Niels Duijvestijn · Venture Designer

I design the companies, ecosystems and formats of tomorrow.

New companies, business models and revenue models — that do what existing ones do, better, or replace them. From a blank sheet, or from what you already have.

Everyone helps you use AI. I show you what to build with it.

Portrait of Niels Duijvestijn in a black race suit, arms crossed

20years building companies

10companies built

15industries

€2.5Mfunding raised

The layers of a market, connected by pink lines, above Niels' head

Inside my brain

Ever wondered where new companies come from?

Mine often start on an ordinary walk. I take a market apart, layer by layer — and connect the pieces again into something that didn't exist yet. Switching and combining.

Old model. New engine.

Take a look inside →

From my sketchbook

Designed this summer.

Sacred Cow

Take good care.

One ongoing place for everything around your car — from maintenance to your next one.

Permanent personal platform

Dinnertime

Fill your basket.

Groceries that start with the meal, not with the shelf.

Build from the outcome

ByeBuy

Join the buy.

Say what you want. AI bundles the demand. Suppliers compete for it.

Bundle demand

My sketchbook + earlier work ↗

References

Ask the people who worked with me.

Your turn

Give me a market.

Your industry. Your company. Your assets. I'll show you what's still missing — and what to build.

Design a new company Reinvent yours

What I do

Two fields. The same head.

New companies that do what existing ones do, better — or replace them.

Create · Venture Creation

An obsession with creation

Give me a blank sheet. I'll design what comes next.

New companies from zero: Turning a blank sheet into a company worth building.
Opportunity discovery: Seeing the opening in markets, users and technology that nobody has taken yet.
Business concepts: Companies, products, platforms and ecosystems — designed from the very first idea.
Business & revenue models: How it makes money, built in from day one — with AI and technology at the core.
Concepts & formats: New concepts and formats that bring more people in — from media and music to sport and live experiences.
Idea → viable business: Not done until it's buildable, commercially sound and investable.

Redefine · Business Reinvention

Growth beyond the core

Give me your assets. I'll design the new business they make possible.

New business & revenue models: For the company, assets and customers you already have.
Unrealised potential: I see what others don't. The gaps, underused assets and opportunities beyond current thinking.
The whole playing field: Customers, data, technology, brand, partners, people — and the connections between them.
Beyond the core: New ventures and revenue streams next to what a company already does.
New propositions & platforms: Your assets mixed with AI and patterns from other industries. That's where the new business hides.
Ecosystems: Customers, partners and technology connected into something none of them could build alone.
Existing → something new: Assumptions become building blocks. Tested with real numbers — with a business case strong enough to fund.

The layers of a market stacked between Niels and an open helmet

Inside my brain

Inventiveness.

Switching and combining. Show me any market and I take it apart, layer by layer — people, technology, what's old, what just became possible — and connect the pieces again into something that didn't exist.

1 · What I see

The layers.

Industries & markets

Where it plays — and which other industries could cross into it.

Trends

Technology, society, regulation. What's shifting underneath.

People & behaviour

What they need, what drives them, where they get stuck.

Product & brand

What's offered, and how it feels.

Technology

What became possible this year that wasn't last year.

Distribution & partners

Who reaches whom — and who's missing.

Data

Insights already collected, and never used.

Patterns

The links between all of the above. Where the new company appears.

2 · What I look for

Between the layers.

What existsWhat's lying unusedWho's left outWhat can be flippedWhat's now possible

3 · How I build

Eight build techniques. Eight ways to a new business model.

Often it's an old model with a new engine: same need, new business model. The technique is how I get there. The business model is what you get — who pays, for what, and who finally gets access. Each one works in more than one industry.

Democratise capabilities

What only a few could afford, made available to everyone.

Earns by A subscription or a share of the upside — instead of an expensive hourly rate.FounderBoard · Unheard · Picaisso

Build from the outcome

Start from what people actually want, not from what an industry sells.

Earns by Paying for the result, not for hours or products.Online Rental Shops · Oscar · Dinnertime

Collective innovation

Combine what many parties already built into something new.

Earns by A share in everything that's built together.Softshare

Bundle demand

Add up scattered demand until it's worth supplying.

Earns by Suppliers pay for access to bundled buying power.Zoef · ByeBuy · The Gardian

Permanent personal platform

One ongoing relationship instead of loose moments.

Earns by An ongoing relationship — partners earn at every moment of the lifecycle.MyTreasures · Sacred Cow

Unlock hidden value

Find the value already sitting in what exists.

