January 22, 2024

How Jitse Groen built Takeaway.com to become a leading food delivery player

In this episode, Jitse Groen – founder & CEO of Takeaway.com – shares his path of becoming an entrepreneur. He reflects on the specifics of the Dutch mindset when it comes to scaling startups, the approach he took when selecting VC investors, as well as elaborates on the strategy behind the company’s aggressive acquisition and active market expansion. Listen to the episode to discover what made Takeaway.com a leading global online food delivery company.

Listen to this episode:

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

Jitse Groen – founder & CEO @Takeaway.com

Jitse Groen (born in 1978) is a highly successful businessman and the founder of Takeaway.com. Following the merger of Just Eat and Takeaway.com in 2020, he is the chief executive of Just Eat Takeaway.com, one of the world’s largest online food delivery marketplaces, with operations in 23 countries.

Jitse studied Business & IT at the University of Twente. He started his career during his studies when he launched a startup in web development. In 2000, Jitse founded and launched Takeaway.com (at that time still named Thuisbezorgd.nl).

Jitse is also a member of the advisory board of Suitsupply B.V. In addition, Jitse was a member of the supervisory board of Funda B.V. until May 2018 and a member of the advisory board of Hotel Booker B.V. until 2017.

Key highlights:

03:05 – Jitse – “I was never an entrepreneur, so I taught myself to be an entrepreneur.”

21:03 – Jitse – “Our logos are the same everywhere. However, we have different names in different countries. Now, the advantage is that people think the brand is very local and we are a local business.”

51:26 – Jitse – “You have to hire people who are better than you at a certain topic”.

54:03 – Jitse – “I would call myself the captain of the ship”

55:50 – Jitse – “Dutch people are inclined to enter meetings with plan A and plan B. And leave the meeting with plan C – that can never happen”.

60:09 – Jitse – “You need to follow your gut feeling about what’s right for the business and you need to follow that”.