Bedrijfsstrategie & Groei
Van tweedehands naar succes: praktische tips voor founders van Thijs Verheul
March 9, 2026
10 min leestijd
Een startup bouwen is zwaar. Fouten kunnen duur zijn. Maar dat betekent niet dat deze reis het niet waard is om te beginnen.
In this episode of the Innovantage podcast, its host and Sigli’s CBDO, Max Golikov, speaks with Thijs Verheul, co-founder of United Wardrobe, the fashion marketplace acquired by Vinted. In their conversation, Thijs, who is now an angel investor and author of Thrift to Triumph, shares his insights and lessons learned on execution. How to build the right team? How to manage burnout? How to make tough decisions? Find answers in our article!How everything startedThijs’s entrepreneurial journey did not start with a clear plan. At 18, he briefly studied law before realizing it was not for him. After quitting, he spent six months working as a ski instructor in Austria. At 19, he decided to return to university and enrolled at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, known for its focus on life sciences and environmental innovation. It was there, in 2013, that he met his future co-founder, Sjuul Berden.Sjuul proposed the idea of a dedicated marketplace for second-hand clothing, inspired by his sisters’ overflowing wardrobes. At the time, Thijs was skeptical. There were already a lot of marketplaces and Facebook groups where people could buy and sell different items. The idea of a clothing-only marketplace seemed unnecessary. Meanwhile, Vinted was still a small, little-known startup.After months of discussion, Sjuul convinced him. In January 2014, they launched United Wardrobe. Over time, the company raised €3.5 million in venture capital, grew to 60 full-time employees, reached 4.5 million users, and facilitated around €40 million in annual GMV.In 2020, United Wardrobe was acquired by its largest competitor, Vinted. Thijs became a Vinted shareholder and chose to step away. Today, Thijs is a new father and an active angel investor. Turning ideas into real actionAs Thijs highlighted, execution starts with the right team. In his experience, the most important factor is assembling people with complementary skills.He described the ideal founding team as a combination of a hippie, a hacker, and a hustler. The hippie brings the vision and long-term purpose. The hacker builds the product. And the hustler drives the business forward through sales and partnerships. At United Wardrobe, Thijs played the role of the hustler, while his co-founder, Sjuul, was the visionary. Together with an engineer, they formed the core team that could get the company off the ground.Apart from this, the willingness to launch early also plays an important role. The first version of United Wardrobe was far from perfect. But it worked where it mattered. Users could register, and payments functioned. That was enough. By putting the product live quickly, the team could gather real user feedback, analyze data, and improve the platform step by step.Importance of people: Why solo founders rarely winAs an angel investor, Thijs is cautious when it comes to solo founders. Even when a single entrepreneur shows strong early traction (such as €50,000 in monthly recurring revenue), there is still a significant risk. Building a company alone often leads to burnout. Without another founder, there is no equal partner to share responsibility or challenge decisions.Solo founders can hire teams later. But this is not the same as having multiple founders with true ownership and entrepreneurial accountability. Shared ownership creates resilience and faster problem-solving during difficult phases.Nevertheless, exceptions exist. Solo builders will continue to create successful companies, especially in the age of AI. However, from an investor’s perspective, the odds are simply better with a founding team.This belief also shapes Thijs’s own work today. On his current projects, progress depends heavily on the people around him. Teams create motivation and a shared drive to perform. Moreover, working together is more enjoyable and sustainable.First real win: How Facebook groups unlocked growthBefore launching United Wardrobe, the founders focused on building an audience. At that time, Facebook was the dominant social platform. They created a Facebook page and invited their entire network to follow along.They shared early designs, product ideas, and feature concepts. This helped them receive hundreds of comments from potential users. This feedback directly shaped the platform. When United Wardrobe launched, it attracted 500 registered users on day one, without any marketing spend. However, growth stalled shortly after. Two to three weeks later, activity on the platform dropped sharply. The breakthrough came when the team identified two large Facebook groups dedicated to buying and selling second-hand clothing. Through negotiation, they acquired one group and gained permission to promote United Wardrobe in the other.They automatically shared listings from United Wardrobe into these groups. The impact was immediate. The group members were already actively trading clothes, but struggled with scams and unreliable transactions. United Wardrobe offered a safer alternative. It held payments until items were delivered.After that, the platform reached its first real liquidity with 10,000 products and 100,000 users. As a result, Facebook communities became the foundation for scaling the business.Biggest early mistake: Scaling too fastOne of the lowest points in building United Wardrobe came after the company’s third funding round. The team had raised €250,000, followed by €1 million, and then €1.5 million. With fresh capital in hand, they began hiring aggressively.At its peak, the company employed around 60 full-time staff. Nearly 30 people were dedicated to