Easier banking abroad: Jerry Everett's startup

How do you ensure that your start-up grows into a successful mature company? Poelmann van den Broek helps you with the legal issues. In this blog "Start-ups & Downs," you can read real-life stories. For example, Jerry Everett tells what he encountered when starting up his telecom service Sojourner Assay, which automatically forwards text messages.

Inspiration for the new telecom service comes from Jerry's private situation. This year, he and his wife - who has South African roots and lived in Denmark - moved from Canada to the Netherlands. He explains, "As an international family, we have five cell phones with SIM cards from five different countries. This is necessary because we get text messages from our banks in all those countries with codes for Internet banking. Pretty cumbersome and expensive, I think. That is why I am now marketing a service that automatically forwards text messages to one cell phone."

Jerry is an experienced businessman. For example, together with a business partner he developed the successful online meeting service OnConference. So you could say he knows the ropes. Still, he too runs into certain things with his new company. "I keep learning continuously," he laughs. "For example, I would like to know more about the EU market and I am curious about the consequences of the Brexit." Jerry is very happy with the help Poelmann van den Broek offers him: "They act as a sounding board, with whom I can spar in confidence. Legal help is vital for every company. And especially for start-ups, it is important to know the laws and regulations well and to comply with them."

Jerry's start-up in brief

From idea to execution... Jerry tells how he went about it. "I started by researching the opportunities for my idea online. It soon became apparent that no one was offering anything similar and that there were a lot of Google searches for this opportunity. After this survey, I did a test with a prototype for the United States and Canada, my biggest markets." The worldwide interest in the automatic forwarding of text messages became clear to Jerry after going live: "already in the test phase I received dozens of applications."

One problem and two highlights

Soon, however, a problem emerged: people were interested in the service, but dropped out the moment they had to pay for it. Jerry: "This was a big disappointment, but I learned from it. Asking for payment too soon doesn't work. That's why interested parties are now allowed to try the service for free for a month first.

The great interest in the new service was a definite highlight for Jerry. "I even had to stop the test at one point because there were more applications than I could handle. Another highlight is that I got to know an awful lot of local professionals. For example, I joined Startup Nijmegen, a network of business owners that helps startups."

Limited liability company instead of sole proprietorship

Poelmann van den Broek helps Jerry set up a bv, which for him is preferable to a sole proprietorship: "Not so much to minimize liability and risks, but because clients in my industry expect to do business with a bv. Moreover, a bv allows me to do business easily anywhere in Europe."

Wondering how Jerry is doing at the end of 2017? read on here .