Jacqueline van den Ende’s entrepreneurial journey is a testament to the power of adaptability, self-belief, and a global perspective. From her early days in private equity to her current role at Carbon Equity, she continues to push boundaries and create lasting impact.

The venture invests in climate change-focused tech startups. Top-tier investors back the company, including BlackFin Capital Partners, Firstminute Capital, AENU, and 4impact.

In this episode, you will learn:

• Embrace uncertainty and seek opportunities in unfamiliar territories; it’s where true growth lies.
• Entrepreneurship isn’t bound by familial context; it’s a mindset that transcends backgrounds.
• In investing, originality and independent thinking trump conforming to templates and structures.
• Building something lasting requires a steadfast commitment to freedom and a desire for impact.
• Excellence in team selection is paramount; never settle for mediocrity when hiring.
• Climate change presents both a challenge and an unparalleled opportunity for transformation.
• Success in entrepreneurship hinges on persistence through ups and downs; keep moving forward.

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About Jacqueline van den Ende:

Jacqueline van den Ende is an entrepreneur cum investor passionate about building high-impact ventures. She is a co-founder and the CEO of Carbon Equity, a fintech platform that seeks to power the world’s most impactful climate technology solutions with retail capital.

Jacqueline spent approximately half her career investing in companies, as a partner with Peak Capital and an investor at HAL Investments. The other half she has spent building companies.

As a student, she founded De Kleine Consultant and later founded Rocket Internet-backed Lamudi Group in the Philippines and helped scale South East Asian fintech mobile wallet TrueMoney.

Jacqueline is passionate about creating companies from scratch and building high-performance teams of talented individuals.

She talks about the intersection of climate change and finance and is obsessed with the question of how we can steer the planet toward a sustainable future through effective capital allocation.

Connect with Jacqueline van den Ende:

• Linkedin
• Crunchbase
• Bloomberg
• PitchBook

Read the Full Transcription of the Interview:

Alejandro Cremades: Alrighty hello everyone and welcome to the deal maker show. So today. We have a really exciting founder. You know we’re going to be talking about going to every single side of the table that you can imagine you know she’s been an investor. she’ is a on the private equity side on the venture capital side. So not only investing in numbers investing in people. Now an operator too. She’s building something really remarkable and she’s also been a world traveler. You know she is an operated companies in in Asia in Europe ah, and again you know we’re going to be talking about building scaling financing and all of that good stuff that we like to hear so without further ado. Let’s welcome our guests today Jacqueline ban then and welcome to the show. So originally born in the hague but you traveled quite a bit growing up. So how was life growing up, give us a walkthrough memory lane.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Thank you Thanks for having me.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Yeah, my dad was a shell engineer. So I grew up very internationally from the age of one I lived in Australia until the age of 6 and then after that 4 years in Syria which is in the middle east ah so I had a pretty adventurous hue. And consider that a major yeah source of wealth. It’s been really cool to grow up with a much more global perspective than if I had grown up simply in the Netherlands.

Alejandro Cremades: Now in your case you know something that is really remarkable is not only you grew up. Um, traveling everywhere. But then Also you’ve been traveling ever since now I find that this perhaps has given you an advantage because when you travel like that I mean. New places. New friends. You know you you get? you get comfortable with the uncertainty to certain Degrees. So How do you think that has helped you and that has shapen who you are.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Well you say that? well you get comfortable with the uncertainty. So after that I lived in per Peru Norway kyrgyztan and the Philippines and I ah started my career formally in private equity. But after 4 years really once. Be on the startup side of things and I got an offer to build a company in the Philippines and I think most people would probably not have taken that opportunity to move to the other side of the world having absolutely no idea where the Philippines was or what it was about. Um. But for me I was very comfortable packing my job and moving to manila and I kind of feel comfortable everywhere wherever I live in the world and I think that yeah brings a certain flexibility adaptability to whatever circumstance you’re in.

