How Mark de Lange is revolutionising the eyewear industry with Ace & Tate

The podcast episode is available on all major listening platforms: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts.

7:45 - Mark - "I’m trying to get other people in a position where they can actually do the stuff. That is something that I really needed to learn, to give other people space to do their jobs and to surprise me and to do way better than I could."

10:27 - Mark - "We as a consumer-focused country have never been service-oriented. When you go to the US everything is really service-oriented and in the Netherlands we really have some catching up to do."

13:24 - Mark - "Our first key hire was someone who is very experienced in building customer experience teams. We saw that it is where companies are dropping the ball and that really paid itself back."

20:01 - Mark - "If I look back now, I would spend more time on becoming more self-aware of where my strengths and weaknesses lie. And also do that for the founding team and hire people against that. I would have earlier spent the time to hire experienced talent on a couple of key roles for the business."

30:08 - Mark - "Our angels helped me to get the narrative right and to build the right plan that also would be attractive to invest in."

38:11 - Mark - "I think it is valid to build a strong European foundation first. Only when the business is ready for it and when we have the right team in place, and the right structure, and the right processes, that only then, we would go across the pond to a very different market."

 42:18 - Mark - "We've always spent a lot of time finding the right partners. Not necessarily business partners who would own the business with us, but the right partners on the ground to build the brand with us, and to find the right first individuals we would engage with, and the right first customers."