@TonyTruant01 Serious question, when fighting for your Life with your small sailboat against a group of orca’s or whales; doesn’t mater the species. Can you kill m in self defence?
Als dit waar is, heeft de #VRT en de studiedienst van de VRT een zeer groot probleem.
Een openbare omroep hoort de waarheid te brengen. Ook wanneer die ongemakkelijk is voor het establishment.
Bedankt @mboudry om dit toch te tonen. #Deafspraak
Here’s how I did it in 30 steps:
1. Start with a problem you personally hate. We didn't find Hiya in a market report. I read the label on my kids' vitamins one morning and saw 2 teaspoons of sugar per serving. The average kids vitamin had as much sugar as a piece of chocolate cake. That frustration became a $260M company.
2. Understand your market size before you build. The US children's vitamin and supplement market was valued at $900M when we started. Expected to reach $1.4B by 2029. We weren't guessing there was opportunity. We knew exactly how big the ceiling was.
3. Find a co-founder who's already won with you. Darren and I had already built GoLive Mobile together — $250M in revenue, $100M in earnings, 1000x return for shareholders. We didn't start Hiya as strangers taking a leap of faith. We had 7 years of proof we worked together.
4. Spend at least 12 months on product before launch. We spent over a year mapping formulation, finding manufacturers, working with pediatricians and nutritionists before a single bottle shipped. Most founders spend 4-6 weeks. We spent 52+. That's why our product worked from day one.
5. Validate with experts not just instincts. We assembled a team of pediatricians, nutritionists, dentists, scientists and parents to formulate our product. Not 1 expert. Not 2. A full network. The result was 15 essential vitamins and minerals in a single chewable with 0 grams of sugar.
6. Outsiders redesign systems. Insiders optimize within them. We had 0 years of experience in children's health. That was our advantage. We questioned every industry default — sugar levels, gummy formats, synthetic fillers. Experts couldn't see what we saw because they were too deep in the system.
7. Your consumer and your customer are not always the same person. Our consumer was the child. Our customer was the parent. 100% of our marketing was aimed at parents while 100% of our product experience was designed for kids. Most competitors solved for 1. We solved for both simultaneously.
8. Launch on the worst possible day and keep going anyway. We launched March 11 2020. The exact same day WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. We thought it was over before it started. It wasn't. We hit $103M in annual revenue 4 years later.
9. Price is a signal of quality. We priced at a premium from day one — roughly $30/month per child. Above every competitor in the category. Not because we were greedy. Because $10 signals $10 quality. "Approachable luxury" — premium enough to signal trust, low enough that households making under $75K annually could still afford it. And they did. That demographic became our largest customer segment.
10. Never change your price. Change your value. Our price has never changed in 5+ years. Costs increased significantly — especially during COVID supply chain chaos. We absorbed every dollar of that by growing volume, improving retention, and expanding our product line instead of passing costs to customers and losing their trust.
11. Commit to 100% subscription from day one. Not a subscription option. 100% subscription only. No one-time purchases. No Amazon storefront. No retail shelf. Pure recurring revenue from the first day. This single decision defined our entire business model and cash flow trajectory.
12. Offer 50% off the first month. Never change it. We've tested every possible variation of this offer over 5 years. 50% off month 1 has been the highest performer every single time. The goal isn't margin on month 1. The goal is getting the right customer in the door so months 2 through 24 can compound.
13. Solve the cash flow paradox before it solves you. 50% off month 1 + bootstrapped growth = brutal cash flow problem. The faster we grew the more cash negative we became. Every 1,000 new customers we signed up created a cash hole that took months to fill. We raised $0 from VCs so we had to get creative with debt financing. Some partners were horrific. Some were great. Find them before you need them.
14. Text every single new customer personally within 24 hours. We built an entire vitamin concierge team. Every new subscriber — whether we had 100 customers or 100,000 — received a personal text from a real human introducing themselves and offering help. Not a bot. Not an automated sequence. A real person. That 1 decision shaped our entire retention curve.
15. Let customers customize down to individual units. Parents could text us "my son only likes the green ones." We'd ship custom ratios — 47 green, 37 yellow, 0 red per monthly shipment. Raised our costs slightly. Created a competitive moat that billion dollar companies like Unilever and P&G could never replicate. Drove a tangible measurable lift in both retention and brand sentiment.
16. Iterate relentlessly on your core product. We launched 1 multivitamin in March 2020. We are now on the 8th iteration of that same product. 8 rounds of improvements based purely on customer feedback. We changed flavor profiles, ingredient ratios, and texture based on what the data told us. Never stop improving what's already working.
17. Build your brand for 2 audiences simultaneously. Our packaging had to make a parent want to put it on their kitchen counter AND make a child excited to take their vitamin. We made a reusable glass bottle with stickers kids could decorate. Parents Instagrammed it. Kids personalized it. 1 product, 2 emotional hooks, zero sugar.
