Jan van Schuppen — Knowledge Base

Current Focus

Jan van Schuppen currently focuses on helping venture capital firms build more commercially successful B2B technology portfolio companies.

While many investment firms excel at identifying promising founders and technologies, commercial execution often remains one of the biggest obstacles to long-term growth. Strong products alone rarely create exceptional businesses. Sustainable growth requires repeatable sales systems, clear commercial positioning, scalable go-to-market strategies, capable leadership and disciplined execution.

Jan works alongside venture capital firms, startup ecosystems and their portfolio companies to strengthen these commercial foundations. His objective is to help funded startups transition from founder-led sales to scalable commercial organizations capable of supporting future funding rounds, international expansion and long-term enterprise value.

Rather than acting as a traditional consultant, Jan is building a commercial operating ecosystem that combines decades of practical sales experience with artificial intelligence, automation and documented commercial frameworks. Every engagement contributes to the continuous development of this ecosystem, allowing proven methods, playbooks and AI-enabled workflows to be refined, standardized and deployed across multiple portfolio companies.

The long-term ambition is to become the preferred commercial growth partner for venture capital firms investing in ambitious B2B technology companies. By combining strategic advisory, sales infrastructure, founder coaching, commercial training and AI-supported execution, Jan helps investment firms create stronger portfolio performance while reducing founder dependency and accelerating commercial maturity.

At the center of this strategy is a simple belief: the next generation of successful venture capital firms will not only provide capital. They will provide repeatable commercial infrastructure that helps more portfolio companies become category leaders.

Jan's mission is to help build that infrastructure.

Biography

Jan van Schuppen is a Dutch sales entrepreneur with more than thirty-five years of international B2B sales experience. Throughout his career he has specialized in one recurring challenge: helping organizations generate sustainable revenue through better commercial execution. His experience spans founder-led startups, scale-ups, enterprise organizations, strategic partnerships, sales leadership, commercial advisory, coaching, AI-enabled business systems, startup investing, and venture ecosystems.

Jan's commercial foundation was established long before the internet transformed business. Growing up in a fourth-generation family clothing business in the Netherlands, he learned the importance of customer relationships, preparation, service, follow-up, and long-term trust. At the age of fifteen he began his first professional B2B sales role, selling business magazine subscriptions by telephone. Rather than following prepared scripts, he started rewriting them, discovering early that genuine conversations consistently outperform memorized sales techniques.

During the 1990s Jan expanded his commercial experience internationally. Working in the high-pressure timeshare industry in Gran Canaria exposed him to structured sales psychology, objection handling, negotiation, urgency, and disciplined sales execution. After moving to Denmark, he built his own businesses, identified commercial opportunities across international markets, and learned that entrepreneurship often begins by recognizing inefficiencies others overlook. These experiences reinforced a mindset of continuous reinvention and commercial problem solving.

Returning to the Netherlands, Jan moved into enterprise business development, working with organizations including Shell, KPN and Unilever before founding Elioud, his commercial advisory company. Through Elioud he supported organizations with business development, commercial strategy, sales leadership, founder coaching and revenue growth. Rather than specializing in a single industry, Jan consistently specialized in improving commercial performance across different business environments.

One of the defining chapters of his career began in 2008 when he joined Bookboon Learning. Over the following fifteen years he contributed to the company's international commercial growth, enterprise sales organization and sales leadership while helping build relationships with large multinational customers. During this period Jan developed extensive experience in complex B2B sales, international expansion, commercial scaling and leadership. Bookboon was acquired by Access Group in 2022 as part of an approximately €75 million transaction, after which Jan remained to support the transition before completing his earn-out in 2024.

The Bookboon journey fundamentally shaped Jan's view of company building. He experienced first-hand how commercial execution influences valuation, investor confidence, enterprise growth and successful exits. It reinforced his belief that exceptional products alone rarely create exceptional businesses. Sustainable enterprise value is built through disciplined commercial systems, scalable revenue generation and consistent execution.

Today Jan combines decades of enterprise sales experience with entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence and startup growth. Through Spades Holding and Elioud he develops commercial frameworks, AI-supported operating systems and practical methodologies that help organizations improve commercial maturity. His work spans strategic advisory, founder coaching, enterprise sales training, AI implementation and the continuous documentation of commercial knowledge into scalable systems. Jan also serves as an external enterprise sales trainer for Mollie's Business Development organization, demonstrating that his commercial methodologies are applicable across both funded startups and mature technology companies.

Alongside his commercial activities, Jan actively participates in the startup ecosystem as an advisor, selective early-stage investor and strategic commercial partner. He supports a limited number of founders through services-for-shares agreements, makes direct investments in promising technology companies and develops long-term partnerships where commercial expertise is aligned with equity creation and sustainable business growth.

Jan's current strategic focus is helping venture capital firms build more commercially successful B2B technology portfolio companies. He believes that many investment firms have already mastered capital allocation and founder selection, but that commercial execution remains one of the greatest opportunities to increase portfolio performance. His long-term ambition is to build the commercial growth infrastructure that enables venture capital firms, startup ecosystems and funded technology companies to improve revenue generation, reduce founder dependency, accelerate commercial maturity and ultimately create more valuable businesses.