Alejandro Cremades: And and we’ll talk about this experience just in a little bit because I want to talk about how you enter the hold you know venture world. You know that was be a declining consultant. So how did you? you know come up with the idea of hey you know I’m not going to do. Corporate life I mean this was back in 2008 I mean in 2008 the world of entrepreneurship was still a little bit green there in Europe you know? Ah, even in the us you know in New York I remember that the the ecosystem what was still developing with companies like double click. You know, paving the way for everyone else, but. In Europe he was so almost nonexistent you know and obviously being european myself I know the pressure that we have from parents especially back then to either become a doctor ah consultant you know at ah at a big a Mckinsey or or Bcg or a lawyer or a banker now in your case, you decided to. Do it yourself. That’s pretty ballsy. So why? So how did that opportunity come about.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Yeah, a little bit in context I did this and when I was a student so it wasn’t sort of my first formal career actually I do very much as you describe come from a parent. My parents were incorporate. My mom is a lawyer. So my family did not have an entrepreneurial context at all. I did actually after the clinical consultant which is a nonprofit student run strategy consulting organization. It has few hundred students working in across different locations in the nelands every year I did consider like really starting formaling formally starting my career as a founder. But I didn’t ultimately because I pres pursueed the safe route which was indeed as an analyst in private equity. So very much came from that corporate background like oh you’re supposed to start your career in ah in a in a more of a structured environment and. Took me quite a while to get back to entrepreneurship after that. But I am somebody who has constantly has business ideas right? So the clientle zelden was one of these ideas that sort of fell from the sky with an idea and all and was the first time that I actually transfer. Related an idea into a thriving organization that is now fifteen years old

Alejandro Cremades: Now in this case for you. Ah, you are alluding to I I mean the the formal job that you got was Hhl investments on the private equity side. So What kind of um structure did that give you as you were alluding to and then also what did you learn About. Pattern recognition and and being able to see what was good from what was not so good from an investment perspective.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Yeah, it’s a very good question because I think the essence of investing is pattern recognition. Um what I loved about whole investments was what you learn as an investor is ah first principles thinking. So. In consultancy what you learn is to apply a template the issue tree to different kinds of business problems but ah investing is not about doing things in a certain format. It’s about having original ideas non-conforming ideas. In fact. So when I entered at hall investments um I did not have a background in finance I didn’t know what private equity was and everybody else who worked in the company had studied like literally rocket science or nuclear physics like so I was definitely the least the least highest iq in the company. Probably. And they didn’t tell you what to do so basically on day one I got to the office I found a huge pile of books and I was supposed to read it and then they said make us a valuation model and nobody explained how to make the valuation model but I got to sit down and think for myself. How do I determine the value of this company.

Alejandro Cremades: A.

Jacqueline van den Ende: At some point I got sense to Sweden to do due diligence on a company and I didn’t know what due diligence was but it basically ended up in Stockholm thinking. Okay, what do I need to know about this company. So what I’ve learned in private equity is thinking for yourself rather than thinking about what you. Should a lot of people starting off their careers are very much concerned with what is expected from them from their boss and I think in hall investments I really learned to think from what do I think what’s my own opinion because that was what you were paid for.

Alejandro Cremades: Now in this case, you were there for a little bit over 3 years so anyone looking at this would have thought that hey things are going. You know very well. So why would Jacqueline you know take a look at the greener pastures and you know perhaps entertain something from rocket internet. So how did that come about.

Jacqueline van den Ende: I really learned a lot in my private equity career. But at the same time always felt like I’m on the wrong side of the table I would work a lot with entrepreneurs and with Ceos and I saw that they were building their own companies and I’m a builder. Like ever since the client was built and I really fell in love with taking an idea from nothing to something so I literally told my friends if next year I’m still working with haul investments. You really have to kick my ass because I need to get out of that career and I actually changed my password at some point to startup 2013 so I would remind myself every single day of that career Ambition. So one of my piece of advice. There is also if you want something say it out loud because I started telling people about this startup dream and then somebody said well hey you should talk through rock good incidents and. And insignnet said to me well would you you know? would you aspire? ah going abroad to build a company for us and I thought you know sure why not? So ah when I sort of was picturing going to you know into a Berlin or a Silicon Valley or something and then he said how about you go to the Philippines. Which was a bit of a mindset shift of like okay wait a minute where is the Philippines and is this a good idea but I figured if you don’t have go. You’ll never know.