18. Insource fulfillment until scale makes it impossible. We ran our own warehouse operations in the early days. Complete control over every touchpoint. It enabled the customization. It enabled the quality control. Eventually when we reached a scale where the warehouse was becoming its own full business we outsourced the majority. But those early years of full control were invaluable.
19. Don't launch product 2 until product 1 is undeniable. We waited 2.5 years — approximately 30 months — before launching our probiotic as our second product. Not because we lacked confidence. Because we wanted 30 months of data, customer feedback, and retention proof before we risked our brand reputation on something new.
20. Survey customers before formulation begins. Every new product in our lineup was validated by existing customers before we spent $1 on development. We asked parents directly what problem they wanted us to solve next. They told us probiotics. We made probiotics. We knew it wouldn't fail before we made it. Today more than 50% of our customers purchase more than 1 Hiya product every single month.
21. Educate before you sell. Always. Our social and email strategy was 80% education, 20% promotion. We explained ingredients we DON'T use and why. We talked about what's wrong with kids nutrition in America. We gave parents information that had nothing to do with buying Hiya. The result was customers who trusted us as an expert advisor not just a brand they bought from.
22. Build a team with near zero turnover. In our entire existence as a company we lost approximately 2 employees voluntarily. 2. In a period where most DTC startups had 40-60% annual turnover. We did that by hiring the absolute best people in every discipline, never micromanaging, and building a culture around shared values not fear.
23. Vulnerability is the most underrated leadership trait. When we made mistakes we said so internally immediately. When we didn't know something we admitted it publicly to the team. When we entered retail — something we knew nothing about — we said so clearly. That honesty created a culture where people felt safe enough to do their best work.
24. Know your gaps before your gaps know you. We knew nothing about international expansion. USANA does 90%+ of their business internationally across 24+ countries. We knew nothing about large scale manufacturing optimization. USANA has been doing it for 30+ years. We picked our acquirer based on who filled our exact gaps. Not who offered the most money.
25. Never raise institutional capital if you can avoid it. Total outside capital raised over our entire existence: a few hundred thousand dollars from friends and family in 2020. That's it. No Series A. No Series B. No VC board. No dilution. $0 institutional capital → $103M annual revenue → $260M acquisition. Founders retained virtually all equity going into the exit.
26. A profitable company negotiates from strength. At the time we began exploring acquisition we were already highly profitable. $19M net income on $103M revenue — roughly 19% net margin. We did not need to sell. That single fact changed every conversation we had with potential acquirers. Never sell from desperation. Build something that doesn't need to be sold.
27. The subscription cash flow trap will suffocate you if you're not ready. This is the thing nobody in DTC talks about honestly. Growing fast with a discounted first month means every new customer cohort creates a cash hole. Sign up 10,000 new customers in a month at 50% off and you're immediately deeply cash negative even though your business is fundamentally healthy. Plan for this or it will kill you when you're winning.
28. Pick your acquirer like you pick your co-founder. We met with many potential buyers. We knew USANA was the right partner after our 2nd meeting. Not because of their offer. Because they wanted to learn FROM us not impose their will ON us. Post acquisition my day to day changed by approximately a few phone calls per week. That's it. Culture fit in an acquisition matters more than price.
29. Time is the only thing that can't be negotiated. Compounding only works with patience. The first 6 months of Hiya almost nothing worked. Month 7 we started finding our stride. By year 2 we were growing 50% year over year. By year 4 we were the #1 children's wellness brand in America. You cannot accelerate compounding. You can only show up every single day.
30. Let the scoreboard speak for itself. We never chased press. Never sought validation. Never announced funding rounds because we had none to announce. We just built. $0 raised. $103M revenue. $260M exit. 200,000+ families trusting us with their children's health. Zero VC. Zero regrets.
Comment “X” if you’d like the full playbook and more details (retweet and follow to receive)
Formation complète Claude Code : 13 HEURES.
J'ai cherché partout. Rien de comparable n'existe.
Gardez-la précieusement en signet 🔖
De A à Z :
- CLAUDE.md : comment donner une mémoire long terme à Claude sur ton projet
- App complète : React frontend + Python FastAPI backend
- Skills : workflows réutilisables déclenchés en une commande
- Hooks : automatisations en arrière-plan
- MCP : connecter Claude à GitHub, browser, outils externes
- Sub-agents et systèmes IA spécialisés
- Agent teams en parallèle
Le tout sans écrire une seule ligne de code.( J'ai transcrit en français )
À la fin : tu utilises Claude Code comme un pro et tu monétises tes compétences.
Débutant ou avancé, tout est là en un seul endroit.
Ça vaut plus que tous les cours à 500$ que t'as failli acheter.