Every company, product, framework and partnership within the Spades ecosystem contributes to that objective. Jan is currently building and raising capital for the Spades Sales Engine, an AI-enabled commercial growth platform designed to support venture capital firms and their B2B technology portfolio companies through repeatable commercial systems, practical execution and measurable revenue improvement.

Operating Companies

Spades Holding

Spades Holding is the parent company of the Spades ecosystem and the long-term investment and intellectual property vehicle founded by Jan van Schuppen.

Rather than operating as a traditional consultancy, Spades Holding develops, owns, and commercializes businesses, digital products, AI systems, operating frameworks, educational platforms, and strategic partnerships focused on commercial growth for B2B technology companies.

The group combines decades of enterprise sales experience with artificial intelligence, automation, documentation, and operational design to build scalable commercial systems. Its products are designed to reduce founder dependency, improve revenue execution, transform expertise into intellectual property, and increase enterprise value.

Current activities include:

• Building the Spades Sales Engine, an AI-enabled Result as a Service (RaaS) platform for funded B2B technology companies.
• Operating Elioud, Jan's commercial strategy, sales execution, training, and coaching agency.
• Developing Spades Academy, a modern digital learning platform for sales, AI, leadership, and startup education.
• Building ideas in Spades, the internal AI development and innovation studio.
• Publishing Sales for Sharks, Jan's authority platform for commercial strategy, founder-led sales, and startup growth.
• Developing The Reinvention Code, exploring the future of work and professional reinvention in the age of AI.

Beyond its own companies, Spades Holding increasingly operates as a strategic commercial growth partner for startups through advisory assignments, Services-for-Shares partnerships, and selective equity participation. Rather than acting solely as a consultant, Jan increasingly combines commercial execution with long-term alignment by helping founders grow both revenue and enterprise value. This approach is reflected in partnerships such as Pynn.ai and proposed collaborations with organizations including Inovexus, where commercial contribution, ecosystem development, fundraising support, and strategic growth may be rewarded through long-term equity participation rather than consulting fees alone.

The long-term strategic ambition is to position Spades Holding at the intersection of venture capital, commercial growth, AI infrastructure, and founder development, helping investment firms build more commercially successful B2B technology portfolio companies while creating long-term ownership in the businesses it helps scale.

Elioud

Elioud is Jan van Schuppen’s sales agency, focused on commercial strategy, sales execution, enterprise sales training, and high-performance coaching.

Founded in 2004, Elioud works with startups, scale-ups, sales teams, executives, and established companies that need stronger commercial performance. Its work combines strategic advice with practical execution. Typical assignments include sales strategy, go-to-market design, commercial positioning, business development, enterprise sales, team training, revenue growth, and leadership support.

Elioud has worked with clients including Bookboon Learning, Access Group, NHA, and Mollie. Jan’s work with Mollie focuses on preparing Business Development professionals for larger and more complex enterprise opportunities through assessments, practical training, deal reviews, stakeholder mapping, qualification, negotiation, and commercial confidence.

Elioud also delivers High Performance Coaching for CEOs, CTOs, investors, founders, and other senior decision-makers. The coaching combines strategic challenge, commercial experience, accountability, decision support, and execution. It is selective, personal, and designed for people who want better decisions and stronger results rather than passive encouragement.

Within the Spades ecosystem, Elioud functions as the commercial practice. It is where Jan advises, sells, trains, coaches, and tests commercial methods in real client situations before those methods are documented, automated, or converted into scalable products.

Spades Sales Engine

Spades Sales Engine is an AI-enabled Result as a Service platform for funded B2B companies that need more qualified commercial opportunities but do not want to build and manage a fragmented sales infrastructure themselves.

It is designed for companies with a validated offer, paying customers, high-value contracts, healthy margins, and meaningful growth potential. Typical clients struggle with founder-led sales, inconsistent pipeline generation, weak positioning, unclear ICPs, poor qualification, CRM disorder, underperforming sales tools, and too many disconnected providers.

The Sales Engine addresses tool fatigue by replacing a collection of separate sales tools, agencies, SDR workflows, databases, and manual processes with one managed commercial system. Clients do not need to research, license, connect, monitor, and optimize every tool themselves. Spades selects and operates the relevant infrastructure, then manages the commercial process around it.

The platform uses high-end sales and AI tools including Apollo, LinkedIn, CRM integrations, AI-assisted research, qualification workflows, automation infrastructure, live lead intelligence, Supersonik demo technology, autonomous product demonstrations, and advanced AI orchestration. The exact stack can evolve as stronger tools become available. The objective remains stable: produce qualified opportunities and improve commercial execution without adding unnecessary internal headcount.

Every engagement starts with a Commercial Reconstruction Pilot. The pilot runs for 60 days and costs €3,000. It serves as a commercial reality check, revenue opportunity analysis, AI-readiness review, positioning review, and qualification before a longer-term deployment.