Jacqueline van den Ende: I was single at the time I was 28 so I quit my job and within a month I was living in Manila and building a only real estate startup.

Alejandro Cremades: And I guess before you even you know, enter these discussions with rocket internet. How was that startup dream that you were alluding to how did that started to to evolve and develop to the point that it sounds like. You meeting rocket internet was the right time because you were already incuating. You know that thought I was like okay, let’s go let’s pack the box. Let’s just like execute on this startup dream. So whatever that was going to be and in this case, he ended up being like the silo equivalent. You know there in South in Southeast Asia but but. For you that startup dream. How did that incubate.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Yeah, it’s a good question I have had always and have had ideas I think on average once a month I have a business idea and then typically it comes with a name with it. It sort of literally falls from the sky. So and then I always get this huge boost of energy when I see that idea I see a really clear vision like on day one that I came up with the idea for the clinical resultant I already pictured what it would look like today and today it is even bigger than I could have have had imagine. Think that’s 1 thing I’m naturally gifted with ideas and then secondly with getting people enthusiastic about my ideas I think the other factor there is sort of a freedom drive and I think that’s something that characterizes a lot of entrepreneurs that ultimately what you’re looking for is. Freedom not working for somebody else, but really being able to build your own dream and I see entrepreneurship sort of as constructing your own palace right? like every day whether you’re going uphill or downhill whether things are doing going well or not, you’re laying another brick of your own castle. And then at some points you hire people and those people are laying bricks for your own castle as well and like how cool is it that you get to build something permanent in my case, something that has impact and that will last far beyond you I mean I haven’t been operational in the clinical Zoltan for 12 years

Jacqueline van den Ende: And yet it has grown to a Phenomena is really a household brand in the netherlands in strategy consulting and that’s I think wanting that freedom and wanting to make a little bit of a lasting impact having something that you leave behind where I think very sort of. Poor drivers of my entrepreneurial motivation.

Alejandro Cremades: Now for you and for the people that are listening I mean rocket internet is like ah like a machine incubator. You know they just say rollout teams with great ideas. Big markets. On stuff that they’ve seen working maybe on other companies so they basically you know, ah do it in different regions now in this case for you, you you pack the bags you arrive there in the Philippines how was that for you I mean that’s probably like a culture shock I mean what were some of the things that you guys needed to do too. To assemble. Ah the team the company and and really to get going.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Yeah, it was a pretty crazy experience I brought ah 2 interns with me from the Netherlands we landed in Manila had no idea where it start we got ourselves literally sort of ah. Picnic table in the office of Lasada which was another rocket internet company that was already operational I think we spent oh cool that ah awesome. Yeah, we did strategy for I think a week

Alejandro Cremades: And by the way we we we’ve had the founders also on the podcast. So so good stuff? Yeah yeah.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Thinking about how are we going to do this and then I think we literally threw our strategy in the in the bin and just started executing and that was really rocket internet was all about excellence in execution. So we started hiring. Where we had no idea how to hire the right people because in the nelands when you go to university that means something right? Everybody who went to university has an academic quality in the Philippines having gone to University Or College means absolutely nothing. There’s this huge wild range of like differences in quality. And then also secondly we had no idea what somebody’s work experience meant because we didn’t really you know understand what those companies weren’t doing so it was hilarious. The first couple of weeks we just put up a job ad and we got hundreds of applicants and but the quality was. Terrible. We would have people who would be like oh sorry I can’t come but is it. Okay, if my mom comes to the interview we had ah people who wouldn’t show up for the interviews we had people that we hired who would then would would not show up for the first day of work. We had people who we hired it would leave after three weeks we had somebody who during the sales interview actually went to the toilet and never returned. It was like wild wild wild in learning how to hire the right people in ah in the Philippines initially.

