What I’m proud of

As we slowly close another chapter of the past, I wanted to write a Founder Letter about what actually went right inside BYOU.

Because yes, there were mistakes, pivots, hard lessons, and moments that tested everything.

But there were also beautiful things that happened inside BYOU. Real things. Things I am genuinely proud of.

It starts with the team behind BYOU.

They were the backbone, the connectors & the believers.

What I am most proud of is that we built an amazing team with very little resources. We did not have a big full time team. Everyone worked part time, on commission, and fully remote, from different places around the world.

And somehow, that made it even more exciting.

We learned from each other. We had a beautiful dynamic of both men and women, different energies, different backgrounds, different perspectives. But everyone believed in what we were building.

And that belief mattered.

I often heard that I was a very chill boss, and even now, old team leads still tell me how much they genuinely enjoyed their time at BYOU. That says a lot to me. Because yes, growth matters. Revenue matters. Performance matters. But so does the energy people felt while building it with me.

One of my favorite memories from the early days was the hiring process.

I still laugh when I think about those first meetings in English with the American applicants for our sales roles. I was basically freestyling my way through those calls with my Dutch English accent, trying to sound like I had everything under control..

I definitely did not sound like a polished corporate founder.

But maybe that was exactly the point.

It was real. It was human. And somehow, people connected to that.

Those meetings were funny, chaotic, and full of energy. And from those early conversations, people chose to join us anyway. Even though we were early. Even though we did not have endless resources. Even though a lot of it was still being built.

That will always mean a lot to me.

Because they were not joining perfection. They were joining belief & vision. They were joining something that felt alive.

As some of you may know, BYOU started as the Luxury Beauty App in Amsterdam. Then Covid hit, and suddenly the world changed. In person services were no longer possible.

That could have been the end.

But it was not.

We did not give up. We evolved.

As the world shifted, many of our experts started asking if they could offer their services online. At the same time, more people became open to healing, coaching, and more holistic support.

So the app evolved too.

What started in beauty expanded into something deeper and more connected to overall wellbeing.

And the more stories we heard from those professionals, the clearer it became that this was not just an app. It was an expansion of the vision.

They were not only talented, but they also had purpose to impact lives.

That shift became real when we moved from the Luxury Beauty App to the BYOU app.

What many people do not know is that I coded that new app in just three months.

Three months.

Pratit and I were coding for hours deep into the night, trying to get everything ready to launch the new app on January 1st.

And we made it!

At that time, we did not have AI helping us with everything. We had to figure things out ourselves. And building a marketplace with a booking system is not easy. There are so many backend filters, technical structures, and moving parts people never even see when they open the app.

All the invisible things still had to work.

And somehow, with very little time and a lot of determination, we pulled it off.

I am incredibly proud of that!

I am also proud that with limited resources, no big full time team, and a business built step by step, we still created real growth in revenue and profit.

Because BYOU was never just about building an app. It was about creating easy access to support overall wellbeing, where people felt helped, seen, guided, or uplifted.

And maybe that is what I want this letter to honor most.

Not perfection. Not having endless resources. Just do it anyway!!

But building something real with people who believed in it.

A remote team across the world. A mix of men and women. Part time people with full belief. A company built with heart, creativity, and determination.

We did not need to look big to build something meaningful.

We just needed people who cared. People who believed. And people who were willing to build.

You do not need perfect conditions to build something meaningful ♥️

Loves,

Danique Motzheim