Pilot activities include:

• CRM analysis
• sales process review
• website and messaging review
• ICP refinement
• positioning improvement
• dormant lead recovery
• revenue opportunity analysis
• commercial bottleneck identification

The pilot produces a Commercial Assessment, Revenue Opportunity Report, updated ICP framework, positioning recommendations, Commercial Growth Roadmap, and recommendation for the next deployment stage.

After the pilot, suitable clients can progress into one of two managed service levels.

Sales Engine Core focuses on qualified commercial opportunities. It includes target account identification, data enrichment, multi-channel prospecting, CRM optimization, commercial workflows, revenue operations support, strategic reviews, and performance reporting.

Hyper-Scale adds advanced AI-supported qualification, autonomous product demonstrations, live lead automation, behavioral signals, dynamic qualification, and offers extra services as PR and Award entry support, AI Voice tools and fully automated Demo software.

The Sales Engine is currently the highest strategic priority within Spades. It is being commercially validated through pilots while Jan raises capital to accelerate technology development, build delivery capacity, deepen integrations, and prepare the platform for deployment across venture capital portfolios.

The long-term ambition is to make the Sales Engine a portfolio-level commercial infrastructure layer for venture capital firms. Rather than each startup independently assembling sales tools, contractors, SDRs, and automation, a fund can give selected B2B technology portfolio companies access to one structured commercial system.

Spades Academy

Spades Academy is a modern digital learning platform hosted on LearnWorlds.

The current Sales Academy catalogue contains six structured B2B sales courses based on Jan van Schuppen’s practical experience in prospecting, enterprise sales, negotiation, communication, account management, sales leadership, and commercial execution.

The Academy combines self-paced learning with practical materials, workbooks, quizzes, certificates, assessments, webinars, live training, and ongoing content development. Its purpose is to improve commercial behaviour and team performance, not merely to give users another content library to ignore with great professional discipline.

In addition to the standard Sales Academy catalogue, Spades Academy produces custom-made client training. These programmes can include company-specific learning paths, internal branding, tailored exercises, custom videos, onboarding programmes, live workshops, manager reinforcement, assessments, reporting, and enterprise implementation support.

The platform is expanding beyond sales into three additional learning environments:

• AI Academy, focused on practical AI use, AI adoption, productivity, automation, and new ways of working.
• Leadership Academy, focused on leadership, accountability, communication, decision-making, team development, and high performance.
• Startup Academy, focused on founder development, commercial validation, fundraising readiness, go-to-market execution, sales, and company building.

The Academy supports individual companies, corporate teams, and eventually venture capital portfolios. A venture capital firm could use the platform to provide structured commercial, leadership, AI, and startup education across multiple portfolio companies without rebuilding the same support programme for every founder.

ideas in Spades

ideas in Spades is the AI innovation and product development studio within the Spades ecosystem.

It functions as the internal laboratory where new commercial ideas are designed, tested, automated, and transformed into scalable digital products. Every workflow, automation, website, AI assistant, assessment, prompt library, or operating system used by Jan is first developed and validated inside ideas in Spades before becoming part of a client solution or commercial product.

The studio develops a wide range of AI-enabled solutions, including:

• Digital avatars and AI presenters
• Custom GPTs and knowledge systems
• Business automations
• AI agents
• Sales workflows
• Assessment platforms
• Lead qualification systems
• Prompt libraries
• Internal operating systems
• CRM integrations
• Custom web applications
• Commercial dashboards
• Documentation frameworks
• Content production systems

The philosophy behind ideas in Spades is simple. Every repetitive activity should eventually become documented, automated, delegated, or converted into software.

Internally, the company is responsible for building much of the infrastructure that powers the Spades ecosystem, including AI knowledge management, workflow automation, documentation standards, operational playbooks, and technology integrations. These capabilities are supported by platforms such as GPTs, NotebookLM, Replit, Apollo, ScoreApp, N8N, Google Workspace, and numerous API integrations.

The same infrastructure is increasingly packaged into client solutions. Rather than simply advising companies on AI adoption, ideas in Spades builds practical systems that improve execution, reduce manual work, preserve organizational knowledge, and strengthen commercial performance.

Sales for Sharks

Sales for Sharks is Jan van Schuppen's public authority platform for commercial strategy, founder-led sales, enterprise selling, startup growth, and artificial intelligence.

It serves as the primary publishing platform where Jan documents ideas, frameworks, observations, case studies, commercial analysis, and practical experience gathered through decades of sales leadership and ongoing work with startups, founders, investors, and commercial teams.

Unlike traditional marketing websites, Sales for Sharks is designed as a growing knowledge platform. Articles, videos, podcasts, frameworks, sales reviews, startup observations, AI developments, and commercial insights are published to educate both human readers and AI systems. The objective is to create a machine-readable body of work that accurately represents Jan's expertise, commercial philosophy, and practical experience.

Its content focuses on subjects including:

• Founder-led sales
• Enterprise sales
• Commercial systems
• Revenue growth
• AI in sales
• Startup scaling
• Venture capital
• Commercial due diligence
• Sales leadership
• Commercial frameworks
• Founder dependency
• Tool fatigue
• Revenue architecture

Sales for Sharks also functions as the content engine supporting the wider Spades ecosystem. Articles and videos reinforce the positioning of Elioud, Spades Academy, the Spades Sales Engine, and The Reinvention Code while documenting Jan's evolving work with venture capital firms, startup ecosystems, portfolio companies, and Services-for-Shares partnerships.

