A year with no holiday in it

Thirty employees. First sales. The start of international expansion. A visit to the US Senate and a meeting with Flemish minister-president Matthias Diependaele. That was Spotable's year, and it is why co-founder Julie Dumoulin did not take a summer holiday in 2026.

Made-in.be put her through its "Out of Office" questions.

Construction shutdown, the closest thing to a break

The construction industry's summer shutdown did hand her something. During bouwverlof the customers stop, and the working day stops running from six in the morning to ten at night. Normal hours, for a few weeks. She spent the time at music festivals and on the beach, and kept working.

Leave the country, keep the meetings

Her actual strategy for when the pace becomes too much is to go somewhere else and carry on.

"When overwhelmed, I take a two-week workcation to another country. Meetings continue online, but no one knocks on the door."

Her team, she says, solves more on its own while she is away.

Too much thinking, too little doing

Dumoulin's account of how the three founders operate is short.

"We say: too much thinking, too little doing."

The disagreements happen out of sight:

"We support each other, argue behind closed doors, but present unified front externally."

She also names the thing she thinks most young companies get wrong.

"Too few startups realize how vital sales are."

The most spontaneous thing she has done, by her own account, was walking into the US Senate without preparing for it first.

The quotes in this article have been translated from Dutch.