Recently, Jorn van Duijnhoven was asked to take on the role of Head of Customer Success at European online lender at October.
Jorn van Duijnhoven has been appointed “due to changes” within October’s organization.
He stated:
“I have to say that I didn’t see it coming, but It did not take long for me to say yes. It is a very challenging role, where I, together with my European team, help no less than 30,000 investors to build a portfolio of loans to companies. It was also a great next step. I come from the October school: after college, I started directly at October.”
He added that he was the third employee of October in the Netherlands and has “seen the different sides of the company (first as Customer Success Manager and then as Operations Manager).”
As Head of Customer Success, he “can share the knowledge and experience [he] gained in recent years at October with the team.”
October has “a hybrid funding-model; institutional investors as well as private investors lend to an entrepreneur.”
And their private investors “are incredibly important.”
Jorn explains:
“October’s mission is to finance businesses better. We make it easy for companies to get the financing they need to take the next step. With this funding, an entrepreneur can, for example, make his or her company more sustainable, digitize or simply keep a larger stock. It is October’s job to link these companies to our investors willing to lend to them. We use a combination of institutional investors and private investors for this, and they complement each other well. Together, October’s investors have thus provided loans for almost 800 million euros.”
Private investors are “an important source of diversification of [their] funding and an even more important source of feedback on projects.”
Moreover, they provide ideas on how they can improve their platform and stimulate their “culture of transparency.”
And last but not least, their lenders “have a positive influence on [their] corporate culture.”
They inspire the October team “to execute on [their] corporate values to the best of [their] abilities.”
They strive together, put their customers first and are transparent “in everything [they] do.”
The firm claims that this is what “sets October apart from other financiers, which in turn makes it a tremendously interesting company to work at.”
October claims it offers “a great addition to anyone’s investment portfolio.”
As Head of Customer Success, Jorn claims he “knows how to explain why people should be on the October platform.”
He added:
“We offer investors a fairly new and unique financial product, which goes well with investments in stocks and index funds for example. It has only been possible for individuals to lend money to companies in this way and receive interest for it for a few years now. By building a portfolio of investments with us, an investor creates a passive income for himself.”
He further noted:
“This is because the borrowers pay monthly interest and also make monthly repayments. An investor can pay out this amount to himself or reinvest in October projects, and thus benefit from interest on interest. The beauty of it is that while you are working on building a portfolio, you are also directly helping small and medium-sized businesses with funding. As a result, your investment therefore becomes very tangible.”
He also mentioned:
“Of course October is no longer the only platform, but should you be considering investing in crowdlending, October is a good match because of the ease of use of the platform, the quality and diversity of the projects and the possibility to invest as little as €20.”
With no less than 30,000 European investors in October, Jorn has a clear vision for his team.
Jorn explains:
“For the coming year, I foresee three challenges for the team. First, we want to attract even more private investors. With the acquisition of the platform Credit.fr, our biggest competitor in France, we may soon welcome 10,000 new investors on the October platform. Secondly, and related to the first goal, we want to make even more people familiar with the financial product ‘crowdfunding’ and grow in popularity.”
He adds:
“Because crowdfunding, or crowdlending as we say, is still often associated with supporting charities or new initiatives. Without the possibility of obtaining a return on the investment. However, a large part of the this market offers business loans, where an investor can receive a return. The third goal is to implement the new regulations for crowdfunders in Europe (the ECSP) and take advantage of the opportunities this brings. Under the new regulations, we can serve our investors even better with, for example, automatic investments.”
For more details on this update, check here.