Nerd who fell in love with marketing & growth.

Available for keynotes and short advice calls

Nicholas D'hondt

Big news: I'm officially a (late) co-founder of JobRunr 🚀

A year ago, I joined as Head of Growth. 

The deal with Ronald? 

Date for one year. If the spark is there, we make it official. 💍

We negotiated everything upfront so we could spend the rest of the year focused on one thing only: healthy growth.

End of last year, the verdict was in.

Both of us felt it. 

This is it.

Looking back, it almost feels like a roads led here.

👉 My first startup Plann3r with Ruben Meul? We coded the entire back-end in Java. (JobRunr is a tool built for the Java world.)

Now my Java background helps me understand the product and follow dev conversations.

👉 Then I co-founded GrowForce with David & Amaury, where I led all B2B marketing and learned how to do B2B sales.

My marketing skills let me translate technical stuff into language their managers also get.

My sales experience helps me navigate corporate procurement.

And my entrepreneurial drive lets me co-create JobRunr's strategy and vision.

And if that was not enough, JobRunr's values completely align with my own. 

Everything we do is with the intention to leave the planet better than we found it. 🌍

Thanks Dirk for setting up that first date. 💚

Head Of Growth at JobRunr | Turning creative ideas into measurable results | Public Speaker - Available for keynotes

I thought my content was driving revenue. But I couldn't prove it. 🤦‍♂️

If you market to developers, you know the pain: 
Ad blockers, Privacy extensions, "Do Not Track" headers.

And I totally get why people are using this.

I knew our blog posts were working because sales prospects kept mentioning them. 

But my HubSpot dashboard? It was a ghost town of unassigned attribution. 

Thanks to my background in Growth Marketing, I wanted hard data, not just "gut feeling."

So, I tried to build a manual map.

The Setup:
- Google Sheets: To list every closed deal.
- HubSpot Breeze: To see company-level page visits.
- Scarf: To track open-source package usage.

The Failure: 
It was a mess. HubSpot Breeze didn't talk to the Deal view. Scarf data lived on an island. I spent more time copy-pasting rows than analyzing them.

So I wanted something more efficient. 

I wanted to be able to ask: "Hey, for all deals closed in January, which blog post was visited the most?"

So I just Vibe Coded it this afternoon.

I built a custom MVP that aggregates: 
✅ HubSpot Deal data 
✅ Website traffic (even the anonymous stuff) 
✅ Scarf package downloads

Now, I'm able to ask questions like: "Show me the user journey for Deal X." "What common technical docs do closed-won deals read?"

It’s super basic (for now), but it works. 

I believe this is where marketing ops is going. 

We aren't just using software anymore; we're glueing it together with AI to get to the exact insights we need.

👇 Question for the builders: Has anyone else used Vibe Coding (or cursor/replit) to build their own internal marketing tools?

And if you target devs... how are you solving the attribution black hole? 

Drop a tip below! 💡

Your app is not the future of customer experience.

I was interviewed last week by Claire Charlier who's building ENGIE's future CX vision.

One question stuck with me:

"What's the biggest misconception companies have about customer experience?"

My answer: They're still too obsessed with their own channels.

The best customer interactions happen where your customers already are.

WhatsApp. Messaging apps. Maybe even an AI that calls them 10 seconds after signup.

Not another app they'll forget to open.

Here's the shift I see coming:

Soon, customers won't interact with companies directly.

Their personal AI will.

"Siri, switch me to an energy provider that matches my values." Done.

Sure, some people will just ask for the cheapest option.

But many will want their spending to reflect who they are and what they believe in.

Their AI agent will need to understand which brands align with those values.

That's why your brand story matters more than ever.

Not just for humans, but for the algorithms that will decide on their behalf.

Thanks Claire Charlier, Steven Geerinck and Birger De Rese for the conversation,  it triggered some thinking I hadn't done before.

Excited to see what comes out of this project at ENGIE.

Marketing to Java developers is like playing the game on hard mode 🎮

And yes, I signed up for it willingly. And I would do so again in a heartbeat.

At JobRunr, our main audience is Java developers.

People with world-class BS detectors.
People who skip anything that smells like fluff.
People who want proof, depth, and usefulness. Or they are gone.

Early on, I thought classic B2B marketing would work.

Nice lead magnets.
Clean value props.
Some paid traffic.

Spoiler. It didn’t. 💡

What did work was changing how we think about marketing entirely.

👉 Treating content as documentation, not promotion
👉 Explaining the "why" behind every decision
👉 Showing the how and sharing it all transparently
👉 Brushing off my Java skills to speak the same language as our users

That mindset helped us grow an open-source project into something companies in finance and healthcare trust in production.

And now, I want help scaling that.

We are hiring an All-round Growth Marketer.

Not to "run campaign".

But to own the full journey together with me:

✅ From open-source users to paid customers
✅ From experiments on LinkedIn and Reddit to creative ABM plays
✅ From technical blog posts to simple video edits and clean visuals

This role is not for everyone.

But if you believe marketing only works when it genuinely helps people, it might be for you.

