Amsterdam resident René Schoenmakers started collecting comic books when he was seven years old. Since then, he’s constantly been looking for the “next gem” to add to his growing collection.
His search eventually took him online, where he’d spend hours surfing the Internet for that one special item. “There must be a faster way to get to the good ones,” he thought.
Indeed, there was.
Schoenmakers says he started out in tech at a time when the Netherlands had just 20 websites. He ran his own web design business, but Schoenmakers felt that he wanted to create something of his own.
In 2008, he rang up his old college friend Marco Jansen, pitching an idea for an online marketplace. Sellers would offer the crème de la crème—just like how traditional auction houses operate. Knowing where to find the best products would save collectors loads of time.
Jansen, then working in India, immediately moved back to Holland so the pair could launch their new venture: Catawiki. Their first business plan was just one page long and had the word “auction” circled in the center.
But how do you develop a website based on buyers and sellers when nobody’s heard of it yet?
“That starting point was very delicate,” says Schoenmakers, a WeWork Metropool member. “We realized immediately we needed to create a strong community as a foundation for our business.”
This meant spending several years visiting forums, exhibitions, and auctions, so they could get collectors on board.
“This is where the name Catawiki derives from: we were creating an extensive catalogue to which any so-called expert could add information, like Wikipedia,” explains Schoenmakers.
In 2011, he saw his first comic book auction go live and take off widely across Europe, with buyers and sellers based in France, Italy, and the U.K.
So how exactly does it work?
“Every Friday, new products go online, categorized in different lots as diverse as watches, art, whiskeys, vintage cars, vinyl records, or rare Star Wars props,” says Schoenmakers. “Although sellers in some circumstances can set a minimum price to their products on offer, we always have a starting point of one euro. We found out this results in the highest bids in the end.”
And the end can get pretty exciting at Catawiki.
“Unlike sites like eBay, where the lines simply close at a set time, at Catawiki we extend the bidding time until it is settled,” he says. “Just like in a real auction house. These bid battles can get pretty exciting to follow as the prices shoot up in the heat of the moment.”
The numbers surrounding Catawiki have also shot up at an impressive rate. With a monthly 12 million visitors worldwide, Catawiki was awarded the prize for fastest-growing startup in Deloitte’s 2015 Technology Fast 500 in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. And it’s the first Dutch company to take the title.
With the future wide open for this online auction beast, expanding worldwide is their main aim. And with this goal comes new challenges.
“Having grown from two people to 400 proved to be another challenge,” he says. “But we deal with each problem and find a way to tackle it, one item at a time.”
As for his comic book collection?
“I’m afraid that has been ignored for quite some time now,” Schoenmakers says with a smile.
Photos: Iris Duvekot