Alejandro Cremades: So I think that when you get to um, experience that in in such a challenging way. You know what? what would you say that you’ve gotten out of um, perhaps learning how to hire the right people for the right reasons at the right time for the business or for any business.

Jacqueline van den Ende: I think the a common mistake that I made when in the Philippines is that you hire for people who can do the job. Ah at rock instant. There was a lot of pressure. We had to scale up within within half a year I think we had 30 people on the payroll.

Alejandro Cremades: Then.

Jacqueline van den Ende: And so there were these sales seats and I would just hire anybody who had any kind of sales experience or could do the job and we ended up hiring all the wrong people having cultural issues having performance issues and having a difficult time sort of setting that right. And what I’ve learned is that nothing is more important than hiring the very best people that you can so I use this mental framework where I score people on a scale of 1 to 5 where three is ah somebody who can do the job and my rule for myself is never ever hire a 3 never hire somebody who can just do the job always hire for excellence. Even if you pay them more. They’re going to be 3 x five x the value of somebody who can just do the job and within my current company carbon equity. We’ve really lived that philosophy to the core and we’re. Immensely popular in a time where everybody is having difficulty hiring on average. We get three hundred to five hundred applicants per job vacancy. The reason being that we have a team of a players and other a players want to work with a players. So. It’s not just important for the performance of the individual but it’s super important in building a high performance culture in your company.

Alejandro Cremades: So we were. We were talking about it early I mean lamo you know was essentially the silllo there in in Saudi in Southeast asia I mean you guys pushed this for about 3 years ah and they how how did the company evolve I mean how did you guys say capitalize the business. What did that look like when he came to to really scaling this up because I mean you were saying that within half a year you already had 30 people on the payroll. So how did you guys go about capitalizing the business too.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Yeah, so that was a nice thing of rocket internet rocket internet basically ah they as you properly explain they copy paste the successful ecommerce models successful internet businesses to other parts of the world. So rockignnet would do the fundraising and they would hire menaging directors and ceos and founders like myself who would then build that business in a country from scratch so we didn’t actually have any issues in ah, having to raise funding for the company in my time we scaled from 1 to 100 people and and it was just. Really rocket internet was throwing a lot of money at it and nowadays. The good thing is the company is gar much alive I think as 2 300 people in the Philippines probably so we’re one of the few businesses that survived I think of all of the businesses that rocket internet founded in the Philippines in the year that I started. I think 30% probably survived of those and and lamudi was one of them.

Alejandro Cremades: And the company man ended up getting acquired by. Do do be so group is that right? Yeah there you go there, you go now in this case, you know like out of having been present. You know in.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Um, yeah, it got acquired by a European property group. Epg.

Alejandro Cremades: You know company where it goes through the full cycle know where you go there pack the bags you know, different country everything you ramp this thing up to tons of employees in no time I guess what kind of disability you know, did that give you into the full cycle of a business.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Well a lot I think what was really one of the great privileges of working in lamoi is that I got to so I didn’t see it through all the way until Ipo I so at some point stops. But I saw it through from 1 to 100 people in scale and what was really cool is 2 things I think ah your role as a Ceo changes and so I see the life of a company in several phases and the first phase 0 to 15 people is like what I call the hustle phase. And this is a phase where as a Ceo you’re doing everything yourself, you’re doing your hands-on everything and everything and then 15 to let’s say 40 people this is where you start to have your initial layer of management. And you start to try to delegate more and more and start to become more structured and repetitive in your processes and the phase after that like 50 people plus is really where you get into the scale phase where it’s all about replication and you at some point don’t actually know everybody in your company anymore. So what I’ve learned and which is a great benefit to now again, starting my new company is that you already know how your role will evolve and how you should anticipate that evolution. The second thing that I learned in lamudi was that the entrepreneurial journey is full of ups and downs and.

