Acceleration Program Future-Proof Building - Pretty Plastic

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Leva Konaté, Account Executive of Pretty Plastic.

Pretty Plastic designs and manufactures circular building materials for applications in facades and roofs. Made from 100% recycled PVC, the tiles are beautifully designed, meet all safety requirements, are easy to fix, detachable and last forever. Pretty Plastic participated in both ATB programs and Leva Konaté shares his experiences.

Can you talk a little about your startup and where you were when you started the ATB program?

We were already setting up a dashboard and metrics ourselves to look at the best product market fit for our company, but we found that we needed some really concrete guidance and some more objective perspective on what steps we needed to take to continue to grow.

What was the most important reason for you to apply?

It was a great opportunity for us to get really good insight into our business and look at it with different eyes. At first we were quite skeptical about this type of program, but after an initial conversation we saw that this program would be a good fit for us. And the first program turned out to be so positive that we immediately signed up for the second program as well.

What specifically did you learn during the program?

I think I interviewed more than 100 people to test our proposition and to see where the needs and pain points in the market really lie. And that was exactly what we were looking for, because a master class where you just sit and listen and then forget half of it is not very useful. It helped us strategically and in terms of business development.

Have you been able to apply what you learned in the meantime? How did it go?

'We still use the lessons and metrics because it gives us a very good insight into where we are now and where we need to go. We're at a point as a startup where we want to scale up further, and thanks to the program we know exactly what steps we need to take to do that and what milestones we need to hit first.'

Is there anything you would do differently now thanks to the ATB program?

We have now started to look at our business fundamentally differently. Before the program, that was mostly by feel, but this gives us much more guidance. We now know things instead of thinking we know things.

Are there any tips you would like to give other founders?

As a socially driven entrepreneur, you naturally want to solve the big problems, but in doing so, it's especially important not to forget the connection with the market. After all, is it really there? Does your customer really have a problem and is he or she already actively looking for a solution? And you should also not be afraid to make a pivot, because especially in the Netherlands we often hang on too long to ideas that don't work and then you keep pulling on a dead horse.

Would you recommend the ATB program - and if so, why?

I definitely recommend the program, because you are going to look fundamentally differently at your decisions and how you structure your business.