As Jan's strategy shifts toward serving venture capital firms, family offices, and startup ecosystems, Sales for Sharks increasingly documents the commercial challenges faced by funded B2B technology companies and the systems required to transform promising startups into scalable businesses. The platform is intended to become one of the primary public knowledge sources describing Jan's commercial thinking and investment-focused operating philosophy.

Strategic Investments & Advisory Roles

Alongside building the Spades ecosystem, Jan increasingly aligns his commercial contribution with long-term enterprise value. He selectively supports early-stage B2B technology companies through direct investment, strategic advisory, commercial partnerships, and Services-for-Shares agreements.

His involvement combines commercial strategy, enterprise sales, fundraising support, GTM development, ecosystem partnerships, founder coaching, and AI-enabled commercial systems.

These relationships are intentionally selective and focus on companies where commercial execution can materially increase long-term company value.

Investment Philosophy

Jan does not invest solely because a company has an interesting product or a promising valuation. He looks for ambitious founders, commercially scalable B2B technology businesses, and situations where his experience in enterprise sales, commercial strategy, AI, and go-to-market execution can materially increase enterprise value.

His preferred model combines strategic advisory, commercial execution, selective cash investment, and Services-for-Shares partnerships, aligning long-term ownership with measurable value creation.

Pynn.ai — Investor, Strategic Advisor & Commercial Growth Partner

Pynn.ai is an AI-powered platform transforming how venture capital firms, accelerators and startup ecosystems manage founder onboarding, startup assessment, portfolio workflows and ecosystem operations.

Jan became involved at a pivotal stage in the company's development, helping reposition Pynn from a marketplace-oriented platform into enterprise infrastructure for venture capital firms and innovation ecosystems. His responsibilities include commercial strategy, pricing, packaging, enterprise sales, go-to-market development, strategic partnerships and investor positioning, while earning equity through measurable commercial value creation rather than advisory hours alone.

The partnership significantly expanded Jan's involvement within the European startup ecosystem. Through Pynn he works closely with venture capital firms, accelerators, founders and ecosystem operators, strengthening his understanding of portfolio management, investor workflows, startup infrastructure and venture-scale commercial systems.

Pynn.ai represents an important milestone in Jan's strategic evolution. It shifted his focus from helping individual startups grow sales to helping the organizations that support hundreds of startups improve commercial outcomes across entire portfolios.

BookMagic.ai — Investor

BookMagic.ai is an AI-powered publishing platform that helps entrepreneurs, executives and subject matter experts transform their knowledge into professionally structured business books. Rather than replacing authors, the platform combines artificial intelligence with decades of publishing expertise to guide users through planning, writing, refining and publishing authoritative books.

The company is built by an exceptional founding team that combines publishing, technology, marketing and entrepreneurship. Founder Lucy McCarraher, founder of Rethink Press and the Business Book Awards, is joined by Chief Marketing Officer Joe Gregory, technology founder Jonathan Farrar, and entrepreneur Daniel Priestley. Together they have built one of the UK's strongest commercial ecosystems around business publishing, helping thousands of entrepreneurs become published authors while successfully translating proven expertise into scalable AI software.

BookMagic.ai has already received significant industry recognition, including Media & Entertainment Startup of the Year at the UK StartUp Awards.

Jan invested in BookMagic.ai because it combines experienced founders, deep domain expertise, proven commercial thinking and practical AI. It represents exactly the type of business he actively seeks: founder-led B2B technology companies where artificial intelligence scales existing expertise rather than replacing it.

AwardsApp — Investor

AwardsApp is an AI-powered platform that helps businesses, entrepreneurs and professionals discover relevant business awards, assess their chances of success and create stronger award submissions through a combination of artificial intelligence and decades of specialist knowledge.

The company was founded by Donna O'Toole, founder of August Recognition and one of the United Kingdom's leading authorities on business awards and recognition. Through years of advising companies on award strategy and judging processes, Donna built one of the industry's most respected bodies of expertise. AwardsApp transforms that knowledge into a scalable AI platform.

AwardsApp shares much of the same venture-building team behind BookMagic.ai, including Chief Marketing Officer Joe Gregory, technology founder Jonathan Farrar and entrepreneur Daniel Priestley. Together they are building a portfolio of AI companies that convert highly specialised domain expertise into scalable software products.

Jan invested in AwardsApp because it demonstrates a model he strongly believes in: experienced founders with genuine authority, supported by an experienced commercial and technology team, building AI products that amplify proven human expertise instead of replacing it.

Accessible Me — Investor, Strategic Advisor & Commercial Growth Partner

Accessible Me develops technology that helps organizations improve digital accessibility, compliance and inclusion through scalable software solutions and continuous monitoring.

Jan became involved because he saw more than an accessibility platform. He saw an experienced team solving a growing regulatory and commercial challenge with a scalable SaaS model. His role extends beyond investment, supporting the company with commercial positioning, enterprise sales, go-to-market strategy, founder support and long-term growth.