Jacqueline van den Ende: When you are a first -time entrepreneur I think very often we get caught up in. You know when things are hard. Ah, it feels like you’re in an existential situation that the company might fail that the world might end. And having had that perspective of going through that roller coast or several times before you now know that ups and downs are part of the journey some days you’re walking uphill some days you’re rolling down. And the only thing that you need to do to get through that is to keep on walking you simply have to keep on moving forward and you should expect that the moment that things are doing well. It will go down at some point but also in the moment say you’re in deep shit. As long as you keep on walking and doing the right things you will get out of that and I think that perspective helps me navigates the mental roller coaster of building a company from scratch again.

Alejandro Cremades: So the next stop for you was true money there in Philippines it sounds like a Philippines kept knocking. You know all the way until 2019 or so so why do you? you know decide to take on the Ceo role in.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Um, and yeah.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Yeah, so I really fell in love with the Philippines The slogan of the Philippines is it’s more fun in the Philippines and nothing was ever more true I loved the people I really loved working there so that’s why I stayed in the Philippines.

Alejandro Cremades: Trueani.

Jacqueline van den Ende: True money approached me to become Ceo of this big fintech company. It was a team of 350 people when I entered up to 500 and the opportunity that it presented for me was to really lead a company at a very different level. Somewhere between scale up and sort of corporate company and again that evolution of Ceo is from hustle phase doing absolutely everything yourself to starting to delegate in the scale-up phase to being in a large 500 person type company as a Ceo you cannot do. Anything yourself so the only way that you can be effective is by hiring the right people putting them in the right place and giving them trust and direction and motivation and guidance. That’s only what you can only be effective through other people. And that was ah that was a very valuable learning experience at true money.

Alejandro Cremades: So it sounds like venture capital is what brought you back to to Amsterdam to the Netherlands and then going to the other side of the table I mean you had been now an operator for quite a bit. So what? what made you think. You were going to like now going to the other side of the table but it was the first time that you really experienced the other side of the table as a venture capitalist because I mean before it was just numbers driven on the private equity side this time it was all about people. How was that for you.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Yeah, exactly? Yeah, so this opportunity quite randomly landed in my lap I was very happy in my role at true money but I had ah several years ago I had pitched a startup idea to a Vc fund peak. Capital and at some point they were looking for a new partner for their funds somebody with both entrepreneurial and investment experience. So they asked me to join their fund and for me to come back to Amsterdam on 1 hand that sounded like a. Amazing opportunity because one of the best vcs in ah the benelocks region in Europe I would get a partner title right away so that was kind of amazing and it was a really good way to get to know the european startup landscape.

Jacqueline van den Ende: What I kind of skipped in my decision making there was ah do I have a dream of being a Vc investor and my view is that being an investor is almost the opposite of being an entrepreneur an entrepreneur has ideas is a storyteller. Ah. Constantly ah pitches their ideas and is a builder and an investor is somebody who facilitates a good investor is a thinker has the macro view instead of the detailed view. A good investor is a very good listener.

Alejandro Cremades: Um.

Jacqueline van den Ende: And man is a very good advisor and facilitator. But you’re not the builder. So for me ultimately being in this role as a Vc was pretty frustrating because I spoke to so many entrepreneurs and felt like hey I’m not living my dream and they are living my dream and. Ultimately sort of also helped me realize I need to get back to entrepreneurship that said Vc investing was indeed sort of like the polar opposite of private equity private equity is really sort of making decisions based on spreadsheets and if you see it’s all about do I believe in you as an entrepreneur. It comes much more down to intuition and gut feel of whether you yeah whether you think somebody is ah is a good entrepreneur because team is one of the biggest sort of success factors in whether companies make it or not.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s Amazing. So Then as you were thinking about hey this people are living my dream I Want to go and get my own dream. How did that process say how was that like you know for you to end up landing on carbon Equity. You know how was that incubation and thought process until you were like. I think I think this is it.