🇧🇪 Word wakker, België!
Vanuit het Belgische perspectief is dit wat er aan de hand is (het is geen Pools, Spaans of Italiaans probleem, maar een probleem van ons allemaal, veroorzaakt door onze overheden).
Besef wat deze regering nú in jouw naam doet, in naam van je kinderen en kleinkinderen.
Terwijl wij hier zitten, bereidt de Europese Centrale Bank twee renteverhogingen voor. Dat betekent dat België duurder gaat betalen voor de EU SAFE-lening. 😡
Dit is het gevolg van een roekeloze regering die een blinde lening heeft afgesloten zonder te weten wat de werkelijke rente zal zijn. Elke volgende tranche wordt apart geprijsd op het moment van uitgifte. Door de stijgende inflatie in Europa en de verwachte renteverhogingen van de ECB zullen de volgende schijven van de €8,34 miljard SAFE-lening nóg duurder uitvallen.
De obligatierendementen stijgen, en precies díé bepalen de kostprijs van deze schuld.
Mooi geregeld, hè? Dit is exact waar ik al maanden voor waarschuw. We hebben net het SAFE-akkoord ondertekend en binnenkort blijkt dat het ons véél meer gaat kosten dan beloofd 🤦🏻♀️.
Bovendien hangt de hele lening vol met Brusselse voorwaarden en controlemechanismen. Hoe het geld precies moet worden besteed, beslist Brussel. Een “deal of a lifetime” noemen ze dat.
Deel dit bericht massaal verder. Laten we samen de mensen wakker schudden over wat deze regering ons en de volgende generaties heeft aangedaan: een schuld die we de komende 45 jaar mogen afbetalen.
Bart De Wever, die volop het grote Europese project steunt, Theo Francken (minister van Defensie), de ministers van Financiën en Buitenlandse Zaken — zij hebben België mee in dit avontuur geduwd. Zij hebben de blinde schuld met variabele rente en Brusselse touwtjes aanvaard, ondanks alle waarschuwingen.
Ze deden het terwijl de instellingen die deze regels schreven letterlijk in Brussel gevestigd zijn.
Voor zoiets hoort een parlementaire onderzoekscommissie te komen en politieke verantwoordelijkheid te worden opgeëist. Onze kinderen en kleinkinderen krijgen de rekening gepresenteerd.
Maar hey… de Europese Commissie is tevreden en von der Leyen zal hen wel even op de schouder kloppen.
Word wakker, België!
Ze hebben ons keihard in de problemen gestort.
Vergeet ook niet: België is failliet en er is geen geld.
BREAKING:
The Netherlands just told its citizens to go to hell.
61,000 signatures.
Parliament reviewed it.
And kept it anyway.
You don't have to sell anything.
You don't have to make a single euro.
You just have to own assets while they go up.
And the government will send you a bill.
Every. Single. Year.
No cash? Doesn't matter. Pay up.
Asset crashed after you paid? Too bad.
This is not a tax system.
This is state-sanctioned theft with a bureaucratic stamp on it.
Every other country is trying to attract crypto wealth.
- Luxembourg buying Bitcoin.
- The U.S. protecting crypto legislation.
- UAE building crypto banks.
And the Netherlands?
Taxing you for having the audacity to invest.
The most financially repressive tax in modern Dutch history. And they chose it deliberately.
Because your money is more useful to them than it is to you.
🚨SHOCKING:
🇫🇷 French Resident who always voted for the left Explains his vote for Marine Le Pen's National Rally:
"It was necessary to send a message, there are things that made me angry. Hearing 'Death to the Whites, death to the French' during the riots."
If the world knew what is happening in France… Here is how former mayors were treated by the voters of the new mayors of immigrant origin this Sunday during the municipal elections.
WE ARE SO F*UCKED ☹️
( Wake up !! )
Volgens het rapport van het Monitoringcomité kijkt de regering-De Wever dit jaar aan tegen een tekort van 25,1 miljard euro, ofwel 3,8 % van het BBP. In de praktijk zal dit nog heel wat hoger uitvallen.
Tegen 2029 dreigt het federale tekort op te lopen tot 4,9 %, ofwel zo’n 35,8 miljard euro. Wellicht nog meer.
Om aan de Europese begrotingsregels te voldoen moet de regering De Wever nog minstens 4,9 miljard besparen. Dit werd eerder al kenbaar gemaakt door het Planbureau en de Nationale Bank ( zie vroegere posts ).
De Wever gaat er werk van maken, zegt hij. Hoe gaat hij dit doen ? Ah, wel, door nog meer belastingen te heffen natuurlijk. Wat had u gedacht ?
Structureel besparen doen De Wever en zijn Arizona regering niet. Dat is te moeilijk en ... wat nog veel erger is, hij kan het niet, terwijl net daar de grote pijnpunten liggen.
