How Sweav scaled from start-up to scale-up with VA support

Can you briefly explain what Sweav does?

We help people step out of the ‘corporate golden cage’ and find more freedom in their work.

Sweav is a community and platform for freelance strategy and M&A professionals. We work with people from top-tier firms who are looking for more flexibility, autonomy and direct impact. We support them in making the move into freelancing—a way of working where they shape their own schedule, take on different projects and have the space to reflect on what they really want. In that sense, we’re a bit like the Moneypenny of the consultancy world.

You scaled from start-up to scale-up in a short time. When did you first notice growth really accelerating?

In the beginning, we had to work hard to attract professionals. Freelancing wasn’t the obvious choice in this sector. Many of these people have been trained for years for a career in the corporate ‘golden cage’, so stepping into freelancing is a big shift.

We had to convince that first group: that the move was possible, that there was enough work, and that we offered a safe environment to do it. It’s a close-knit and relatively small community, so people talk. That created a flywheel effect on the supply side—more and more consultants saw the benefits of freelancing and of working with Sweav.

On the demand side, growth was more linear: traditional sales, knocking on doors, building relationships. But thanks to that flywheel on the supply side, we quickly became a scale-up.

What organisational challenges came with that growth phase?

Our business is highly planning-intensive; everything needs to be tight, accurate and on time.

For every assignment, there’s a whole sequence of steps: scheduling intake meetings, preparing clients, onboarding consultants, managing documentation. It’s an operational process with many moving parts, and everything needs to run smoothly.

We operate in a high-pressure environment with high expectations—if you schedule a meeting too late or miss key information, it has immediate consequences. That requires precision, speed and oversight. That combination quickly became too much for Joeri and me to handle alongside everything else.

What led you to choose support from a Virtual Assistant?

Planning and managing my inbox aren’t my strengths—you need to know what you’re not good at.

I’m good at having conversations, closing deals and developing the platform, but not at planning, administration or managing calendars. It was taking up a disproportionate amount of my time and energy. At some point I realised: this can be done more efficiently. You only have so many hours in a day, so you need to spend them where you add the most value.

We needed someone who could bring structure, maintain oversight and form the operational backbone behind the scenes. Moneypenny delivered exactly that. From day one, it gave us breathing space to focus on growth.

Were there specific qualities or skills that were especially important in a VA, given your market and clients?

Our standards are high—we were looking for people used to high-pressure professional services.

The VAs who suited us best were used to working under pressure and saw quality as the baseline. They were detail-oriented, committed, and didn’t let go of a task until it was fully completed. They also needed to manage not just themselves, but us as well. That means being confident enough to say: “I need this from you now, otherwise we’ll run into issues.” It may sound strict, but for us it worked perfectly. It brought calm, knowing someone was taking control of planning and operations.

Were there tasks you didn’t expect to outsource, but that turned out to bring a lot of relief?

At one point, Merel essentially became our finance manager—we never saw that coming.

A good example is invoicing and accounts receivable. We hadn’t planned to assign that to a VA; it felt more like a finance department task. But we didn’t have one yet—we were still a small company.

When you work with someone who is structured, committed and simply sharp, you see them naturally take ownership of those areas. At some point, our VA effectively became our finance manager—and I thought that was genuinely impressive.

After about two years, you chose to hire in-house. What made that the right moment?

In the early phase, you need someone who fills all the gaps: planning, onboarding, administration, finance. But as we grew, roles became more specialised and required more capacity. That’s when it made sense to build a permanent team with clear roles, familiar faces and people working together in the office several days a week.

Working remotely with VAs worked very well, but in this new phase we benefited from full-time availability and a team collaborating in person on a daily basis.

In what situations would you still recommend a VA to other start-ups or scale-ups?

In the early stages, a full-time EA is complete overkill—a V(E)A is perfect.

I often say this to founders just starting out: bring in support as early as possible. In that phase, your time should be spent on acquiring clients, developing your product and growing your business. A VA is the ideal solution: flexible, cost-effective and scalable exactly when you need it. We always experienced a high level of flexibility with Moneypenny. Whenever we needed support, they were there. That worked incredibly well.

And yes, in the Netherlands it can feel like a ‘luxury’ to have an assistant as a young founder. But once you experience what it brings—space, structure, focus—you’re convinced straight away. We were young when we started, but it was definitely not too early. I’d recommend it to anyone.

Curious about Sweav? Take a look at their website: www.sweav.works

Want to learn more about working with a Virtual (Executive) Assistant, or explore what our support could mean for your organisation? Feel free to get in touch—we’d be happy to think along with you.