Purpose matters more than hustle

And well, now that you have that perspective of both, where do you think can a big company like EY help? startups and entrepreneurs of course it's very dependent on the business that you're talking about but in general where do you think because maybe some founders think oh yeah I'm not ready to work with such a big company or we have to opt for like smaller partnerships but where do you think is a touching point that's

Yeah, so interestingly, I think there's a lot of pressure on margins in service providers.

So the rates, people think, okay, the rates are completely different from a smaller service firm and a firm like EY, which is not really true if you look at some of the work that happens in the market.

Because those rates have gone up and our rates have come down, you could say.

So they meet.

And I think it's interesting for startups because you have skill, you have huge expertise, and you have flexibility.

So let's say, you know, startups always have this phase, there's a lot of time and no money first.

And then it switches to having no time but money, right? And that's where it becomes interesting for EY because then you can say, okay, we need this particular product, this particular business back office function in 20 countries.

And then we can just chip in a team of people that have done it a thousand times and they can do it in whatever market you're in because we're in every market.

So those edge cases, like us building out your backbone while you scale your company, I think that's really interesting from EY startup perspective.

And do you think that your own background as an entrepreneur helps you in your job now as well? Because of course you're interacting with those entrepreneurs.

Or do you think that back then when you did your own companies, you were not at a point where the entrepreneurs that are now working with EY, that you are now dealing with in your job, that they are further than you were back there? Or can you still benefit from the experiences that you had as a founder yourself now in your day

job? I benefit from, I think, only from a relational point of view.

Because I think I never, in my own startup journeys, I never hit the stage that I would need a service provider like EY.

I would be maybe more early stage of them providing free advice like we are doing now very often.

But I think from a relational point of view, it helps.

Because I can resonate with those people and know what's going on more than some of the colleagues that have done only the big corporate stuff within EY.

That helps with the relation, like building the trust.

And then it's easier to listen to problems and see like, ah, I can link that here.

I can see how that links with this team or these people and then can bring it back to the founder.

Like, okay, what if we introduce this as a solution?