impact is zero. I learned a lot about different ways to understand customers. The combination of business and computer science is golden because, on the one hand, you learn to understand CEOs who decide whether or not to adopt the technology you propose, while on the other hand, you gain the skills to build something worth investing in.

Every phase of the company’s growth requires something new from me. For example, compared with last year, we are bigger now, and we have to work in teams. I make sure our growth doesn’t compromise quality and effectiveness.

In ten years, I would like Bullit Digital to be the go-to AI agency in the Netherlands. My goal is to have a dedicated team for every AI challenge that companies run into.

Do something you enjoy because work takes up such a large part of your life. Also, take the time after graduation to discover what you really like, talk with different people, and don’t settle for the first job you are offered.

If you want to do something, don’t wait for the perfect moment; just do it. I am very happy I started my company during my studies because I could find out if entrepreneurship was something for me. Building something from scratch took a lot of time and effort, but it was worth it.