More info:

Open article: Hiring All-round Growth Marketer at JobRunr by jobrunr.io

Hiring All-round Growth Marketer at JobRunr

Customer Collective

Customer Collective is a disruptive ecosystem leading customer-focused commercial transformations. Our group currently consists of The House of Marketing, Upthrust, Dignify, Fightclub and AddData

Together we create future-proof company growth through customer value, by solving the customer equation. We combine the 5 key pillars of this equation: customer strategy, digital acceleration, data, technology and creativity. As opposed to other ecosystems, our entities work closely together in a highly integrated way, using same methodologies. For each project, we select the best profiles with complementary expertise and skills to generate the highest possible impact.

Our ecosystem is powered by Down2Earth Capital and Quanteus Group.

More info on www.customercollective.eu.

Managing Partner

UPTHRUST - digital projects & experts

Upthrust is a #1 international growth office that focuses on full-funnel, cross-channel growth marketing and building better digital experiences that actually convert. We work from different locations in Europe for both larger SMEs and corporates. Our team works on-site and actively transfers knowledge to your team.

Founder

Elpix

Elpix is the partner for companies looking to achieve their sustainability goals. As a subsidiary of Partena Professional, Elpix combines years of experience in HR solutions with in-depth ESG expertise. 

We support companies in their transition to a more sustainable future by defining ESG strategies and helping them integrate them into their business operations. From keynotes and trainings to projects, expert staffing, and software implementation - we got you covered.

Our no-nonsense approach, combined with extensive knowledge, helps companies of all sizes turn ESG challenges into strategic opportunities.

Advisor

Antwerpse Vliegenramen

We verzorgen vliegenramen, schuifdeuren en plissés op maat aan zeer democratische prijzen. Onze teams meten op, geven advies, doen de plaatsing en zijn bereikbaar voor after service. We hebben een brede waaier aan producten en mogelijkheden en werken 100% op maat.

Bestuurder

Gentse Raamdecoratie

Gentse Raamdecoratie is opgericht om iedereen de mogelijkheid te geven om hoge kwaliteit raamdecoratie aan te schaffen aan eerlijke prijzen - zowel voor particulieren als bedrijven. We werken altijd 100% op maat.

Al onze producten bestaan uit duurzame aluminium componenten en worden In België vervaardigd! Ik sta erop om samen met u ter plaatse een offerte op te stellen rechtstreeks uit onze catalogus, zodat u steeds zeker bent dat u de juiste prijs betaalt.

Lopos

Lopos specializes in proximity warning systems, leveraging a range of wireless technologies such as Ultra Wideband (UWB), Bluetooth, and AI camera technology to enhance safety, efficiency and cost optimizations related to people, objects, and various types of material handling equipment in industrial environments.
Our patented UWB core solution is customized by integrating other relevant radio and AI camera technologies to tailor the system to the specific needs of each customer.

Founded in Belgium, Lopos emerged as a visionary project from the collective minds of 4 founders. It quickly transitioned from a spin-off of imec, UGent, and the IDLab research group into a prominent player in the international market of safety warning systems, dedicated to keeping people safe.

Headquartered in the Ghelamco Arena in Ghent - Belgium and linked to co-working space Meetdistrict in Antwerp, Brussels and Ghent. The team operates both remotely and on-site.

Plainsight

Advisory Board Member

Strateeg HR

Wil je talentvolle medewerkers aanwerven of je hr-beleid op punt stellen? Bij Strateeg hr draait het om jou en je (toekomstige) werknemers. Onze ambitie? Jouw bedrijf helpen en ondersteunen met rekrutering, hr-advies en digitale marketingcampagnes.

Boardplus.be

Bij Boardplus zijn we gespecialiseerd in het samenstellen en begeleiden van kwalitatieve Raden van Advies en Raden van Bestuur. Onze unieke aanpak begint met een grondige en persoonlijke analyse van de behoeften van jouw onderneming, gevolgd door een zorgvuldige selectieprocedure om bestuurders te vinden die perfect passen bij jouw bedrijfscultuur en visie.

Onze expertise ligt in het vinden van onafhankelijke externe adviseurs en bestuurders die fungeren als een objectieve groep vertrouwenspersonen. Deze boardmembers brengen waardevolle kennis, ervaring en een uitgebreid netwerk mee, en zijn diep betrokken bij het succes van jouw onderneming. Hun voornaamste focus is het realiseren van jouw groeiambities door ondersteuning te bieden bij cruciale besluitvorming.

Wat ons echt onderscheidt, is onze persoonlijke aanpak en zorgvuldige screening, waardoor we een board samenstellen die daadwerkelijk impact heeft. Daarnaast hanteren we een proces van voortdurende evaluatie om de effectiviteit van de boards continu te verbeteren. Dit zorgt ervoor dat we samen het maximale uit de externe board kunnen halen en jouw organisatie naar nieuwe hoogten kunnen brengen.

Voor meer details over onze aanpak en hoe wij jou kunnen helpen, kun je terecht op onze website.

🌍 www.boardplus.be
Raad van Advies | Raad van Bestuur | Samenstellen & begeleiden

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