‘In the process of growth, you must never lose each other as an entrepreneurial duo’
Their first activity together? Scouring the shopping streets of Hasselt in search of a necklace for a girlfriend at the time. That this ‘heart-hunting’ would take on entirely different proportions ten years later was still a distant dream back then. Jan Martens and Maarten Princen look back on a decade of Expliciet and their personal success factors as entrepreneurs. And for that, we have to go back to the classroom.
After secondary school, Jan and Maarten both enrolled in the professional bachelor’s program in Marketing. Yet they didn’t get to know each other through the books.
Maarten: ‘We weren’t in the same class, but we met for the first time during one of the many poker afternoons at school. We clicked instantly and started hanging out more and more. That hasn’t changed since.’
Jan: ‘At the end of our bachelor’s degree, an acquaintance suddenly asked me if I wanted to help put his small wellness business in the spotlight. I remember that both Maarten and I were full of energy to put all the theory from our studies into practice. From there, the idea grew to advise companies on marketing. And so we decided to apply for a VAT number and start our own marketing agency, right from my bedroom.’
Maarten: ‘At that time, we were 22 and 23 years old. We had no idea how to organize our own agency, but we never really worried. Jan went to gain experience at an agency, while I decided to continue studying communication and media design. That combination actually worked perfectly. Jan learned everything about the organization and life within a marketing agency, while I learned about design, creating web designs, and mastering new editing software. Jan handled the organizational side, and I could answer client calls between classes.’
‘Although we already had a few smaller assignments from clients under our belt, most of our time was perhaps spent on self-development. From sales techniques to business administration, from Google Adwords to making a brochure print-ready, from HTML to CSS. The hunger to learn and pick up new things quickly has not diminished over the years.’
Although they learned the agency life by doing, Jan and Maarten set out resolutely with a clear ambition.
Jan: ‘In those early days, we found it remarkable to see how companies looking for a marketing partner were bombarded with unnecessarily difficult terms or academic approaches. Along with the corresponding consultancy rates. That’s where we saw our opportunity.’
‘Because not every company is built to work with a large or established marketing agency. So we positioned ourselves as the clear, understandable partner, far removed from expensive words and classic business barriers. Very accessible and human first and foremost. That gave us a bit of a “David versus Goliath” feeling, but we soon noticed that this approach created a huge goodwill factor.’
‘That accessible positioning eventually led to our vision around Liefde_Bedrijven and Hartenjagen. From day one, we were impressed by certain entrepreneurs and their stories that crossed our path. And that is still the case today. It is from this client-centric approach that we also place a strong emphasis on solid project management and clear campaign reporting.’
‘That admiration for entrepreneurship is sometimes so great that we rarely stop to think about the journey we have made ourselves in the meantime. And honestly: when people compliment us on it, we don’t always know what to say. You could say that we are anything but explicit about ourselves (laughs).’
After ten years of entrepreneurship, what have proven to be the biggest challenges for two—still young—marketers?
Maarten: ‘Over the past few years, we’ve taken on almost every role, from being jacks-of-all-trades to completely detaching ourselves from pure client contact. We’ve also seen Expliciet grow from a duo to a team of five, ten, twenty, and more than thirty employees. That involves an incredible amount of change. It means that as an entrepreneurial duo, you also have to constantly learn to find each other again; you must never lose each other.’
‘One of the biggest pitfalls at such moments is dwelling too long on what isn’t working instead of focusing on all the positives. I believe that has always been our great strength: daring to identify the negatives critically, but also immediately prioritizing and improving those things. In that respect, it’s a huge advantage to be a duo: you can really vent to each other from time to time (laughs).’
Jan: ‘I sometimes compare it to having children. As a couple, you suddenly have to organize yourselves completely differently. Every time a child is added, you have to adjust again. In our case, there are suddenly quite a lot of them (laughs). To get all the work done, you automatically start focusing on your own specific tasks as parents. For example, I suddenly started focusing more and more on the clients, while Maarten focused on the operational side. A complete reversal of the situation compared to the early days of Expliciet.’
‘For me personally, it is also important to make yourself redundant in your own organization in time. By surrounding yourself with the right people, both internally and externally. For example, we still like to listen to fellow entrepreneurs and clients, but also to our own Hartenjagers for advice and points for improvement.’
‘But this brings another major challenge: delegating responsibilities and learning to let go. That is a process of learning, testing, and adapting. Of trial and error. You don’t build a self-managing organization in a day.’
Yet there is one thing that has never changed in those ten years and never will.
Maarten: ‘After ten years, we are still very good friends; we have never lost sight of each other, despite the many new developments. And even though we still have our own specific characters: if there’s one thing we both find hard to stomach, it’s losing. Whether it’s a sales pitch, a football match, or a quiz. It’s just the nature of the beast (laughs).’