Earns by A share of the value that's set free.GetWell · PicturePerfect · MyTreasures

Demand-driven production

Prove demand first, make it after.

Earns by Sell first, make after — no stock, no risk.Picaisso

Intelligent matching

Bring the right two sides together.

Earns by A fee per match or per introduction.UTURN · HoldTheLine

Bold = built and in the market. Others = designed, in The Spiral.

Research at the University of St. Gallen found that about 90% of new business models recombine patterns that already exist — Gassmann, Frankenberger & Csik, The Business Model Navigator (2014).

4 · Why it works

I don't design products. I design markets.

The idea is the easy part. What I design first is the mechanism that makes everyone want to join — buyers, makers, neighbours, partners. Get those rules right and the business runs on its own.

Research calls it market design.

Alvin Roth won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economics for showing how markets can be designed. A market works when it's thick enough, doesn't congest, and feels safe and simple to join. Too thin? I bundle. Too crowded? I filter.

Roth — Who Gets What and Why (2015) · Koestler — The Act of Creation (1964) · Baron — How entrepreneurs connect the dots (2006) · Christensen — Competing Against Luck (2016) · Chesbrough — Open Innovation (2003) · Gassmann e.a. — The Business Model Navigator (2014)

Many people have ideas.

Fewer connect worlds that never meet.

Fewer still design the market that makes it work.

Again and again. In any industry.

I'm not a case study, and nobody has measured my brain. But these are the closest names for what happens in my head — and twenty years of building companies is what sharpened it.

The Gearbox

A new company in 4 weeks.

Four gears. Four weeks. One new company — ready to build. From a blank sheet, or hidden inside the company you already have.

For companies that know there's a next business in there — but not yet which one.

▶StartBlank sheet or your company

1ScanWeek 1

2DesignWeek 2

3TestWeek 3

Launch-readyWeek 4

5Build itOptional · together

1Week 1

Scan

The whole playing field: market, users, assets, technology. What's there — and what's missing.

→ Opportunity map

2Week 2

Design

The company as one whole: product, model, experience, partners and revenue.

→ 1–3 concrete designs

3Week 3

Test

De-risk it: check the demand and the numbers — with data, quick tests and the customers you already reach.

→ Validated design & business case

4Week 4

Launch-ready

What to build, with whom — and how it enters the market.

→ Venture blueprint, roadmap & pitch

Then you build it with your own team — or I stay on board as your venture designer.

Start your Gearbox →

About

There has to be a better way.

Since I was young, I've known I see things differently. More ideas than I could use. Always inventing. Taking in everything around me — with a restless urge to make it better. I just had no idea what to do with it.

So I started building — because I've always wanted to create. Since 2006: company after company, industry after industry. Every one began the same way: I saw something inside a business and thought, there's something here. But always on a small playing field.

In recent years, something changed. I no longer see just the idea — I see the whole system around it, and how it could all be different. In 2025 I finally gave it a name — and started designing what's next. Companies, ecosystems and formats — from platforms to television. In 2026 I opened my venture lab: the place where my ideas come to life — and are brought to market with entrepreneurs, companies and industry partners.

Technology changed the size of my canvas. AI, software and data make things possible today that were too expensive, too complex or simply impossible only a few years ago. That shifts the most interesting question from can we build it? to what should we build?

That is where my creativity becomes most valuable. Technology is my design material. I combine what has become possible with business, people, assets and patterns from completely different industries — and design what comes next.

My dream: designing companies, ecosystems and formats that make people's lives better — on the biggest playing fields in the world.

Speaker on new companies, entrepreneurship and AI. Writing a book: Before You Turn 50.

2007 – 2013Online Rental ShopsBuild from the outcome

2013 – 2018ZoefBundle demand

2014 – 2018GetWellUnlock hidden value

2019 – nowUTURNIntelligent matching

2025 – nowFounderBoardDemocratise capabilities

The full stories, and 16 new designs, in The Spiral ↗

CVDownload my CV (PDF) →

Who I work with

Small or big. Room to build.

Founders & entrepreneursBuilding something new — inside their own world, or completely outside it.

Companies & agenciesStrong assets, customers and brand — ready for the next product, platform or business line.

Investors, VCs & family officesFinding the new companies hidden in what they already own — and designing new ones.

Big playing fieldsTech, media, sport and experience: gigantic capabilities, and room to invent on top of them.

Ready to disrupt your industry?

Let's design your next company.

niels@deduijf.com · +31 6 17472862

Based in Amsterdam · working across Europe — and beyond · Dutch, English, German.