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Lessons from an Early-Stage Startup Over 4 Years | Handprint.tech

EO12:04Added Aug 31, 2026

Today's story is about Simon Schillebeeckx, the CSO of Handprint.tech. In addition to his role as CSO at Handprint.tech, Simon is also a business professor a...

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Contributed by 刘嘉琪

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  1. Intro

  2. 00:00I think that's a
  3. 00:02really difficult thing to do like there
  4. 00:05is no degree that you need to be an
  5. 00:07entrepreneur can you do it without sure
  6. 00:10I teach business model Innovation at
  7. 00:12University so add all this theoretical
  8. 00:14knowledge but once you actually have to
  9. 00:17do it yourself it's a very different
  10. 00:20thing meet Simon Simon is the assistant
  11. 00:23professor at Singapore manman University
  12. 00:26and co-founder at hand print. Tech
  13. 00:29handprint Tech is a nature Tech platform
  14. 00:33that connects companies to the most
  15. 00:35impactful organizations on Earth our
  16. 00:38general goal is to help companies
  17. 00:41capture real business value from the
  18. 00:43creation of positive impact in the
  19. 00:45world maybe the most confrontational
  20. 00:48thing about building a company and
  21. 00:51building a team is that you're
  22. 00:53constantly realizing you can only do a
  23. 00:56very small part you're completely
  24. 00:58reliant on everyone else to pull their
  25. 01:00weights hempit is a small company of 10
  26. 01:03people but it's already making an impact
  27. 01:06having restored 3.5 million square met
  28. 01:09of involvment across 35 countries let's
  29. 01:13dive into his story
  30. 01:19[Music]

  31. Chapter 1. CSR Can't Make Money

  32. 01:36Simon was born in Belgium from a young
  33. 01:38age he wanted to do something meaningful
  34. 01:41I mean I went to study commercial
  35. 01:43Engineering in in Belgium after writing
  36. 01:46my dissertation I chose to do another
  37. 01:49degree in corporate social
  38. 01:50responsibility so I moved from Belgium
  39. 01:52to the UK to pursue a second master's
  40. 01:55degree however he was told that if he
  41. 01:59pursu are he wouldn't make any money
  42. 02:02because nobody in business really cares
  43. 02:04about it but I was like I was driven to
  44. 02:06do this and so yeah so for me that's
  45. 02:08been the beginning of my pathway on in
  46. 02:10the sustainability space but he still
  47. 02:13wanted to continue after working a small
  48. 02:15boutique firm he eventually enrolled in
  49. 02:18a PhD program at Imperial College London
  50. 02:21when I went into Academia to do my PhD I
  51. 02:24was very convinced that this was going
  52. 02:27to be my pathway sitting in my office is
  53. 02:30just thinking and writing that was I
  54. 02:32really enjoyed doing this but suddenly
  55. 02:34his supervisor told him is leaving the
  56. 02:36college I was about 2 years and 11
  57. 02:41months into my PhD when my supervisor
  58. 02:44called me into his office and said you
  59. 02:46have to finish your PhD in 3 months
  60. 02:48because I'm moving to Singapore and I
  61. 02:50said no I still have at least a year and
  62. 02:53he said yeah not anymore I'm leaving so
  63. 02:55you have to finish in 3 months but if
  64. 02:58you manage to finish I'll take you with
  65. 03:00me I was reflecting on the fact that 6
  66. 03:03hours before that meeting I had been
  67. 03:05dumped by the girl I was seeing and
  68. 03:07thought sure all right let's move to
  69. 03:10Singapore so I moved to Singapore at the
  70. 03:12beginning of 2015 initially as a postdoc
  71. 03:16and then as from July 2016 as a