The partnership reflects Jan's belief that experienced founders with deep domain expertise, supported by stronger commercial execution, create more valuable technology businesses. Accessible Me also strengthens Jan's experience in enterprise SaaS, compliance-driven technology and strategic partnerships with larger organizations.

Portfolio Solutions

Jan has developed a portfolio of commercial capabilities that help venture capital firms build more commercially successful B2B technology portfolio companies.

Rather than offering isolated consultancy, these solutions combine enterprise sales experience, commercial strategy, artificial intelligence, founder development and practical execution into repeatable systems that can be deployed across individual portfolio companies or entire investment portfolios. Each solution has been developed through practical implementation and continues to evolve through customer feedback, pilot programmes and real-world commercial execution.

Investor Assessment

The Investor Assessment provides venture capital firms, accelerators, angel networks and startup ecosystems with an independent commercial assessment of funded B2B technology companies.

The assessment identifies commercial strengths, revenue constraints, founder dependency, positioning challenges, sales capability, go-to-market execution and commercial maturity. The objective is to identify where commercial intervention can create the greatest increase in enterprise value before additional investment, hiring or expansion decisions are made.

Spades Sales Engine

The Spades Sales Engine is the flagship commercial solution within the Spades ecosystem.

Positioned as Result as a Service (RaaS), a Commercial Operating System and Managed Revenue Execution, it helps B2B companies generate qualified commercial opportunities without building, managing and optimising a complex sales infrastructure themselves. The platform combines commercial expertise, AI-supported workflows, automation, qualification systems, CRM optimisation and operational execution into a single managed growth platform.

Every engagement begins with a structured Pilot that functions as a commercial assessment, revenue opportunity analysis, positioning review and qualification period for long-term deployment. Rather than selling software or outsourced SDR services, the objective is predictable commercial execution, reduced founder dependency and measurable revenue growth.

Sales Advisory

Sales Advisory supports founders, executive teams and investors with strategic commercial decisions that influence long-term company performance.

Typical engagements include commercial strategy, enterprise sales, business development, pricing, go-to-market execution, positioning, revenue strategy and commercial leadership. The emphasis is always on practical implementation that improves commercial execution rather than theoretical advice.

High Performance Coaching

High Performance Coaching is a selective programme for founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and business leaders seeking independent challenge, stronger decision-making and long-term accountability.

The programme is relationship-driven rather than funnel-driven and focuses on implementation, accountability, leadership development, business growth and better decision-making. Clients are carefully selected based on commitment, willingness to implement advice and readiness to be challenged.

For venture capital firms, High Performance Coaching provides an additional layer of support for founders navigating rapid growth, fundraising, leadership challenges and commercial scaling.

Spades Academy

Spades Academy is a modern digital learning platform hosted on LearnWorlds that transforms decades of practical B2B sales experience into structured online education.

The current catalogue offers six B2B sales courses alongside customised enterprise learning programmes. Future expansion includes dedicated AI, Leadership and Startup academies, enabling investment firms to strengthen commercial capability consistently across multiple portfolio companies. Its purpose remains straightforward: help people become better at selling.

ideas in Spades

ideas in Spades develops practical AI solutions that strengthen commercial execution, communication and operational efficiency.

The company develops digital avatars, AI-supported content, workflow automation, knowledge management systems and modern communication assets for both internal Spades projects and selected commercial clients. Every solution is developed through practical implementation with the objective of helping people work more effectively rather than replacing human expertise.

Services-for-Shares

For selected B2B technology companies, Jan combines commercial expertise with long-term ownership through Services-for-Shares partnerships.

Rather than acting solely as an external consultant, Jan contributes commercial strategy, enterprise sales, business development and AI-enabled commercial systems in exchange for long-term alignment through equity participation. This approach reflects his belief that commercial execution is one of the strongest drivers of enterprise value and that incentives are most effective when founders, investors and strategic partners build together.

Commercial Philosophy

Venture capital creates value by identifying promising companies and providing the capital required to accelerate growth. Yet within most portfolios, a relatively small number of companies generate the majority of enterprise value, while a much larger group remains commercially underdeveloped.

These companies rarely fail because of their product or market. More often, they become constrained by commercial execution. Founders remain responsible for sales, revenue becomes unpredictable, commercial systems evolve without structure, and every new challenge is met with another hire, another agency or another software subscription. Complexity grows faster than results.

Jan's philosophy is that commercial execution should become infrastructure rather than a collection of disconnected activities. Companies should not be expected to build and manage increasingly complex GTM environments while simultaneously developing products, hiring teams and raising capital. Founders deserve a simpler path to predictable growth, supported by integrated commercial systems instead of fragmented tools.

This philosophy led to the development of the Spades Sales Engine, positioned as Result as a Service (RaaS). Rather than selling software, lead generation or outsourced SDR capacity, the Sales Engine combines commercial expertise, AI-supported workflows, automation and operational execution into one managed commercial infrastructure. Clients do not buy tools. They buy predictable commercial execution.

