Meinke van Oenen, founder of start-up Algaenius: ‘Older people know more, but they are not above you’

How would you explain what you do to a child?
I have often had to do that as a climate mayor, so if I explain it in that way, I say: we have too little water, not only in southern countries where you might expect it, but also here in the Netherlands. And most water contains salt. You cannot drink that. It does not taste good. The way we currently remove salt from water is very expensive and harmful to the environment. With my start-up, Algaenius, I am trying to break that pattern. I work with algae, which are the grandfathers and grandmothers of all the plants you see around you, and they eat the salt like a kind of Pacman. On top of that, the algae absorb CO₂, so in doing this we are also tackling the core problem behind water shortages, which is climate change.

Can you make a living from this start-up?
I live off my student finance. I am 21, I am still studying, and I am in my third year of a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration at Erasmus University. I pay for everything myself. At the moment it is not a complicated high-tech solution. It is algae that you can grow at home, which you turn into gel beads that you put into salt water. But later on, I will need funding. With water technology, you can prove on a small scale that something works, but you need money to apply it on a large scale, because water is never about small quantities. So I am looking for investors. They often find it difficult that I am still studying. They think I do not have my hands free, while in reality I have plenty of time.

What was your first job?
That was at Johma, the company that makes salads. I worked in the canteen, making sandwiches for the men on the night shift. That is how I paid my tuition fees. I learned there not to take feedback too personally. Sometimes feedback says more about the person giving it than about you. There was one woman who was always very curt with me and got angry quickly if she thought I was not fast enough. Later, she told me her husband had cancer. That really put her criticism into perspective.

How do you deal with criticism now?
You can grow from good feedback, but you should never internalise it. Yet in group projects I often see people becoming completely shaken by certain feedback, and that does not help anyone. I am no longer that sensitive to it. I use it to learn, but it no longer affects me emotionally. When I was nineteen, I did an internship at ASML, and there I received quite a lot of feedback on the things I made. Of course, I was not very good yet, but I could simply think: I did my best, it is not good enough, so I will do it again. That is it. My supervisor said: I have never seen anyone deal with it like that. But that is something I have learned over the years.

What was the hardest decision you ever had to make?
Stopping my degree in Technical Public Administration. That was difficult, because by nature I am someone who lives strongly in the future. When I was just thirteen, I was already thinking about what I would study, and that was going to be Technical Public Administration. After that, I planned to do Complex Systems Engineering. I had the whole path mapped out in my head. But when I was nineteen, the opportunity for this start-up came along. That did not fit with that plan. I had gone to New York for two weeks for my research, to the United Nations, and that fell exactly during exam week. That caused enormous trouble with TU Delft and there was absolutely no support. So I transferred to Erasmus University. They are much more open to entrepreneurship, because sometimes you genuinely cannot be somewhere because you are given a great opportunity.

What is your big dream?
That nature recovers, and that there is enough water everywhere to drink and to grow food. I often say: look at nature, find the future. Everything that is alive now has survived an incredible amount, evolutionarily speaking, and is therefore extremely intelligent. You can learn so much from that and come up with solutions that are not only effective, but also in harmony with the wider environment. Like those algae that eat salt. People always look for high-tech, “grey” solutions, big machines made of plastic and metal, but those also emit CO₂. And we already have a CO₂ problem. The only thing that can absorb CO₂ is nature. So that is where you should be looking.

What is the best piece of leadership advice you have ever received?
Dream, dare, do. Elske Doets said that during the Young Lady Business Academy. I think it is a beautiful slogan. In the teams I have worked in, there are many young women. I often try to teach them to dream bigger, because I notice that my peers often think minimal, and I think that is such a waste. Speak up, have courage, because it truly does not matter what other people think of you. It genuinely does not. And just go and do something. I have tried things so many times and I have undoubtedly looked very foolish on many occasions, but you learn from that. The world keeps turning anyway. I see particularly women of my age who are afraid to say anything in meetings, and I simply cannot get my head around that. The more often you do it, the less frightening it becomes.

I do understand that they sometimes feel intimidated by older people.
There is also strength in being young. Be curious, ask questions, and nine times out of ten people want to help you. You do not need to look up to them. Do not look up to people, do not look down on people. Look them in the eye. Older people know more, and you should acknowledge that, but they are not above you.

Do you notice that reticence more among women than among men?
I mainly work with women. On the rare occasion that I work on a project with men, they have absolutely no trouble voicing an opinion, even if they have not studied the material at all. Fascinating. Women are more afraid of failure, and as a result, they miss out on so many opportunities for knowledge and experience. That is also because they have often learned that they must be liked. That is the most terrible thing imaginable. Because then you place your definition of success outside yourself.

If you were able to give away one million, who or what would it go to?
What is happening in Gaza is, without doubt, the most distressing. But I also ask myself what would actually happen if I were to send a million there. Women’s emancipation is another cause that is very close to my heart. Yet if I keep it closer to home, I would choose the Brain Foundation. My mother sustained an acquired brain injury after a serious car accident. I see every day how difficult it is for her to live a normal life, how little understanding there is, and how unrealistically high the expectations often are. I wish more research could be done into how people like her can be better supported.

What did that accident do to you?
It left me with a deep conviction that things will work out, and that you can cope with far more than you think. My father was also ill for a long time. From my parents I learned that you cannot change the situation, but you can change how you respond to it. Do you remain in a victim role, or do you grow stronger and more resilient because of it? I feel that I can handle almost anything.

What is your most difficult entrepreneurial dilemma?
Finding the right people for Algaenius, especially at this stage. It requires a very specific type of character, and that is genuinely scarce. In a start-up, you have to be able to deal with things going wrong more often than they go right. You need creativity, resilience, and a willingness to work long days. I often look for people who have already taken initiative on their own and who are intrinsically motivated. Essentially, I am looking for the moral ambition that Rutger Bregman has articulated so well. I want people who realise how incredibly fortunate we are to have been born in the Netherlands, without having done anything to earn it. Even our intelligence is, in a sense, a gift. And that makes it logical to give something back. How you do that is up to you. But when I look at my business administration studies, I see around sixty per cent of students simply going to work for a bank. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but they have so much potential. Why does it stop there?