  72. Chapter 2. Challenges and Lessons over 4 years

  73. 03:21professor when we look at why companies
  74. 03:25engage in F action we find two reasons
  75. 03:28either there are for by regulation or
  76. 03:31their leadership set up some type of
  77. 03:34voluntary action pure Goodwill basis but
  78. 03:37this is not enough the fundamental
  79. 03:39problem that handprint is trying to
  80. 03:41solve is making it valuable for
  81. 03:44companies to do something good in the
  82. 03:46world convincing a company to give money
  83. 03:49to an NGO is very hard why on Earth
  84. 03:51would they do this but if you can show
  85. 03:53that by doing so they're going to have
  86. 03:55more loyal customers or their cost of
  87. 03:58customer acquisition is going to go down
  88. 03:59down then it makes sense Maas and I met
  89. 04:02in Singapore pretty much immediately
  90. 04:05after I landed so we became friends it
  91. 04:08wasn't until many years later that we
  92. 04:12started thinking about working together
  93. 04:14in December 2019 we founded handprint so
  94. 04:17initially the name of the company was
  95. 04:20the green company and then we ended up
  96. 04:22going for hand print. Tech and the
  97. 04:25reason we picked handprint as a name
  98. 04:27handprint is a scientific concept that
  99. 04:29is the opposite of a footprint and the
  100. 04:31footprint is all of the bad things that
  101. 04:33you do simply by virtue of living or by
  102. 04:36virtue of being in company whereas
  103. 04:37handprint is this idea and a construct
  104. 04:40that measures your positive impact I
  105. 04:42think having a tag domain if you're in
  106. 04:44the teag business makes a lot of sense
  107. 04:46having a tech domain sets the balance
  108. 04:49right we are a tech company most people
  109. 04:51who visit the website will see us as a
  110. 04:54tech company there is no degree that you
  111. 04:57need to be an entrepreneur can you do it
  112. 04:59without out sure I think the main reason
  113. 05:02why a degree can be quite helpful is
  114. 05:05you've developed some kind of grit
  115. 05:07you've developed a level of persistence
  116. 05:10to do something for a prolonged period
  117. 05:12of time I teach business model
  118. 05:13Innovation at University so a lot of
  119. 05:16what I do with my students is to work
  120. 05:18with startups or to work with larger
  121. 05:20companies so add all this theoretical
  122. 05:22knowledge of how to do this or what
  123. 05:25should be done but once you actually
  124. 05:27have to do it yourself it's a very
  125. 05:29different thing I think there is a
  126. 05:31reason why there are very few academics
  127. 05:34that become successful entrepreneurs
  128. 05:37Academia is about slow in-depth search
  129. 05:41for truth when you're an entrepreneur
  130. 05:43every day has 10 deadlines collaboration
  131. 05:46in Academia tends to be quite simple
  132. 05:49because you work with people who are
  133. 05:50very similar who have been trained to
  134. 05:52think and write in the same way as you
  135. 05:55have if you hire those kind of people in
  136. 05:57your company you're screwed you need
  137. 05:59different people you need a lot more
  138. 06:01trust based on a lack of understanding
  139. 06:04and that is a very big shift as well
  140. 06:06because it's hard to do as academics we
  141. 06:08typically do everything ourselves or we
  142. 06:10work with a very small group of
  143. 06:12co-authors that again are very similar
  144. 06:15to us so I think these are really big
  145. 06:17challenges that um yeah I'm still
  146. 06:19grappling with every

  147. Chapter 3. What I wouldn't repeat in 4 years

  148. 06:22day we've been around for four and a
  149. 06:24half years I mean I think in a company
  150. 06:27of any size there will always be many
  151. 06:29struggles there's been important
  152. 06:32disagreements among Founders about
  153. 06:34strategic Direction but you have to deal
  154. 06:36with them like you can't just let them
  155. 06:38Fester you have to bring them out into
  156. 06:39the open discuss accept when you get
  157. 06:42your way or when you don't get your way
  158. 06:44and then move on there was a moment that
  159. 06:46we grew too fast we over hired we were
  160. 06:50overly optimistic as entrepreneurs tend
  161. 06:52to be about our potential to rapidly
  162. 06:55turn one of our pieces of Technology
  163. 06:58into a product that would really make
  164. 07:00revenue and we basically overstretched
  165. 07:02and then that meant that at some point
  166. 07:04we had to let go of 16 people or
  167. 07:08something and then doing this and having
  168. 07:10the discussions with the leadership and
  169. 07:12like okay who are these people going to
  170. 07:13be and then like the evaluations the
  171. 07:15emotional toll that has taken on many of
  172. 07:18us is quite painful and then I think in
  173. 07:21terms of the process one of the things
  174. 07:23that we've really struggled with and
  175. 07:25continued to struggle with is that none
  176. 07:27of the founders really come out of a
  177. 07:29sales background developing a practice
  178. 07:32for how you sell complex technology to
  179. 07:34companies really isn't easy and this is
  180. 07:36typically a very long-term process we've
  181. 07:38had sales cycles of over 2 years and as
  182. 07:41a small startup having sales cycles that
  183. 07:43take that take over two years that's not
  184. 07:46super appealing so you need to figure
  185. 07:47out how we can accelerate this so that's
  186. 07:50been a continuous learning what for me
  187. 07:52has been a big struggle is as a
  188. 07:53non-product or non- Tech person what
  189. 07:55would be great if if we could do this
  190. 07:58and then this would happen then I talked
  191. 08:00to the product team and they said yeah
  192. 08:01sure give me $150,000 and I'll make it
  193. 08:04happen it's like no it's just a simple
  194. 08:06thing so for me that has been a massive
  195. 08:08learning that developing high quality
  196. 08:10software is costly and it takes a long
  197. 08:13time I've learned a lot about the things
  198. 08:15that I can't do maybe the most
  199. 08:17confrontational thing about building a
  200. 08:20company and building a team is that
  201. 08:23you're constantly realizing that you can
  202. 08:26only do a very small part you're a small
  203. 08:29part of the puzzle you're completely
  204. 08:31reliant on everyone else to pull their
  205. 08:34weight my job is to maybe motivate
  206. 08:38them but this collaborative effort is
  207. 08:42what makes or breaks the company and the
  208. 08:44other thing that I have learned we
  209. 08:46started building our first product too
  210. 08:49soon we didn't do enough user research
  211. 08:52we didn't get Lois letters of intent
  212. 08:56signed by customers and if I would go
  213. 08:58back to the beginning with this
  214. 09:00knowledge in mind this would be the one
  215. 09:02thing we are not building anything until
  216. 09:05we have 10 Lois if you build this and it
  217. 09:08can do a b c and d I will buy it for
  218. 09:12this much money until you have that I
  219. 09:14wouldn't start building a new