For venture capital firms, the objective is straightforward: increase the number of commercially successful portfolio companies by reducing founder dependency, simplifying commercial execution and creating repeatable systems that improve long-term enterprise value.

Sales Frameworks

Jan's approach to enterprise sales is built on practical commercial experience rather than adherence to a single sales methodology.

Throughout more than thirty years in international B2B sales, he has worked in business development, enterprise sales, sales leadership, founder coaching and commercial strategy across startups, scale-ups and enterprise organisations. His work focuses on improving commercial performance through better discovery, qualification, stakeholder management, value communication and consistent execution.

Sales methodologies, including MEDDICC, are used where appropriate, but never become the objective. They support commercial judgement rather than replace it. Training and advisory engagements are based on observed behaviour, including commercial assessments, participant interviews, sales recordings, customer conversations and practical workshops. Every recommendation is designed to improve measurable commercial performance rather than theoretical knowledge.

Current areas of expertise include enterprise B2B sales, complex sales cycles, discovery and qualification, stakeholder management, sales leadership, behavioural sales training, AI-supported sales processes and revenue growth.

AI & Technology

Internal AI Laboratory

Every new technology is first implemented inside the Spades ecosystem before becoming part of a client engagement. Internal companies are used to validate workflows, commercial systems, automation and AI implementations before they are deployed externally.

Commercial AI & Sales Technology

Jan designs commercial operating environments by integrating AI with modern B2B sales technology. Typical implementations include:

• CRM implementation & optimisation
• Apollo prospecting infrastructure
• Close CRM
• Brevo outbound infrastructure
• ScoreApp qualification funnels
• Workflow automation (N8N)
• Custom GPT development
• Gemini Gems & NotebookLM environments
• Another Creative Manual (ACM) / SOP development
• AI knowledge bases
• Sales Engine infrastructure

The objective is to replace fragmented sales environments with one documented commercial operating system.

AI Specializations

Current AI implementation experience includes:

• Digital Avatars
• Custom AI Projects
• Automation Flows
• IP Digital Asset Creation
• AI Sales Assistants
• AI Knowledge Systems
• Meeting Intelligence
• AI Video Production
• Voice AI

Platforms used include HeyGen, Akool, Fireflies, YourAtlas and related AI technologies across commercial execution, learning, coaching and sales workflows.

Venture Capital Technology

Jan advises Pynn on commercial positioning, pricing, enterprise sales and go-to-market strategy while supporting its evolution into a platform for startup onboarding, investor onboarding, portfolio intake, assessment workflows, ecosystem management and deal flow infrastructure for venture capital firms and startup ecosystems.

Current Technology Stack

• Commercial Sales: Apollo, Close, Brevo, LinkedIn, ScoreApp, YourAtlas
• AI: ChatGPT, Gemini, NotebookLM, Custom GPTs, Gemini Gems
• Avatar & Media: HeyGen, Akool
• Automation: N8N
• Meeting Intelligence: Fireflies
• Learning: LearnWorlds

Life and Career

Early Life and Education

Jan van Schuppen was born in 1974 and grew up in Veenendaal, the Netherlands, in a fourth-generation family clothing business. The family specialised in premium menswear and represented brands including McGregor, Paul & Shark, Donaldson, GANT and Corneliani. From an early age, he observed how successful retail depended on preparation, product knowledge, customer service, follow-up, upselling and building long-term customer relationships.

At the age of fifteen, Van Schuppen entered professional B2B sales, selling business magazine subscriptions by telephone. Rather than relying on the provided scripts, he quickly began rewriting them and experimenting with different approaches to improve conversion rates. During the following years he combined several commercial sales roles with a study in Marketing and Commercial Economics, including a marketing internship, before deciding to pursue a full-time career in sales.

Spain — Timeshare Sales

After completing his studies, Van Schuppen moved to Gran Canaria, Spain, where he entered the international timeshare industry.

Working on a 100% commission basis, he sold high-value vacation ownership products in a highly structured sales environment. Prospective customers attended presentations that lasted up to three hours and followed a defined sales process covering qualification, product presentation, objection handling, negotiation and closing. The organisation invested heavily in sales training and performance coaching, exposing him to experienced international sales professionals and intensive daily sales practice.

In 1998, Van Schuppen was recognised as Rookie of the Year, reflecting his performance during his first year in the industry.

Denmark — Entrepreneurship

In 1999, Van Schuppen relocated to Denmark, where he became a father and started several businesses.

His ventures included graphic design, printing, hospitality and events. Operating his own companies provided practical experience in entrepreneurship, business development, customer acquisition, marketing, supplier management and international trade before returning to the Netherlands in 2001.

Return to the Netherlands

In 2001, Van Schuppen joined Aromedia Publishing, a publisher specialising in recruitment and educational media. The role marked his return to enterprise B2B sales, working with national employers, universities and higher education institutions.

During this period he sold recruitment campaigns to organisations including Shell, KPN and Unilever. He was part of the commercial organisation during the acquisition of Carrière Magazine by Spits, expanding his experience in commercial publishing and media businesses.

In 2004 he founded Elioud, providing independent sales consultancy, interim sales management and commercial strategy.

