Today we received a really cool gift; a custom-made ZEEF LED board! The board is portable, so we can take it to events to use on-stage during our presentations. When not used during events, the board is located at the entrance of our office as decoration.
Klaas Joosten (ZEEF) and Niek Boerebach (Staalwerk Huizen B.V.)
I believe the best information can be found through experts. Why? Because today the world wide web has evolved into a jungle for consumers, making it increasingly difficult and time consuming to find the best and most reliable available products and services online. When searching for products or services out of your daily comfort zone (e.g. eye laser surgery), consumers have to rely on the algorithm of search engines. Advice or reference from expert editors, bloggers and peers would be highly appreciated in the decision making process. Next to this, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) has become a big game with high investments to obtain a first page position in Search Engine Result Pages (SERP). Today, not the quality of content and services, but SEO optimization techniques make the difference in ranking.
That is why we believe that expert ratings are beter than algorithme ratings. We tested our assumption with the key word ‘buy laptop’ and another example ‘repair dishwasher’. We only changed the order of the links not the content and we found out that 70% of the consumer preferred the expert rating above Google.
Last wednesday I was at Mini Seedcamp Amsterdam where the top 10 startups were pitching. Since I am a big fan of the ‘lean methodology’ I thought: “let’s test my assumption that these 10 startups can be best rated via an expert”. Below you will find the result of this expert rating.
We are a fun and growing Dutch technology startup. We currently employ a team of 10 people and are looking for a great intern to join our team. Are you hungry and foolish? Do you love working with startups and are you ready to help expand our company to Silicon Valley? If your answer is “YES” this internship will provide you the opportunity!
No, you will not be making our coffee… Our vision is that the best information can be found through passionate experts. At ZEEF we would like to provide these passionate experts the tools to monetize and broadcast their knowledge to the world. We need your help to realise this vision.
The Amsterdam Centre for Entrepreneurship has a weekly recurring event called ‘Broodje Kaas’ (English; Slice of bread with cheese). They invite a guest speaker and let him/her talk about his/her life as an entrepreneur and how they came to where he/she is at now, while attendees can eat slices of bread with cheese.
A while ago Klaas, our CEO, was invited as guest speaker and today was the day for him to take the stage.
Klaas explaining how affiliate marketing works.
At the end of his talk, ACE told that every entrepreneur should be a little bit crazy to change the world and gave Klaas a ‘Crazy Doll’. It’s now happily sitting on his desk.
Yesterday I was very happy to hear that we have been selected to participate in the 2013 Holland in the (V)Alley Startup Bootcamp. The Holland in the (V)Alley Startup Bootcamp will take place from 3-6 June and is a 4-day intensive program organised by the Consulate General of the Netherlands in San Francisco and New York.
While thinking about a topic for a blog post today, I thought it would be cool to show you all where the magic happens 
Last Friday the 20 finalists of New Venture were invited to pitch their idea at AEGON HQ.
ZEEF is a great name but we had to wait until the very last to pitch our idea since the pitches were ranked alphabetically… After the pitches you really felt that all the teams were relieved that it was over. It was now time for drinks and to wait for the results. During the drinks all the teams started to share their experiences and making wild guesses which teams would end up in the top 10. I must say I really had no idea but we were pretty happy with our pitch and the jury gave us good feedback on our concept. Continue reading
We are a young, international, startup looking for a (freelance) passionate designer to join our team! We currently employ a team of 9 passionate persons and are focussing on the US Market, currently trying to settle in Silicon Valley next to our current office in Amsterdam.
We believe the world wide web has evolved into a jungle for consumers, making it increasingly difficult and time consuming to find the best and most reliable available products and services online. When searching for products or services out of their daily comfort zone (e.g. eye laser surgery), consumers have to rely on the algorithm of search engines. Advice or reference from expert editors, bloggers and peers would be highly appreciated in the decision making process. Next to this, SEM (Search Engine Marketing) has become a big game with high investments to obtain a first page position in Search Engine Result Pages (SERP). Today, not the quality of content and services, but SEO optimization techniques make the difference in ranking.
ZEEF will filter the world’s information with the help and expertise of passionate experts. Each expert is able to set up a page about his or her subject and start collecting and filtering links. This allows consumers to find the most useful information and the best services and products.
Name: Frido van Driem
Phone: +31 6 23 95 01 58
Email: frido.van.driem@kizitos.com
Blog: www.zeef.org
Martin Haring of the Amsterdam Centre of Entrepeneurship wrote an article about ZEEF in ACE Magazine.
We received several emails with the question “what is the meaning of zeef and why did you choose this name?”
Actually it is quite simple… Remember when you were young and were playing in the sand with your friends? When you wanted to play in the sand without all the rubbish like little rocks, plastic cups and twigs, you would get a sieve and start sieving the sand. After sieving the sand the only thing that’s left is high quality sand. That was great, because now you could enjoy playing in the sand without the pain of all the rubbish.
We believe the same can be done with ‘The World’s Information’. In 2012, there were 641 million websites (source Pingdom). Imagine that the high quality websites are the sand grains and the low quality websites the little rocks, plastic cups and twigs. When looking for products and services online, wouldn’t it be great if you could sieve out the high quality websites and leave out the bad websites? Also imagine that the person sieving this information is a person with passion for the product or service you are looking for. This would mean you will find information through the passion of experts.
And the best thing is… everybody can apply to be an expert. After being accepted to ZEEF you can start sieving your own subject of which you are passionated about. So when people are looking for a product or service they will have multiple experts to choose from. The competition between the experts will eventually increase the quality of the information.
“We filter the web with the passion of experts, to help people find the most useful information and the best products and services.”
But why is it called ‘ZEEF’ and not ‘Sieve’?
The origin of the word ‘Sieve’ comes from the Dutch word ‘Zeef’ and the German word ‘Sieb’. Before 900; Middle English sive, Old English sife; cognate with Dutch zeef, German Sieb; akin to sift (source dictionary reference). So literally the meaning of sieve is:
“Sieve (zeef) an instrument with a meshed or perforated bottom, used for separating coarse from fine parts of loose matter, for straining liquids, etc., especially one with a circular frame and fine meshes or perforations.”
Since we are proud of being a Dutch company, we obviously decided to choose the Dutch word ‘ZEEF’ for our company.