Jacqueline van den Ende: I had the idea for carbon equity even before joining Beek as a partner and that came from one sort of a reawakening of my concern about climate change. I read the book the 6 extinction in 2019 which talks about the major extinction events in the history of the planet and she details how climate change and biodiversity loss that in the. Past five major extinctions have played out over tens of thousands of years and now are playing out in a timepan of 300 years and we see anybody is seeing the climate change with their own eyes in a super rapid fashion. And that helped me understand that okay climate change is really the number 1 biggest problem to solve in the coming years. But also one of the biggest opportunities because in the next 30 years we need to transform our economy from fully fossil fuel addicted to entirely fossil free. So the technological innovation that we’re going to see is really unparalleled and might be even a bigger transformation than the whole digital transformation. So I want to spend the next thirty years in climate change and I ask myself the question. How do i.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Really move the needle on climate change with capital and that ultimately led to the idea of carbon equity where and carboneity you make it possible for private individuals to invest in some of the world’s most innovative climate technologies carbon freeciment. Plant-based proteins giant Batteries. You name it any solution that we need to decarbonize the economy and instead of investing in ah single companies like you would do in a crowdfunding platform carbon equity allows you to invest alongside the world’s best. Professional investors and let’s say an al gore bill gates who invest on your behalf and instead of investing in a single company. You’re investing in a portfolio of 20 to 200 companies and in this way we want to unlock. Billions of private capital to accelerate the climate transition whilst making thousands or tens of thousands of people shareholders of the net’s your economy.

Alejandro Cremades: So how does the business model work there I mean how do you guys make money.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Yeah, so carbonecti is a climates venture capital and private equity fund investing platform. So we don’t do direct investments we invest in these funds and then open up access to private individuals which normally they would not have typically you need five million Euros to invest in a single fund. And carbonxy brings that down in and ultimately to ten Thousand Euros our business model is simply to charge a percentage of the capital that you invest so we charge between zero point four and zero point eight five percent of ah the capital that you invest on an annual basis and that’s our business model.

Alejandro Cremades: And how much capital have you guys raised to date for the business for carbon equity and always raising this money now having been on every single side of the table.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Um, for carbon equity Nine Million euros

Alejandro Cremades: Possible You know, gave you a good understanding as to who you wanted to bring in and why so why did you bring the investors that you brought that you brought.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Yeah, great question I think we started and we did funding in 3 phases phase one was angel investors and what we really looked for because carbonacty is an investments platform. So. It’s very high trust and it’s also relatively sophisticated. So. In our angels. We really look for people who are very high-prole were very high trust and had a big network which could help us literally find more customers. Ah so that was phase one. Phase two was a couple of venture capital funds joined and there we looked for people who really sort of aligned with our mission and who could help us get through the go-to-market phase and we just raised this is still. Free market formal market announcement but we just raised 6000000 from a french leading fintech fund and the reason why we opted for them was one they understood we had built a relationship over the past two years so but I had by far the best relationship with them over any other Vc. Secondly, they understood our business like nobody else that looked at all of the competitors in the space and really understood what we were doing and we really like that they’re fully fintech focuseds.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Because what we do is all about distribution integrations with banks pension players insurance, players etc to distribute the carbon equity products and they really understand how to do a B to C Fintech play in a regulated Market. So. Those were the reasons why we got these people on board.

Alejandro Cremades: And then now in terms of the scope and size of carbon equity today anything that you feel comfortable sharing like number of employees or anything you know on the platform. What can you share with us.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Sure, yeah, so we raised over 150000000 ah euros in the past one and a half to 2 years through the platform we have over 600 customer is both big and small so we have people who are missinging like 10 gay but we also have people investing 10000000 so the whole scale of ah customers. Ah, we have a team of 20 5 more or less which consists of engineers and developers. We have people on the investment team. We have people in marketing and sales and we have people on regulatory risk and compliance which is also very important as a regulated business. And currently we’re in the phase with the series a funding of full on internationalization. So we’re also looking for people to join us in other countries with a primary focus on the nordics in Germany and Europe.