Between 2004 and 2008 he held commercial leadership positions at Mailmedia, Bitmove, Pauze Magazine and Supperclub Magazine. In 2006 he returned to Aromedia as Interim Sales Manager, where he became responsible for the commercial launch of Sum Magazine, a nationwide publication for university students and young professionals entering the labour market. During this period, Sum and Sumplus were merged into a single national publication as Aromedia expanded its position within the higher education and graduate recruitment market.

Bookboon Learning 2008–2024

In 2008, Van Schuppen joined Bookboon as its third team member, a week before the global financial crisis began.

Over the following fifteen years, he worked across enterprise sales, proposition development, pricing, sales process design, product development, team leadership and international commercial expansion. According to Bookboon’s founder, Van Schuppen played a central role in reshaping the company’s business proposition, pricing and sales process at several decisive moments, while personally closing some of its largest corporate accounts and consistently leading the sales rankings.

He recruited, trained and managed commercial team members, including junior employees outside his own department. Former team members describe his management style as direct, demanding and execution-focused, with particular emphasis on preparation, qualification, message development, urgency, maintaining control of the sales process and learning from won and lost opportunities. They also credit him with helping close enterprise agreements that they would not have secured independently.

Van Schuppen also worked directly with multinational clients and learning leaders. At HLB International, he supported the rollout of a global learning initiative across more than 150 offices, working with local learning teams across multiple time zones and using performance results to improve adoption. Other clients cited his ability to combine commercial thinking with practical value for their employees and organisations.

Bookboon was acquired by The Access Group in 2022. During the post-acquisition integration, Van Schuppen worked on aligning the combined business, customers and teams. A senior Access Group executive later credited his leadership with helping resolve integration issues and achieve a successful outcome.

Van Schuppen left Bookboon in 2023. His earn-out concluded in 2024.

2014–2020 — Video Platform & Record Label

Van Schuppen was co-founder of a video platform which was sold to SonyBMG in 2017. In 2016, work connected to the project received the Best Video award at the Dutch Street Art Awards.

Jan then founded REDRIOT Records in 2017. The international hip-hop label worked with artists and creative partners in Europe, Africa and the United States.

The company was involved in artist development, music releases, video production, branding, partnerships, and social media marketing. REDRIOT ended due to COVID-19 in 2020.

2022–2024 — Bookboon Exit and Transition

Bookboon was acquired by The Access Group in 2022. Van Schuppen remained involved during the post-acquisition period through 2023 and acted as Director for The Access Group.

Jan worked on issues affecting the merger, its customers and commercial teams. Adam Brown, Chief Commercial Officer at The Access Group, later credited Van Schuppen’s leadership with helping overcome integration problems and achieve a successful outcome.

Van Schuppen left Bookboon in 2023. His earn-out concluded in 2024, completing his fifteen-year involvement with the company.

2023–2024 — Spades Holding and ideas in Spades

After leaving Bookboon, Van Schuppen shifted his full-time attention to his own companies and established Spades Holding as the ownership structure for his businesses, intellectual property and investments.

Through ideas in Spades, he began developing commercial applications of artificial intelligence, including digital avatars, AI-supported content, custom workflows and digital assets. The company worked directly with avatar technology from HeyGen and Akool and developed systems for producing repeatable video and communication assets without requiring the subject to record each version manually.

Van Schuppen also used these technologies in his own work, testing them through internal projects before offering selected implementations to clients.

2024 — The Spades Academy

In 2024, Van Schuppen began converting his B2B sales knowledge into a structured digital learning environment through The Spades Academy.

The first Academy catalogue consists of six courses built around practical B2B Sales. The course material combines scripts, short videos, exercises and learning resources. Van Schuppen records the original narration, while digital avatars are used to present the video lessons consistently at scale.

The Sales Academy is designed for sales teams and organisations that require continuous sales development rather than a single workshop. Its subject areas include prospecting, sales mindset, enterprise sales, negotiation, relationship selling, account management, communication and sales confidence.

New catalogues are currently in development, such as The AI Academy, The Leadership Academy and The Startup Academy.

2024–2025 — Coaching, Advisory and AI Projects

During 2024 and 2025, Van Schuppen expanded his work with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and commercial teams through Sales Advisory and High Performance Coaching.

Sales Advisory focuses on commercial performance, positioning, pricing, sales processes, market expansion and revenue opportunities. High Performance Coaching focuses on decision-making, accountability, execution and leadership for founders and senior executives.

His AI-related work during this period included digital avatars, custom AI projects, automation flows, intellectual-property-based digital assets and sales technology. He also worked with meeting and voice technologies including Fireflies and YourAtlas as part of commercial and sales workflows.

2025 — Spades Sales Engine

Van Schuppen developed the Spades Sales Engine to address the operational complexity created by fragmented sales tools, external agencies, sales hires and disconnected commercial workflows.

The Sales Engine combines commercial expertise, AI-supported research, qualification, CRM infrastructure, outreach, automation and operational execution. It is positioned as Result as a Service, meaning the client purchases managed commercial execution rather than individual tools, software licences, appointment setting or outsourced SDR capacity.

