Starting a new company during a global crisis

Sometimes you don’t plan on starting a new company, but it kind of “happens”. This is basically the story of how SonicBee came into existence.

Anne van Naerssen, who holds a Business degree in Business Analytics and was winner of the SMA’s Young Sales Professional of the year 2015, shares the following about this. “When I worked with Patrick in my former role of CCO we often already discussed how to unleash the power of data for organizations. After meeting André and discussing Identity and Access Management, I saw that there is already a lot of overlap in IAM and BI. So when the idea popped up to start something together, I was all in!”

“I have been working in the IAM field for quite some time now. From what I’ve seen and experienced, I’ve always been convinced that for IAM to succeed, you must include the organization’s business side. With SonicBee we will advise organizations on how to access data and things securely and competently. Furthermore, we will help accelerate access governance through both third-party- and our own Managed Services. Our company goal is to create business value by building scalable managed solutions. Solutions that help connect- and access data securely and compliantly with the best user experience.” says André Koot.

According to Patrick van der Valk, a serial entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience in the field of cybersecurity, the timing was right to start a new company. Even amidst the worldwide COVID-19 crisis. “Sometimes things happen in a very short time. Like the universe is trying to tell you what to do next. While I was discussing with Anne on what kind of solutions we could offer to companies to make them more data-driven, André reached out to discuss his future plans. As Anne and André are exceptional in what they do, I suggested they meet. Within a couple of days the idea of setting up a company together was born.”

Sometimes things just fall into place at the right time.