Fabian Dudek (22) is currently enrolled in a MSC Strategic Management master programme at the Erasmus University, but he is clearly not your ordinary master student. He has already founded a successful company that has won several awards and is rapidly expanding to an international market. This company is ‘nestpick’. In addition to the ECE article on nestpick’s current expansion to Germany, Fabian has shared some insights in an exclusive interview.

Fabian, you have accomplished quite a lot already, what is the secret to your success?

I believe it has to do with passion and fun. I always loved building businesses, and within that I found a topic I was passionate about. As soon as you start to work on something you really like doing, it becomes quite easy to do and does not feel like work. I’d say that is the biggest reason for my success, my passion for what I am doing.

Tell us more about the team behind nestpick – how are you selecting people to be a part of the team?

The way we select people has changed a little bit. We are now growing way faster, and we have gone from having a team of 25 people to already more than 120 people. Selecting a team is the most strategic aspect about leading a company. Who to select, and which position they would fit are very important questions. On one side we are looking at the skill set people have, but we also want to make sure they are a good cultural fit. In practice this means we meet up with them to figure out if they really get what we are working on and want this to happen. This is because we want to make sure that everyone who works at nestpick understands what we are doing this for.

What is also important to us is that you are young, open-minded, curious and ambitious. By now we already have people from more than 30 nationalities, and the average age of our employees is around 24. Of course being at a company also creates a bit of a bubble. So when you put a group of young, ambitious and international people in a bubble- together with transparency, honesty and a strong desire to truly solve the problem here- that creates an awesome culture. We also encourage company events and every second week we do something fun like a party or some bowling. In essence we try to see the human inside of every team member and although it is not our main goal, this also results in more productivity.

What has been happening within nestpick these past few months?

Foremost we have grown immensely. We have gone from 25 team members to more than 120 and even more people are going to be joining. We have expanded to 6 countries (The Netherlands, the UK, France, Italy, Spain, and now Germany!) and in the future we would like to be able to say we have solved the housing problem globally. What we have also done is add some important people to the team in leadership roles. It is amazing to have young and ambitious employees, but you also need some people with more years of experience. We have also grown from 1000 to 6000 listings, and are active in more than 25 cities. And we are working on a new website.

So the most recent development is the expansion to Berlin (Germany), how are things going in Berlin?

We notice the market is very fast-paced. It is already possible to rent via nestpick, and we already had our first bookings without doing any marketing. We have 250 places already and are growing quickly. I am pretty happy right now and I think Berlin will be a great city for nestpick – it is very international, very open-minded.

What are the difficulties you are facing in terms of expanding to other countries?

The biggest difficulty is probably that I have a clear vision of where I would like us to go and what I would like to be achieving -and this might seem long-term or fuzzy- but I care more about us having a couple 100 super happy customers to inform the market that what we are doing is creating a positive change, while this is against the idea that most investors usually have. The priority of investors is usually to optimize on profits. It is true that nestpick could be larger if we do things differently. For example with the service fee – we could increase this fee to optimize our revenue, or keep it as low as possible to benefit the occupation of landlords. In the end we want the landlords to stay with us. In that sense some of the things in ‘usual business’ don’t apply to us, and I need to convince others of that.

Where can we expect to find nestpick next?

The next place – I am pretty sure – will be Australia. Simply because Melbourne, Sydney and several other Australian cities are filled with huge amounts of internationals. That can be a huge market for us. Apart from that other places like Singapore and the USA are also on the radar. However, what we are also noticing is that more and more locals, especially in the Netherlands, are also using nestpick’s services. It is not just for international students anymore. So in terms of where we will be heading to next, basically the answer is that we will be looking to go to any place where our concept can improve the housing market.

Have you run into any competitors in any of these countries so far?

There have been a few small competitors. Some of them were better, some were worse. We are not the first ones to offer help to students looking for housing, but it is quite a free market. However there is the problem of scalability and viewings. In that sense at nestpick we are at the forefront and there is not really any serious competition. Out of all the countries we have expanded to, the UK market is especially a bit more developed.

You also participated in the ECE Get Started program, how did the program contribute to your achievements/success?

It helped me learn new ways of thinking about building a company and about what mattered. You don’t just wake up and build a business, there is always inspiration and learning from others involved. The Get Started program sucked me into entrepreneurship and gave me lots of inspiration and ideas. It also introduced me to the importance of scalability, giving me a new way of thinking about the world and about companies. Before the programme I never really payed much attention to this. I think that is also why no other company is like nestpick with as many opportunities of growing so fast. None of the other competitors really focus on scalability, which means you can charge less for better services.

Do you have any tips for other people who are planning to join the Get Started programme?

It is important to realize that the world is not just the program or university. You only have 24 hours a day, a certain amount of energy, and you have to find a way to spend it. The Get Started programme is a set of resources that you can choose to use, or choose not to use. You have an idea, want to found a company and think ‘the program will show me how to’. Some people take so much out of it but others might not. To get the most out of it you need to have the right attitude, pro-activity and curiosity and a drive in yourself to do something that really matters. There is no university-course you can do to build a company, you need to find your own approach. So my advice is to come with the right attitude and find out how the Get Started resources can help you take your idea further.

You were also in the STEEP program, do you feel this was helpful?

This is actually my favorite program. I am 22 and still need to finish writing my thesis, but at university I generally enjoyed what I was doing- studying things like micro-economics and really understanding them. Yet at the same time I felt I was wasting time memorizing stuff. So what I was doing was trying to minimize the time in studying while maximizing grades, and at the same time starting a company in something fun and exciting. I wanted to feel like I was actually doing something. For me, STEEP provided a great way to minimize the time spent studying and still get the most out of my study programs while also allowing me to focus more on developing nestpick.

Fabian, this is your moment to catch up with the ECE Community again, do you have a message for them?

Yes, I would like to stay in touch a bit more! It is hard when you are so busy, but I will come back once or twice and definitely would like to stay in touch with the ECE Community!