Startup interview: Vincent Hoogduijn, Dayrize Co-founder and CEO
RTIH gets the lowdown on Netherlands-based online retailer, Dayrize, which has set its sights on becoming the UK’s largest marketplace for high quality sustainable shopping.
RTIH: Tell us about yourself and Dayrize
VH: I was born and raised in Delft, a small old city in the Netherlands with a rich history and known for its Delft blue pottery.
Work and adventure took me to many different places (also London for four years) before settling in South Africa (Cape Town) where I’ve lived with my wife and 4 kids (15, 12, 10 and 6) since 2015.
Even though I have a linguistic educational background, my career fairly quickly moved into the internet startup and scale-up space, working in different countries and different continents, most recently South Africa.
The mixed business experiences (as we all know most start-ups fail) has provided me with lots of ammunition and confidence to help make Dayrize a success.
Dayrize is a clean tech company providing environmental and social impact transparency to bring consumption within planetary boundaries.
We recently launched the UK’s largest marketplace for high-quality sustainable shopping. Its ground breaking product assessment technology uses a systematic life cycle approach that enables consumers to compare, evaluate and buy a wide range of products based on a comprehensive scientific calculation of their environmental impact.
At the same time, Dayrize provides brand partners in-depth feedback on how to improve their sustainability credentials.
With over 400 brands already available across fashion, health and beauty and homeware, and 100 brands joining each month, the product catalogue is growing fast, helping us to continuously improve our technology.
RTIH: What was the inspiration behind setting the company up?
VH: We started Dayrize because the four founders wanted to use their extensive experience in business to make a positive impact.
We recognised there was a gap between the intent of consumers to buy more sustainably, and how fast their shopping habits were actually changing.
This was mostly because shopping for sustainable products is time consuming and confusing as the market is highly fragmented and there is no standard, independent measurement of sustainability.
So, we invested in technology to create a scoring system that standardises the sustainability assessment of products so consumers can compare as they shop, and we brought together the best selection of sustainable products onto one marketplace to make it easy for shoppers to find these products.
RTIH: What has been the industry reaction thus far?
VH: Incredible! There is a strong appetite from brands to not just partner with our platform for commercial reasons, but also to get valuable feedback from the scoring process.
RTIH: What has been your biggest challenge/setback?
VH: We have been slightly overwhelmed by the number brands wanting to sign up and partner with us, and that understandably creates a pressure at various stages of bringing a partner live on the marketplace.
We have successfully overcome that by further streamlining our processes and doubling the team so we can push hundreds of products live in a matter of days rather than weeks.
We are on track to have 15,000 products live by Christmas
RTIH: What are the biggest challenges facing the online retail sector right now?
VH: In this transformational online era, anyone can sell anything anywhere. There’s an abundance of products being offered online, highly promoting consumption. With that comes a lack of environmental and social transparency.
We aim to cut through the clutter and quantify how sustainable products truly are, so customers can make informed purchasing decisions with accurate and verified product information.
We’re not promoting consumption, we want to change how people consume.
RTIH: What's the best question about your company asked of you recently by an investor and/or a customer?
VH: We were recently asked if Dayrize is not “just another ecolabel”, of which there’s already more than 450 out there.
What Dayrize does and sets it apart is measuring sustainability across a multitude of variables and not just one specific area.
Next to that, it uses existing ecolabels (or at least the ones we consider relevant and valuable) on its algorithms for scoring purposes.
This allows consumers for the first time to compare products across different categories, like for like, instead of looking at similar products with different ecolabels that have not been quantified.
RTIH: What can we expect to see from Dayrize over the next 12 months?
VH: Exponential growth of our catalogue, where new product verticals will be introduced, including pre-owned products.
We also have international aspirations, so we are in preparation of launching in multiple European markets.
We are also very fortunate to have been selected by the Dutch government to be part of their mission to CES, one of the most influential tech events in the world.
Following the unveil at Amsterdam this month we will take Dayrize to Las Vegas in January to showcase our innovative technology.