Nieuw is dit niet. Ook de vorige regeringen hebben ermee gesmeten en giga putten geslagen. De Wever en zijn trawanten treft dus niet alleen schuld.
De nationale schuld is ondertussen gestegen naar meer dan 565 miljard euro. We zitten nog niet eens aan het einde van het eerste kwartaal ! Louter de rente op die schuld loopt over meer dan 8 miljard euro per jaar....
https://t.co/743yfBMCDU
Wat er - eindelijk - zou moeten gebeuren :
👇
- Afslanking van het overheidsapparaat. We zitten met 1 ambtenaar per 10 inwoners. Absurd.
- Verlaging van de lonen van politici en hoge ambtenaren en hun buitenproportoneel hoge pensioenen. Geef het goede voorbeeld.
- Afschaffing van de absurd hoge uittredingsvergoedingen van politici. Ze hebben tijdens hun mandaat genoeg verdiend.
- Afschaffing van de vele andere voordelen van politici zoals dure luxe auto's met chauffeur, persoonlijke chefkoks ( oa Jan Jambon profiteert daar al jaren van ), snoepreisjes naar het buitenland en Davos...
- Beperking van de budgetten van de deelstaten die gedeeltelijk gefinancierd worden door de federale staat. Ook zij moeten de broeksriem aantrekken en hun plan trekken met eigen inkomsten.
- Beperking van de budgetten van het ministerie van ontwikkelingssamenwerking e.a.. Daar is geen geld voor, we hebben de centen zelf nodig.
- Migratiestop. Kost jaarlijks vele miljarden.
- Stoppen met het pamperen van migranten en toekennen van voordelen waarvan Belgen alleen maar kunnen dromen.
- Stoppen met smijten van miljarden richting Oekraïne.
- Dichtdraaien van de subsidiekraan. Louter vorig jaar federaal 67 miljard euro waarvan ze nog altijd niet kunnen zeggen waarvoor deze precies hebben gediend en, 18 miljard door de Vlaamse regering.
- afschaffing van hoge bijdragen aan een veelheid van NGO's.
- afschaffing van de financiering van het WEF
- annulatie aankoop van 3000 vrachtwagens door Theo Francken.
- Annulatie deelname project investering van 1000 miljard euro voor de bouw van extra windmolens in de Noordzee.
- Opnieuw gas en olie aankopen van Gazprom Rusland zodat het land niet langer stikt onder de hoge energieprijzen, de economie terug kan ademhalen.
- Controle op de overheidsuitgaven via een DOGE en verantwoordelijk maken van ministers voor wat ze wel en niet doen.
....
Deze correcties niet uitvoeren = schuldig verzuim.
Ik heb al heel wat posts gewijd aan de groeiende problematiek. België is virtueel failliet terwijl het land zowat het zwaarste taxatie systeem in de wereld heeft. Het moet gedaan zijn met het uitpersen van de burgers, de vernietiging van onze landbouw en industrie. Dit kan zo niet verder.
https://t.co/rOcL78f2XV
https://t.co/cCf80FFU3C
Voor jullie :
Rapport van het Monitoringcomité ( 2026)
https://t.co/E7h4jZxh0t
Rapport van de NBB ( 2026)
https://t.co/PSLBkCU7gG
https://t.co/bzo7y9RDCE
32 km/uur in de bebouwde kom en je hebt het vlaggen, want dat is de regel. Fair enough.
Maar voor deze rotzooi hieronder hebben we plots ... ´geen regels´ blijkbaar.
Ok dan.
Europe needs homegrown, low-carbon energy sources.
Nuclear & renewables together have a key role to play
Nuclear energy is available around the clock, providing electricity all year.
Europe has been a pioneer in nuclear technology.
And can lead again ↓ https://t.co/Eg7gl1548K
UMMMM. $BEAN.
There is $660 USD being played on @minebean_ every 60 seconds.
Thats $39,600 per hour.
$950,400 a day.
And its only at 1.8m market cap....
In 24 hours it will be the highest revenue protocol on base.
Not sure what this is... but its fucking special.
🧐 Our gem hunters researching $Aleister
@aleisterai founder and a team of 9 AI agents building a business, targeting 5–6 figure monthly income.
Founder @vrusavuk, musician/composer, also founded https://t.co/Pf0afxN5A2 and currently serves as Lead AI Engineer at FundlyHub.
Ik WALG van de @NOS. @realDonaldTrump vroeg aan alle aanwezigen om op te staan uit respect voor de ouders van de vermoorde Iryna Zarutska. Alleen dát belangrijke feit benoemt de NOS niet. Nee, die doen het voorkomen of de Democraten niet voor hem wilden opstaan.
@eenblikopdenos