entering the French market. At the time, France seemed promising. However, Vinted already dominated the market.Within six months, the reality became clear. Competing in France would require an entirely different scale. Investors advised the team to reconsider and focus elsewhere.To protect the company’s runway and avoid bankruptcy, United Wardrobe made the painful decision to let go of 30 employees in a single day. For several months, the founders had tried to cut costs and regain momentum. But eventually they withdrew from France and refocused on their core markets in the Netherlands and Belgium.Looking back, Thijs describes the mistake as a combination of youth and inexperience. The team believed hiring more people would automatically drive growth. They underestimated the operational overhead of managing a large team and the emotional toll of scaling too quickly. Major milestones and brutal pressure from VintedThe eventual acquisition by Vinted was the defining milestone of United Wardrobe’s journey. From the first bid to the final deal in October 2020, the process took nearly two years.By that point, Vinted had already become a dominant force across Europe. Both United Wardrobe and Vinted started from a remarkably similar idea. But Vinted scaled faster and raised significantly more capital. Vinted’s aggressive expansion strategy reshaped entire markets. Dozens of local second-hand platforms across Europe disappeared once Vinted entered their regions.The pressure became especially intense in 2018, when Vinted entered the Dutch market. With a TV advertising budget of around €1.5 million, Vinted dwarfed United Wardrobe’s €50,000 marketing budget. United Wardrobe relied on social media, influencers, and strong SEO positioning. The company attracted a younger audience and maintained its position as the top Google result for clothing resale in the Netherlands. But it became clear that only one player would ultimately dominate the market.The deal with Vinted was agreed upon in March 2020, only to be delayed for six months when COVID-19 hit Europe. Ultimately, the acquisition went through.Initially, Thijs and his co-founders preferred a clean cash exit rather than shares in Vinted. However, Vinted’s CEO convinced them to retain equity. Now, Thijs believes that it is one of the best financial choices he ever made. Since then, Vinted’s valuation has grown significantly.What happened after the acquisitionAfter the acquisition, Thijs stayed on for approximately four months to support the transition. During this period, United Wardrobe’s 4.5 million users were migrated to the Vinted platform. Now, he remains a minor shareholder in Vinted but holds no board role or operational influence. Since then, he has returned to the startup world as an angel investor, working with early-stage companies at a more sustainable pace. After the exit of United Wardrobe, Thijs felt a strong need to document the journey. The years of building the company had been intense and emotionally exhausting, and much of it felt like a blur. He began writing as a personal exercise to create a record he could reflect on.The idea of turning those notes into a book came after a conversation with a friend. She encouraged him to share the story more widely.Publicly, United Wardrobe was often portrayed as a straightforward success story. Behind the scenes, however, the company came close to bankruptcy multiple times, and Thijs nearly quit on several occasions. He felt it was important to challenge the simplified narrative of overnight success and highlight the reality.The book called Thrift to Triumph also aims to demystify the acquisition process. Media headlines often make exits seem quick and effortless, when in reality they can take years of negotiations and uncertainty. By sharing the full story, Thijs wanted to give young entrepreneurs a realistic view of what the journey entails. Today, this digital book is available for free.One piece of advice for readersIf there is one core lesson Thijs hopes readers take from his book, it is the importance of people. The story of United Wardrobe makes clear that no matter how powerful AI or technology becomes, building a company still requires real humans working together on the ground.He encourages founders to find strong team members early and to work together in person whenever possible. Shared physical spaces create trust and emotional understanding that tools like Slack simply cannot replace. Building a startup is demanding. But it can also be an enjoyable journey when experienced as a team.The book also provides a closer look at the personal cost of entrepreneurship. Thijs described constant stress, repeated near-burnouts, and the pressure of feeling that failure was not an option. Thijs hopes that readers can learn from the decisions he would not repeat. Life as an angel investorAfter selling United Wardrobe, Thijs noticed a huge interest from entrepreneurs. Pitch decks poured in via email, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Thanks to this, he could cherry-pick startups he believed had potential. For Thijs, access to a wide deal flow is essential. Out of dozens of opportunities, only a few typically turn into worthwhile investments.Angel investing allows him to stay close to the startup world. He enjoys mentoring founders, offering advice on sales, marketing, and strategy, and witnessing teams pursue products that aim to make a real impact. At the same time, it is a challenging and sometimes slow process. Of his eight investments so far, three or four are performing well. The others face hurdles. The work involves careful analysis of valuations and equity structures. All this requires patience and attention to detail.Many startups take years to reach an exit, and returns often require long-term waiting. But the ability to support