{"id":9066,"date":"2014-03-06T11:17:40","date_gmt":"2014-03-06T11:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/wordpress72\/?page_id=10794"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:22:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:22:29","slug":"the-pitch-funkie-collective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2014\/03\/06\/the-pitch-funkie-collective\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pitch: Funkie Collective"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pitch: Funkie Collective<\/h2>\n

Every month, an entrepreneurial EUR student is put in the spotlights in \u2018The Pitch\u2019. The entrepreneur answers five personal questions related to entrepreneurship and gets thirty seconds \u2013 and only one take \u2013 for a video pitch. This edition: the \u2018Rumble Romeo\u2019 and \u2018Jealous Juliet\u2019 of Funkie Collective. Three friends, one passion for hot weather and cool sunglasses. Wesley van der Hoop (27), ESE student Pim K\u00fchbauch (27) and web developer Stefan Luk (24) are the founders and owners of Funkie Collective: an online shop that sells affordable sunglasses with interesting names like \u2018Rumble Romeo\u2019 or \u2018Jealous Juliet\u2019. They launched their shop in the summer of 2013, and are currently expanding their product range for the upcoming summer season. These ambitious guys are not all about the money: part of their revenue goes directly to the Dutch Cancer Foundation (KWF Kankerbestrijding).\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n

When and how did you decide to become entrepreneurs?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wesley: \u201cStefan is a developer and designer and I am an online marketeer. We figured that if we would work together, we could practically sell anything on the Internet. I checked out some suppliers and came with the idea to start selling sunglasses. Personally, I really like sunglasses, I just think they\u2019re cool. I met up with Stefan to discuss my plan, and we immediately decided to go for it and ask Pim to join us. We\u2019ve all been friends for a long time, about eight years already.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

Pim: \u201cWesley and Stefan hate doing administration and taxes, which happens to be something that I like. So I guess that is one of the reasons why they wanted me to join in the first place, next to the fact that we\u2019re good friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pim and Wesley<\/i><\/p>\n

What are your entrepreneurial qualities?<\/b><\/p>\n

Wesley: \u201cI think an entrepreneur mainly has to be passionate about what he does, and to be willing to take risks. On a personal level, I think we all have different qualities. I am very impulsive and a little chaotic, and Stefan is very creative. Pim is pretty structured, which creates a balance. The fact that we are with three people is also a benefit. When you\u2019re on your own, you can\u00a0 procrastinate, but when you\u2019re with two other guys you really motivate each other.\u201d <\/p>\n

Pim: \u201cWe\u2019re also on the same intellectual level, and nobody really takes the lead. So in the end, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and we all bring our own qualities to the company.\u201d <\/p>\n

You can buy sunglasses anywhere. What is your unique selling proposition?<\/b><\/p>\n

Wesley: \u201cI think we all like to be creative and don\u2019t do things the standard way. We sell special models that you don\u2019t find anywhere, for an affordable price, ranging from 9 to\u00a0 23 euro. But it\u2019s more than just the sunglasses. Most online retailers just stuff their product in an envelope, but we chose to deliver them in a box with some nice little extras. We also wanted to have our own names for our products, and came up with the idea to use the military alphabet. Resulting in names like \u2018Rumble Romeo\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Why did you choose to give part of your revenue to the Cancer Foundation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wesley: \u201cFor me it has a very strong personal reason, because I lost my mother to cancer two years ago. By donating 50 cents for each pair of glasses to the Cancer Foundation, we want to give something back to society. It sounds a little corny, but it\u2019s just the way it is. We mainly work on Funkie Collective for fun, we don\u2019t do it to make loads of money. I also double the amount of money that goes to the foundation myself.\u201d <\/p>\n

What are your future plans?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wesley: \u201cIn two months time, I\u2019ll move to Kuala Lumpur for a year.\u201d <\/p>\n

Pim: \u201cWe\u2019ll have meetings via Skype, but otherwise, it doesn\u2019t change much. We do have to make clear agreements though, how often we\u2019re going to talk and things like that. Or we\u2019ll just end up doing whatever we feel like, because he\u2019s in Kuala Lumpur anyway.\u201d [laughs] <\/p>\n

Wesley: \u201cI\u2019ll be closer to the supplier, so I could pay them a visit. I think Kuala Lumpur is a pretty nice place to do photo shoots, so it\u2019ll definitely make our website look more exotic.\u201d <\/p>\n

Pim: \u201cThe ultimate goal is to have a range of websites, and to live off the revenue. That would be the best thing that could happen to us. But for now, we\u2019re just having a lot of fun with Funkie Collective.\u201d IS<\/p>\n

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