Netherlands Story Pack — The decisions behind five Dutch companies

Coolblue, Thuisbezorgd.nl, Picnic, Rituals and Tony’s Chocolonely: five Dutch companies and the decisions that made them big, including the setbacks.

In the Netherlands they are everywhere: on the street, on people’s phones and on the shelves. This pack shows the choices behind them. It starts with three companies that run on online ordering and delivery, and ends with two brands that grew with their own shops and a clear mission. Each story is backed by sources and translates the decisions into six Decision Labs with digitally fillable worksheets.

How the pack is built up

• Story 1 · Pieter Zwart, The decisions behind Coolblue: how a small online shop for MP3 players grew into a large retailer, with physical shops, its own delivery organisation and tricky choices about investors and the postponed stock market listing.

• Story 2 · Jitse Groen, The decisions behind Thuisbezorgd.nl: from a student idea in Enschede to an international ordering platform, with the slow early years, the acquisition and later sale of Grubhub and the takeover by Prosus.

• Story 3 · Michiel Muller, The decisions behind Picnic: a supermarket without shops, from a trial with 150 households in Amersfoort to three countries, with fixed delivery routes, robotic warehouses and the losses that are still there.

• Story 4 · Raymond Cloosterman, The decisions behind Rituals: from one shop on the Kalverstraat to 1,500 shops, long paid for out of its own profits, with the slow start, the shop closures of 2020 and the fall in profit in 2022.

• Story 5 · Teun van de Keuken, The decisions behind Tony’s Chocolonely: how a TV journalist started a chocolate brand, with the summary proceedings over the ‘slave-free’ claim, buying at a higher price for farmers and years of losses despite record revenue.

Pack saving

Bought separately, these five stories cost €60 together (5 × €12). As a pack you pay €48: you get one story free.

Who is this pack for?

For (aspiring) entrepreneurs who want to learn from companies in the Dutch market, and for anyone who wants to know which decisions lie behind well-known Dutch brands. You don’t just read how they grew; in the Labs you also run the numbers yourself.

Digital pack · 5 PDFs · 230 pages · Available immediately after purchase

The founder stories were written independently by FOREFACT; Coolblue, Thuisbezorgd.nl, Picnic, Rituals, Tony’s Chocolonely and the people named are not involved in them.