In this concise "6 questions in 7 minutes" interview, Professor Pete Alexander talks with Jeroen Corthout, co‑founder and CEO of Salesflare, a B2B sales CRM that auto‑populates data to reduce manual entry. Jeroen explains why he finds the CRM space exciting, highlighting the still‑vast potential for data‑driven relationship tools. He stresses that the most important chapter for any startup is taking care of personal health—sleep, exercise, nutrition—as the foundation for productivity and business success. His practical advice for other founders includes pacing growth, hiring the right people rather than filling seats quickly, and adopting a manual‑first approach before automating processes. Jeroen recommends fellow entrepreneur David Hensel as a future podcast guest. He shares his first job experience working at a small amusement‑park fast‑food stand, noting the valuable customer‑service lessons learned. Finally, he provides contact details: salesflare.com and his LinkedIn profile, emphasizing the need for a personalized connection message to cut through spam.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
Uh, my name is Jeroen Korthout, and I'm a co-founder and CEO of Salesflare. And Salesflare is a a sales CRM for small and medium-sized businesses who sell to other companies, sell B2B. And the difference with most other systems is actually a CRM that fills out itself. So it's something that doesn't rely on your discipline to fill it out, but that relies on automation.
Well, Jeroen, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Question number 2: What is something that makes you smile and/or laugh about working in your industry?
So the laugh, is it like a sarcastic laugh?
It could be. It's your choice.
I think what makes me smile is the amount of potential there still is. Like if you see the types of software that we're developing, so CRM software, which is for those who don't know exactly what it is, it's generally, it's to manage customer relationships. So it's to help you follow up your sales leads and all that. I think there's still a tremendous amount of potential there to improve things. It has started from like these sheets you would fill out, it became databases, sort of address book style, but nowadays communication is so integrated that it becomes something that actually helps you build customer relationships. And as the— also the amount of data becomes bigger and bigger, there are so many things that these systems will be able to help you to do, and now and in the next few years. That it's really exciting to be working in it.
And I completely agree. I've worked with CRMs in the past as well, and honestly, it's one of those tools that, you know, a successful business can't do without. So I can imagine how satisfying that must be for you as well.
Yeah.
Question number 3: I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
I've been thinking about this myself and then I was thinking about writing a book which highlights like all the issues that you should avoid, like how to not fail basically as a startup business. And my first chapter, hence the most important one would be like, take good care of yourself. That's where it all starts. So if you as a business leader or you have a startup, there's this prevailing notion that As someone having a startup, you're working all night, you're never sleeping and you're just hustling. But that just doesn't work. It's not sustainable. I think if you want to be successful, it's better to be productive in the time you work, which means sleeping well. It's like what we discussed before the podcast, working out. It's eating well. These kind of things might seem unrelated to you running a business, but in the end, they run you. I mean, they make you productive, and which then makes the business successful. Because if you don't come up with new ideas, if you don't push things forward, if you don't have that, all that energy, you know, it's, it's all not going to happen.
And it's very insightful that you say that, because a lot of people don't realize that without their health, nothing else matters. It's, you know, if you don't have the energy to, you know, be able to get up and, and, you know, go do whatever it is that you're doing, you're no good to your business, you're no good to your relationships.
It's true.
Health is just so important. So great, great insight. Question number 4: other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice would you give to other business leaders?
I, I would say definitely work hard, but also don't take it too fast. Don't overrun yourself because another prevailing notion is that as a startup, you're like super running really fast, faster than all the others. Makes sense in some cases and venture-backed businesses are definitely pushed to run faster than they can, but I don't think it's general good advice to say run super fast, faster than you can. I think instead sometimes you should take things a little faster. Don't hire too quickly for a certain position. Look for the right person instead of filling the role quickly. Don't immediately automate something, but first do it manually, learn how it really works, and then automate it or delegate it. These kind of things are really, really important to just make that you do it better instead of just faster.
I think that is really, really important. Several things that you said, including, you know, don't hire somebody just to have a body in that chair. If it's the wrong person, that's going to delay you even more. You know, we all have, you know, have probably experienced having somebody who was in the wrong— the wrong person in the wrong seat. And then, you know, not automating, you know, stuff before you know how it works manually. That's so insightful because you have to understand how it works. To make sure that the automation is doing what it's supposed to do. Am I, am I, uh, definitely paraphrasing what you're thinking? Yes.
No, no, that's, that's, that's exactly what it is.
All right, awesome, awesome. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
I think I'd go for David Hensel. Um, he's one of my friends, but also he's a serial entrepreneur. He co-founded, for instance, MaxCDN, which is a content delivery network, that's what CDN stands for, that used to run, for instance, Mashable, the big tech blog. But he started many companies since, but one of them is managing happiness, which sort of coincides with the theme of this podcast. And I'm sure he'd be happy to get on the podcast, so I'm happy to intro you.
Wonderful, I appreciate that referral. And our final question, question number 6, please tell me about your first job.
I'd say that my very first job was a student job. I did lots of student jobs before I went into actual, let's say, actual jobs, or they were actual jobs, just me filling them as a student, I would say. So my very first one was in a fun park. It's called Bobbejaanlands, which is a very local thing where I used to live. It's a famous person called Bobby Hans who put in a fun park, whatever. Imagine it like Disneyland, but then really small and less modern. And I was working in the McBob, which was sort of like the McDonald's of Bobby Hans. And what I did there was serving people, making french fries and hamburgers, serving ice cream, preparing the foods, cleaning the place, all this kind of stuff. I wasn't super well paid, it was hard work, but it was a great, great experience. Like actually working, very basic work I would say, serving customers, all these kind of things is a great way to start off. Later I did other jobs like for instance working in a— at a printer, just putting cartons in a machine. I didn't learn that much there. I think my— that first job was much more inside— I'm much more insights to be gained there.
Yeah, and you know, that, that manual labor and not being paid very much, you tend to learn a lot of different things, including working with the general public, which can be very challenging. So it's, it's a great story how you describe that and, and how you learn more from that than the printing job afterwards. So it's, it's, it's really important for people to realize what you can learn from your first job. So thank you for sharing that. And Yaron, thank you so Thank you so much for being on the show. How could people find you?
If you wanna find out more about my company, Salesflare, salesflare.com, see the software there, you can try it and stuff. And if you were gonna wanna get in touch with me, LinkedIn is the best place. There's only one person with my name, so it's pretty easy to find me. If you wanna connect, please include a personal message. I get so much spam every day that if you don't include a personal message, I will just assume it's also spam. And I will not connect with you. But if you include a personal message, on the other hand, you stand out. And I will definitely connect with you and we can have a chat.
And that's great advice as well for people on LinkedIn, is that you really do need to personalize a message for people that have a lot of everything, other things going on like yourself. So thank you for that, for that additional bonus advice. And this is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Get hundreds of amazing business insights from previous guest episodes on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening.