Alejandro Cremades: Wow Now imagine you were to go to sleep tonight and you wake up in a world where the vision of carbon equity is fully realized what does that world look like.

Jacqueline van den Ende: I’m going to give 2 answers to that. So like a near-term dimension of let’s say 10 years you know 10 year sort of vision for carbon equity would be that we are the global go to impact private equity platform. With 10000000000 in assets under management where people can go to help solve the world’s largest global challenges with their money whether it’s climate change or hell or education or financial inclusion whilst making money for themselves that would be a near-term vision. If carbon equity ultimately is successful in mobilizing billions if not trillions down the end and down the line in private capital to fund climate solutions. We would live in a world where we have full clean technology. Where carbon emissions are under control and imbalance with ah what we what we need. So basically we don’t have a climate change problem and we live in a cleaner healthier and more abundant world. Where instead of relying on really dirty air polluting fossil fuels we have infinite, cheap, renewable energy and our home world is electrified instead of fossil based.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s amazing I Love that now Imagine I was to put you into a time machine and I bring you back in time I bring you back in time to that moment where you are still maybe in University you know, incubating the startup dream and.

Jacqueline van den Ende: And.

Alejandro Cremades: Let’s say you had the opportunity of having a sit down without younger self and you were able to give your younger self one piece of advice before launching a business. What would that be and why given what you know now.

Jacqueline van den Ende: And.

Jacqueline van den Ende: My advice would be ah yes, you can ah because I think I have ah doubted myself for a very long time on whether I could actually be an entrepreneur. So I was circling around it for a long time. My first company was very successful but it’s a nonprofit company. So I didn’t consider it a real startup then I worked for rocket internet I was working for somebody else building a startup then I was the Ceo of a large startup but again not my own company. Then I was a Vc investor investing in startups but I was an entrepreneur so I did all kinds of things for 12 years from the start of my career to finally doing my own and I think there were a lot of I think there was self-doubts but also ah other people who quite openly. Doubted meme so some people said well I’m not sure if you’re an entrepreneur I’m not sure if you have the grits to get through the product market phase and. 1 impy capital when I was looking at all of these other entrepreneurs I realized that the only difference between them and me was that they were doing it already and I wasn’t and secondly one is once I finally got over the hurdle and finally myself started doing it I realized like.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Hell yes I can I mean at the age of 23 I built a company that has by now implied thousands of consultants I’ve been building initiatives either for myself or for other people for the past Decade like why did I doubt myself so long. Why did I listen to voices that. You know said I couldn’t do because maybe I don’t fit the standard profile of a white male entrepreneur. But hell yes I can I don’t think I am less any less competent than any other entrepreneur out there and I think I would have wanted to give myself that sort of objective. Piece of self-confidence and then maybe I would have you know gone through entrepreneurship which is really my home a little bit earlier in life I think spoke what people got the picture.

Alejandro Cremades: That’s incredible. So for the people that are listening Jacqueline that team will love to reach out and say hi. What is the best way for them to do so.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Sure you can connect with me on ah Linkedin I think that’s probably the best way I do get a lot of messages. So if I don’t reply be persistent I’ll get back to you always? Personally there’s nobody manning my Linkedin um. Yeah I think and and obviously check out carbonequity.com if you’re interested in learning more about ah climate tech investments. We have a lot of webinars a lot of content and blog out there. So definitely interesting to check that out.

Alejandro Cremades: Amazing. Well Jacqueline thank you so much for being on the deal maker show. It has been an honor to have you with us today.

Jacqueline van den Ende: Yeah, thank you pleasure and was honored to be here.

*****

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