Nine years ago, Tricore started with an idea on a beer mat. Today, there is an IT company with a team of more than twenty people, various specializations under one roof, and a customer base that increasingly relies on Tricore as a strategic partner instead of a traditional IT provider.
We sit down with the three founders of Tricore: Robin Wauters, Jonas Camps, and Stijn Derison. Not only to nostalgically look back at how it all started, but especially to understand what still stands today from that first idea, what choices have brought Tricore to this point, and where the company wants to go in the coming years.
Hello guys, I’ll start right away with a crucial question: is that beer coaster still safely stored?
Robin: “Absolutely. It’s safely stored at my home in the cupboard.”
When you look back today at that first idea on that beer mat, what still holds true?
Stijn: “Today we strive even more to be a single point of contact for our customers. In the beginning, the focus was mainly on infrastructure, as that was our expertise at the time. With a small team, you can only support a limited offering in a healthy way.”
Jonas: “Now that the team is larger, there is also more room to offer additional specializations. Therefore, it has become a healthy choice today to position ourselves as a single point of contact in the field of IT. In the past, that simply would not have been wise.”
When did you first feel: this is no longer an experiment, this is a business?
Stijn: “Day one minus three months.” (everyone laughs)
Stijn: “In those first three months, we prepared everything thoroughly. From the start, it was clear that we did not want to remain a three-person operation. Everything was built to grow, hire people, and build a team. Now, if we had said at the start that we would have a team of twenty people within ten years, we all would have signed up for that immediately.”
Jonas: “I actually expected that, to be honest.”
Robin: “I think we made a lot of smart choices. Luck plays a part sometimes, but we also consciously chose how fast we wanted to grow.”
Jonas: “We could have grown much harder at times, but we consciously chose not to in order to maintain quality. Looking back on it now, that was the right choice.”
Has that growth always gone smoothly?
Robin: “Difficult moments are always there. But at the end of the day, we have always had each other in those difficult moments. We have generally always understood each other well. And at times when that was a bit less obvious, we always found a solution that was good for everyone.”
Stijn: “In 2019, a year and a half after the start, we began hiring at an average of two employees per year. One year five might join, the next year maybe someone leaves. But if you look at it over the years, it does follow a line.”
What did you underestimate in those first years?
Jonas: “The fact that everyone has a different personality. Everyone has their own approach and sometimes struggles with something. It’s a challenge to find the right balance in that and to deal with it correctly. More people simply means more different challenges.”
Has it always been successful to convey your vision to the new employees?
Robin: “The way we approach job interviews, how we explain what we do and what we expect, that has changed little over the years. You evolve as a company. You start to make things measurable, look more at numbers, profitability, and KPIs. But purely conveying who we are has always remained fairly consistent.”
Stijn: “In the past, that happened more organically. Today we need to present that vision in a more structured way.”
You see that evolution not only internally but also in the offerings. How has that evolved in recent years?
Robin: “Where Tricore initially started mainly from infrastructure, the offering has become much broader today. Not because the company simply wanted to do more, but because customers increasingly asked for a single point of contact for everything related to IT, software, telephony, and digitization.”
Jonas: “If a satisfied customer has us handle everything related to infrastructure and then asks what else we can do, you don’t want to say: we can’t help you with that. We always want to be a point of contact where the customer can turn to. If we don’t do it ourselves, then through a partner. But still with Tricore as the point of contact.”
You started as three founders who did a lot themselves. When did that change?
Stijn: “If you had said at the start that my last project would be in October 2020, no one would have believed it. (laughs)
We have been around for almost nine years now, and I have only executed projects myself for three of those years. Just before Tricore turned three, we hired Niels. Since then, he has done everything technical that I did before.”
Robin: “In the early years, the commercial side was mainly with Stijn and me, while Jonas led the operational side. As we grew further, those roles began to shift, and people also joined in account management and internal sales. Steph takes care of existing customers, Jeroen handles internal sales along with the ISO standardization. This ensures that we can follow up with customers better and faster.”
Was it difficult to let go of that technical part?
Robin: “Absolutely not.”
Jonas: “The people we added at the beginning were quick to get on board. They also breathed Tricore. They were aligned with the vision. Then letting go is not so difficult, because they actually do it almost the same way you did before. Always just a bit different of course, but that is normal.”
