Founded in 2016 and already one of the 250 fastest-growing companies in the Netherlands. In three years time, new parcel deliverer Red je Pakketje grew into an organization with 431 employees in December 2019. And the company is not finished growing, said co-founder Sam Rohn. 

In response to his frustration about the work methods of package transporters, Sam Rohn founded Red je Pakketje together with two other co-founders. “In 2020 we will grow in line with previous years and we will work towards a huge expansion in the Netherlands and perhaps even beyond”, said CEO Sam. “From day one we thought about the impact of our growth on the company, the processes and the team. Often the conclusion was: focus. We have therefore postponed an extension of our services for a very long time (much longer than people think).” It didn’t take long before Red je Pakketje was asked to also drive in Belgium and to deliver special services such as heavy or large orders. The founders always tested these kinds of questions against the same decision criteria. “We chose time after time to only do what we could do well and only if we could standardize this. Only when something met that requirement, did we implement it and start selling it. In this way, we prevent ourselves from “overselling” to this day.” 

Consumer first
Red je Pakketje always puts the consumer first and therefore positions itself primarily as quality service. This prevents the company from dissatisfied customers who want to switch to other players and they spend less time on pricing. Sam: “If your service is objectively the best and pays for itself in several ways, for example through a higher conversion, the price is secondary. Staying close to ourselves and outperforming our competition kept accelerating our growth. Now we have received more than 23,500 consumer reviews where we score an average of 9.2 out of 10. This is already very high for many webshops but seems almost unfeasible for carriers. “ 

Maintain growth and corporate culture
After scaling up quickly, it is important for Red je Pakketje to maintain this growth. To this end, the company maintains its focus on quality and expanding its standard services with new options and areas that, thanks to rapid growth in the number of employees, can now be standardized and executed in good quality. According to Sam, the biggest challenge remains to make choices, both in products and in target groups: “If you work for everyone, you don’t work for anyone. In a way, this also applies to your products. If you want to do everything at the same time, you will not get anything done and will, therefore, do nothing.” 

With the rapid growth, the culture within Red je Pakketje is an important point of attention internally. For example, the MT travels weekly to one of the seven locations in the country in order to be able to address every new employee locally. Sam: “We tell everyone where we come from and why we do things the way we do them. In addition, for example, I always explain part of the company in our newsletter so that everyone understands what we are doing and what we want to achieve. Employees are then encouraged to think for themselves about their role within the organization, but a lot of time and attention is also given to coaching teams and individuals. A strong culture is and remains crucial.”  

Beat the major market leaders 
Red je Pakketje is located in a market with large market leaders such as PostNL and DHL, but knows how to distinguish itself, among other things, by its quality and strong customer experience and to establish itself in the growing parcel market. Sam advises entrepreneurs who are considering entering a market with large players not to be deterred. “It is precisely those big parties that are often arrogant and will move more slowly and be more careful than you, despite the big bags of money. Because of this, you often have a much better chance against big players than you think.”