and guide young entrepreneurs keeps Thijs engaged.How Thijs chooses teams to invest inAccording to Thijs, the most important factor in early-stage investing is the entrepreneurs themselves. He looks for teams with complementary skills. But beyond that, he favors founders who have previous startup experience (especially those who have built and sold a company before). Such entrepreneurs combine lessons learned from past mistakes with the drive and financial freedom to commit fully to the long term.Personal connections and reputation also matter. Thijs often invests in teams that come through his network. He assesses growth metrics and looks for early traction as a signal that the startup is on the right path. His focus is on seed-stage investments (usually small tickets under €100K), where he can provide strategic guidance and help founders navigate early challenges.However, experience alone is not a strict requirement. Thijs also invests in first-time founders if the team is strong, the product is compelling, and the potential for impact is clear. One example is Eddy Grid, a company that builds software to optimize battery usage for factories. Although the founders came from traditional industries, they brought complementary skills and deep industry knowledge.Nevertheless, Thijs emphasized that there is no single formula for success in startup investing.Decisions are made by balancing data and intuition. At the same time, mistakes are inevitable. What matters is that one strong outcome can more than compensate for several failed investments.Breeze and marketplace mechanics in datingThijs also invested in Breeze, a dating app founded by seven students with highly complementary skills (developers, designers, and marketers). Initially, the team generated only a few thousand euros per month. But it managed to catch the attention of prominent Dutch angel investors. Thijs joined to help with marketing and quickly became impressed by their energy and vision.He noticed parallels between dating apps and marketplaces like United Wardrobe. Just as a clothing marketplace needs a large inventory to match buyers with the right products, a dating app requires a critical mass of users to facilitate meaningful connections.Breeze introduced a unique approach. Matches could not chat directly but instead booked dates via an integrated date-picker system. The approach proved highly successful. Thijs noted that multiple marriages and even children have resulted from connections made on the app.Breeze’s business model contrasts with platforms like Tinder or Bumble, which benefit from keeping users single and engaged for as long as possible. Breeze, instead, succeeds when users find partners quickly and leave the app. This makes its incentives aligned with user success rather than retention.The app’s growth has been rapid, particularly in the US and the UK. The app partners with local restaurants and cafes, integrating their reservation systems to facilitate dates. New York, London, Birmingham, and Newcastle are its key focus areas.Thijs also highlighted an important marketing insight: women are far more expensive to acquire than men. For Instagram ads, female installs cost roughly €25 each, while male installs cost only about €0.10. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for balancing user acquisition and maintaining a healthy dating marketplace.Possible failures in angel investmentsOf course, startup investing is high-risk, but high-reward. In his experience as an angel investor, Thijs has seen a mix of outcomes. A few early investments have yielded small profits. But the true success of most seed-stage startups may only become clear over 10 years or more.Some investments have underperformed. In one case, Thijs and his co-investors put significant capital into a startup, only for a later venture capital round to bring in a more aggressive investor. While the outcome was still positive, the communication and process could have been handled better. This illustrates one of the challenges of early-stage investing. In another instance, a startup continues to operate after two years of hard work without reaching its intended goals. These experiences show that even with dedication, products may fail to gain traction, and founders must decide when to pivot.As Thijs explained, angel investing should be done only with money one can afford to lose. Compared with more traditional investments, like stocks, ETFs, or real estate, startups are riskier. They have the potential to go either times 50 or to zero. Success comes from portfolio thinking. Investing in many startups increases the chance that one will achieve exponential returns, effectively compensating for the others.Advice for young startup foundersThijs strongly believes that founders should surround themselves with people whose skills balance their own. Once the team is in place, the key is to start quickly and iterate constantly. Launch early, test the product with friends and family, analyze data every day, and improve continuously. Marketing should be bold. Try to engage users directly and use minimal resources to gain traction. That’s what Thijs advised.Apart from this, Thijs highlighted the importance of self-care and balance for startup founders. He recommended working in focused bursts instead of long, exhausting hours. You should take breaks to walk or relax.Moreover, working with people who energize and inspire you is critical to sustaining performance and maintaining motivation over the long term.Such tips may seem quite simple. But they help build a strong foundation for further resilience and growth.Looking to learn more from startup stories and business insights in the digital age? Stay tuned for the next episodes of the Innovantage podcast.
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