[MEET THE MEMBER] Daan Halma – Head of China and Account Executive at Dashmote
Photo: Daan making his first chess move with pawn D2-D4 during a lunch meeting
Daan Halma
"Always be curious, purposeful, and make local friends, especially as a foreigner in China. Pay close attention to cultural differences, emotional intelligence and team building" spoke Daan Halma, Enterprise Account Executive Global at Dashmote.
Daan Halma started his professional career after studying BSc Business Administration and MSc Strategic Management at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, then worked at Shell, and was active as board member at SOLVE Consulting NL. He then joined Dell Technologies for four years, after which he took a leap and the past three years leading a.i. startup Dashmote's operations in China. An interesting note is that Daan is passionate about coaching and supporting students and young professionals in their career development and he likes to play chess.
In this edition of Meet the Member, the Benelux Chamber plays a game of chess and visits the office of Dashmote and interviews Daan Halma.
Dashmote
In 2019, Google and McKinsey named Dashmote the best B2B start-up of Europe. Dashmote is a data-driven AI start-up founded in Amsterdam (2014) by Dennis Tan, Stefan Tan and Matthäus Schreder. The company delivers a SaaS solution to big clients like Coca-Cola, Heineken and Nestlé Waters, helping their clients to gain market insights and business intelligence in over 55 countries. They do this with a team of about 45 employees - 30 in Shanghai and 15 in Amsterdam.
Provided services
Dashmote mainly provides three services: DashLeads, Food Delivery Data & Insights and DeliverMore. These are AI-driven tools which empower companies to increase top line revenue, to gain insights on markets trends, to achieve KPIs and targets, fill the gaps in online or offline distribution and ultimately providing high potential sales leads.
DashLeads is an application which generates leads that help organizations identify location-based leads in any industry with the input of a perfect lead. Moreover, this algorithm uses over 100 different data sources and identifies the best leads that sales people should focus: making sure they stop wasting time on the wrong leads.
Food Delivery Data & Insights extracts publicly available data, analyzes the patterns and provides an overall perspective in the universe of Food Delivery for F&B companies to benchmark performance and track this record, recognize pitfalls in their distribution and target potential customers more effectively.
DeliverMore helps optimize restaurant menus through a seamless integration between a menu of a restaurant with regards to food delivery and menu optimization solution. This service supports product names, descriptions, adding the right pictures or even adding products to menu options to ultimately boost sales.
Trends and focus of Dashmote
Dashmote is currently focusing on establishing their position as the leading lead generation solution for any industry and capitalizing on growth and scaling in the data analytics beyond food and services. The team is engaging with potential customers that are unsuccessful in their prospecting of generating successful leads.
Through DashLeads, sales teams gain better insights on irrelevant and unproductive locations and stay updated about interesting and suitable locations for new business opportunities. This method can save a substantial amount of the time of the sales representative and strongly boost conversation rates.
Through FoodDelivery, management makes better informed decisions due to a more comprehensive overview of market trends, usage of platforms, popularity of brands and sub flavors, product presence within stores and visual effectiveness in combo menus. Ultimately, Dashmote aims to provide a roadmap of opportunities, successful leads and distribution gaps to support F&B companies.
The team of Dashmote has expanded rapidly, offering full time and internship opportunities to join Dashmote with its unique company culture. They post weekly on LinkedIn about company building activities, sharing the experience of the team and success stories.
Advice for Students and Young Professionals
As a student, I invested in a long-term view which for me has always evolved around moving to China and working with a team of highly driven talents. I stepped outside of my comfort zone, interacted and learned from other students, professionals and mentors, and mostly followed my curiosity through workshops, jobs and reaching out to people (for example on LinkedIn) to expand my network with that my view.
I learnt to be proactive in reaching out to others, you would be surprised how many people are super willing to talk about themselves and their companies! And if you are passionate and clear of what you are looking for, people are super willing to refer you to colleagues or peers for more career opportunities. It is my stubbornness, my willingness to learn and listen, and my feedback-driven attitude that got me where I am today.
Message to the Community
“Feel free to reach out for a drink - a cup of coffee or cold beer”
Contact Information
Daan Halma, Account Executive and Head of China at Dashmote
Email: daan.halma@dashmote.com
7D, 619 Caoyang Road | 200063 - Shanghai | China
Call: +86-18321200155
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dashmote/posts/?feedView=all
Website: www.dashmote.com