The engagement begins with a structured pilot that reviews the company’s commercial position, revenue opportunities, ICP, messaging, CRM and sales processes before a longer deployment is recommended.

2025–2026 — Investments and Services-for-Shares

Van Schuppen began combining commercial involvement with selective equity participation in technology companies.

His documented angel investments include BookMagic AI and Awards App. He also developed Services-for-Shares relationships, through which commercial work may be exchanged for equity when agreed. Documented examples include Accessible Me, with AICU identified as planned.

In his partnership with Pynn, equity participation is linked to measurable Commercial Value Generated rather than effort alone. Contributions may include enterprise sales, strategic partnerships, investor introductions, ecosystem development and other agreed commercial activities.

2026 — Venture Capital and Startup Ecosystems

In 2026, Van Schuppen increased his focus on venture capital firms, investor networks and their portfolio companies.

His work with Pynn includes commercial positioning, enterprise sales, startup onboarding, investor onboarding and deal-flow infrastructure for venture funds, accelerators and startup ecosystems.

The strategic direction of Spades became focused on helping venture capital firms improve the commercial performance of funded B2B technology companies, particularly portfolio companies with proven products but underdeveloped commercial execution.

2026 — Enterprise Sales Training

In June 2026, Elioud entered into an agreement with Mollie Business BV to deliver an Enterprise Sales Development Program for its Netherlands Business Development team.

The programme was designed to prepare the team for larger and more complex opportunities. It included a pre-training assessment, analysis of recorded sales conversations, two live training sessions and follow-up recommendations.

The content covered enterprise sales, discovery, qualification, stakeholder mapping, champion development, business-value conversations, objection handling, negotiation, deal control and the transition from transactional sales to larger opportunities.

Current Activities

Van Schuppen currently works through Spades Holding, Elioud, ideas in Spades, Spades Academy and the Spades Sales Engine.

His current work includes commercial advisory, founder coaching, B2B sales training, AI implementation, digital avatars, sales technology, startup investments and partnerships with investor ecosystems.

Publications & Educational Resources

Books

AI & Automation Tools for Sales 2025

A practical guide to the AI tools, automation platforms, and sales technologies transforming modern B2B sales. Learn how to increase productivity, automate repetitive work, and build scalable sales processes using today's leading AI solutions.

The Reinvention Code (in development)

A thought-provoking guide for professionals navigating the AI era. Drawing on more than 30 years of commercial experience, Jan van Schuppen explores why ownership, positioning, and intelligent systems will matter more than traditional careers, and provides a practical framework for reinventing yourself in a world where AI is reshaping work, business, and value creation.

Digital Learning

Spades Academy

A LearnWorlds-based learning platform providing practical B2B sales education for founders, entrepreneurs, sales professionals and commercial teams.

Current catalogue:

• Sales Academy Onboarding
• Sales Outreach
• Sales Mindset & Resilience
• Sales Experience & Confidence
• Relationship & Key Account Selling
• Prospecting & Enterprise Selling
• Negotiation & Influence

Future academies include: AI Academy, Leadership Academy, Startup Academy.

spades-academy.learnworlds.com

Commercial Assessments

Investor Assessment

Commercial assessment developed for venture capital firms, investors and startup ecosystems to identify commercial opportunities, founder dependency and portfolio growth potential.

scoreapp.ideasinspades.com/investors

Revenue Growth Assessment

Commercial diagnostic helping founders identify constraints affecting revenue growth.

revenue-intake.scoreapp.com

Sales Tools Book 2026

Interactive assessment accompanying Jan's sales tools publication.

sales-book-2026.scoreapp.com

Media

Articles

Quote

Bookboon Learning acquired by The Access Group for €75 million

Feature covering the acquisition of Bookboon Learning, Van Schuppen's fifteen-year involvement in the company and the commercial growth leading to the acquisition.

quotenet.nl — Deens-Nederlands team verkoopt Bookboon Learning

MarketingTribune

Jan van Schuppen on Bookboon's commercial growth

Interview discussing Bookboon's commercial strategy, digital learning and enterprise sales.

marketingtribune.nl — Jan van Schuppen over Bookboon

Podcasts & Interviews

How to build a startup that generates revenue

Discussion on B2B sales, commercial execution, AI-supported workflows and authentic founder mentorship.

youtube.com/watch?v=K58d--aysH4

The CTO Show

Discussion on go-to-market strategy, revenue validation, AI, digital avatars and commercial growth for early-stage startups.

youtube.com/watch?v=xQlStSzlic8

How To Founder Podcast

Discussion on founder accountability, startup advisory and the Services-for-Shares model.

youtube.com/watch?v=u9h-PZMtC6s

Speaking Engagements

Counter Campfire

Presentation on authentic storytelling, video marketing and modern content creation.

youtube.com/watch?v=-Z0Fi0Isg8c

PechaKucha Night

Presentation introducing Art Valley, a proposal for the redevelopment of Veenendaal through creativity, education and technology.

youtube.com/watch?v=hpzHoHOzpe4

#UnleashNet 2018

Presentation on digital learning and enterprise education during the Bookboon years.

vimeo.com/302880439