  220. Chapter 4. Where you stand depends on where you sit

  221. 09:20company it's impossible to convince
  222. 09:23someone with rational arguments that
  223. 09:25they should care about something caring
  224. 09:27for something or about something is an
  225. 09:29thing the reality I think is that we're
  226. 09:32never going to convince 100% of the
  227. 09:34people you need to have a very small
  228. 09:37vocal minority probably less than 10%
  229. 09:40that really make decisions that can
  230. 09:42change the world when I look at
  231. 09:44southeast Asia where I've been living
  232. 09:45for the last decade it's understandable
  233. 09:48people have very different concerns than
  234. 09:51people in Europe where I'm from right
  235. 09:53the level of economic development is not
  236. 09:55there there's a lot of corruption so one
  237. 09:56of the things that we're seeing in some
  238. 09:58of our forestation work we're doing we
  239. 10:00do a lot of Mangrove restoration most of
  240. 10:02them are in Southeast Asia Indonesia
  241. 10:05incredibly important ecosystems and
  242. 10:07they're being cut down and even if you
  243. 10:10give them money there will still be
  244. 10:12people cutting them down and it's not
  245. 10:13because these people are horrible people
  246. 10:16that have as a goal we want to destroy
  247. 10:19the planet no they have as a goal and if
  248. 10:21I cut 10 trees down now and I can sell
  249. 10:23the wood then I can eat for a couple of
  250. 10:25days and so if your primary concern in
  251. 10:29life are will I have food tomorrow then
  252. 10:33having these higher level goals of we
  253. 10:35need to protect the planet and all life
  254. 10:38on the planet sound very kind of distant
  255. 10:41this is not what people have in have in
  256. 10:42mind the mission of Educators and and
  257. 10:45client scientists is to close that Gap
  258. 10:48demonstrate to people that even within
  259. 10:51their lives they can make meaningful
  260. 10:53changes they can do small things that
  261. 10:55actually will benefit themselves will
  262. 10:57benefit their communities and will uh
  263. 11:00benefit the World At Large companies if
  264. 11:02you if if they want to be successful
  265. 11:04they need to be sustainable you can't be
  266. 11:07sustainable in the long run the world
  267. 11:09that we know right now which already has
  268. 11:12changed substantially just won't be
  269. 11:14around for the next couple of centuries
  270. 11:16we are in a phase where all of the
  271. 11:18scientists the climate scientists are
  272. 11:20telling us that we are facing extinction
  273. 11:23level events if we're not changing the
  274. 11:25economy towards a more environmentally
  275. 11:28sustainable system the future for our
  276. 11:31children and our children's children is
  277. 11:33going to be substantially more difficult
  278. 11:36we've kind of stated as an unofficial
  279. 11:38goal we want to win the Nobel Prize for
  280. 11:41Peace which is pretty unusual as a
  281. 11:43company won't be easy but if we succeed
  282. 11:46as a company it could happen that's a
  283. 11:48goal that's a stretch goal for for
  284. 11:51handprint
  285. 11:52[Music]