Founders Drinks ends after 5 years: Time for creative destruction

After 55 editions, more than 1,300 visits and a community of around 500 entrepreneurs, Founders Drinks will come to a definitive end on 14 September. Initiators Bob van der Meulen and Rik van den Reijen hope its discontinuation will create room for new, more focused ways for Eindhoven founders to meet.

For five years, the second Monday of every month was a fixture on Eindhoven’s entrepreneurial calendar. With no pitches, panel discussions or elaborate programme, young founders, experienced entrepreneurs and investors simply came together for a drink. Sponsors picked up the tab.

“The 55th and final edition of Founders Drinks will take place on 14 September,” Bob van der Meulen explains. “We have doubled the budget for the closing event and expect a large turnout. After that, the initiative will deliberately cease to exist.”

Not because interest has waned. Quite the opposite: the gatherings attracted an average of around 25 visitors. Over five years, that added up to more than 1,300 visits. The accompanying WhatsApp group grew to around 500 founders.

The crowd was remarkably diverse. Attendees ranged from people who had only just started a company—or were still merely considering the idea—to highly experienced entrepreneurs. Even members of the Quote 500 list of the Netherlands’ wealthiest people joined the gatherings. Former ASML CEO Peter Wennink also attended one edition.

Founders Drinks has since become a recognisable part of Eindhoven’s startup ecosystem. At the Gerard & Anton High Tech Piek Awards, the initiative was described as “an effective way to help innovative entrepreneurs move forward at the earliest stage of their journey”. The community’s initiators received the Knaller Award.

Deliberately creating space

For Van der Meulen, that success is no reason to continue indefinitely. He describes the decision in terms of “creative destruction”: the economic principle by which existing structures disappear and make way for new and better alternatives.

In this case, however, no alternative is waiting in the wings. And that is precisely the point, he says. By ending Founders Drinks, Van der Meulen hopes to challenge others to launch new initiatives.

“An open networking event is accessible, but not always efficient. Entrepreneurs sometimes tell the same story five times in one evening. An in-depth conversation gets interrupted when others join the group. And the one person someone really wants to meet sometimes proves impossible to reach all evening. There is plenty of room for improvement.”

The timing is another limitation. An evening drinks event is difficult for entrepreneurs with young children. At the same time, it is challenging to serve both experienced and early-stage entrepreneurs sustainably within a single format.

“Accomplished entrepreneurs often have the most valuable knowledge, but they themselves may get less out of a gathering attended by many inexperienced entrepreneurs,” Van der Meulen says. “And if the experienced entrepreneurs stay away, it becomes a case of the blind leading the blind.”

From breakfast clubs to running groups

Van der Meulen therefore does not hope that a single new networking event will simply copy Founders Drinks. He would rather see several initiatives emerge, each targeting a different audience or adopting a different format. Breakfast clubs already exist for founders of fast-growing companies, as do running groups for entrepreneurs and even a cold-plunge crew that takes a monthly icy dip.

Van den Reijen also has several ideas. “We should take the community to the next level. The age of AI enables new ways of connecting, creating experiences and making things. We need to do something with that.”

Eindhoven already has a variety of events where startup founders can meet. The Gerard & Anton Foundation, for example, organises monthly Demos, Pitches & Drinks events, where entrepreneurs can network and present their stories on stage. Founders Drinks stood out precisely because of its informal format: no programme, no compulsory pitch and always a sponsored drink.

Ending the initiative is therefore also a call to action for the community that has formed around the event over the past five years. Anyone who thought the gathering was too broad, too fleeting or held at an inconvenient time now has the opportunity to come up with a better answer.

But first, there is the final edition. On 14 September, participants will raise a glass one last time according to the familiar formula. After that, the gap left behind will have to do its work.

Van den Reijen: “The best ideas are born on the back of a beer mat, so perhaps the next one will be invented during the final edition.”