Femque van Geffen and Janneke Dröge may not be household names in the entrepreneurial world, but their product is. That is a conscious choice. For although they managed to set up a world-famous brand in the Netherlands, they themselves prefer to stay out of the spotlight. The brand in which they let their creativity loose, Blond Amsterdam, can in any case be found in the average crockery cupboard. The colourful tableware, born from a friendship between two creative minds.
Femque van Geffen and Janneke Dröge are the founders of Blond Amsterdam and best friends. Both graduated from art school and then decided to look for a studio where they could paint tableware and paintings by hand. Both Janneke and Femque have written several books.
The start
21 Years ago Femque and Janneke decided to start working together. The ladies both had individual work, but painting was not one of them. A pity, because both Femque and Janneke had graduated from the art academy. Looking for premises to work in, the entrepreneurs stumbled across a studio in the Spuistraat. Without thinking about whether they had enough money, they signed a three-year contract.
"We missed painting very much and wanted to work on paintings together. The studio had a shop window. From there, we could very easily and organically start a shop. At first, we mainly made paintings, but we noticed that people were not so quick to buy a painting. But they did buy utensils, such as teapots and bowls.
Het Gouden Ei
The girlfriends are very modest. They do not like to talk about their product at birthdays or other parties. Femque and Janneke were given two large bottles of champagne when they opened their studio. One for the opening and one for the next success. To this day, the latter bottle still stands unopened. We are always like, "I'm sure there will be something else. There is always something that makes us think 'no, this came to us'. It's like a golden egg that we don't open."
Curious what else the two friends have to say about entrepreneurship? And Wendy gives a summer message! Don't miss it and listen now to the latest episode of the Work Professor.
Links
More about Janneke and Femque
More about Blond Amsterdam
More about the Working Professor
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