Stijn: “As more people join, you also stop performing certain operational tasks yourself. If you haven't installed it yourself anymore, you can think along, but you don't know every detail anymore.”
“A client once said: we do not consider your people as external people, but as colleagues who are not on our payroll.”
If a client had to summarize Tricore in one sentence: does your slogan ‘We are not problem solvers, we prevent them’ still cover it?
Robin: “That is still what we focus very hard on: monitoring, automation, and trying to avoid problems. That doesn't always work, of course. Problems will always exist. But then we have a strong team that can really help clients when something goes wrong.”
Jonas: “One of our largest clients recently said that they do not see us as an external party, but as colleagues who are not on the payroll. That is a great compliment.”
You often talk about proactive IT, what does that mean concretely in practice?
Jonas: “Nine years ago that was less obvious. Today everyone claims to work proactively and many competitors have also made up for that. Proactivity is not just in the tools. It is also in the mindset of your people. In how you use tools to act proactively. In how you advise clients. It goes much further than the tools.
The tools remain essential, of course. Monitoring, automation, and security form the basis for detecting problems early or even preventing them altogether, but without the right people and the right approach, it remains an empty promise. We continue to innovate in this area as well. AI has also been added in recent years and is now indispensable.
Proactivity is not just in tooling. It is also in the mindset of your people.
How are you fundamentally different from other IT partners today?
Jonas: “It may sound cliché, but how we train people, the level of our people, and the personality of the people we add makes a big difference.”
For which clients is Tricore the best choice today?
Stijn: “We have always aimed for today's clients. We like to look at the mature SMEs that have a greater need for monitoring and automation and can reap the most benefits from it. But if you start with three, you cannot only focus on companies with more than a hundred employees. Then your team is too small to provide that continuity.
In the past, it was mainly important that clients were aligned with our way of thinking. Today, mindset alone is no longer sufficient. It should also be challenging. We want to be able to add larger clients where we can provide greater added value.”
Are there clients for whom Tricore is consciously not the right partner?
Jonas: “If a client only wants to call when there are problems, then that is not a fit.”
Stijn: “If you want to be involved, you also need to be able to take responsibility. But that is only possible if the right tools, licenses, and security are in place. Otherwise, we cannot properly follow up or secure things.”
Jonas: “To work proactively, you need monitoring and automation. You need certain tools for that. Those tools are essential. That has never been an option for clients.”
Stijn: “This is not the first deal we lost because we did not want to deviate from our plan. But that is also not a fit for us.”
Do you notice that clients are more aware of cybersecurity today?
Robin: “It is more alive. You see it more often in the news. Awareness is growing, but there is often still a gap between realizing that IT is important and investing in it structurally.”
Stijn: “Legislation plays an important role in this. GDPR, NIS2, and other obligations ensure that companies have to think more about security, policy, and technical measures.”
Robin: “For many clients, we are already doing quite a few technical things that fit into this. The organizational aspect often lags behind in companies. In larger or more mature SMEs, the awareness is usually greater. Not necessarily because everything is technically perfectly arranged, but because they better understand what the impact is if their systems do not work for a day.”
Stijn: “In smaller SMEs, it is sometimes harder to estimate what it costs if they cannot work for a day. In larger companies, that awareness is often greater. Therefore, the tools are not always in order, but people do realize better what is at stake.”
Where do you want to be in three to five years?
Robin: “That is difficult to answer at the moment, but there is certainly ambition. We definitely want to keep growing. Both in infrastructure, software, and telephony. But quality always remains in the back of our minds.”
Jonas: “We are obviously ambitious when it comes to numbers and the expansion of our team. In any case, customer retention and satisfaction are one of the most important parameters for me.”
Stijn: “We need to focus more on efficiency, automation, and AI implementation. I believe there is still a lot of potential there to facilitate further growth.”
What is currently the biggest obstacle to Tricore's growth?
Robin: “The speed of growth is determined by the quality we want to deliver. Growing too fast causes your quality to drop too much. We try to take that into account a lot.
For example, we all felt that we were no longer close enough to our customers. That's why shifts have occurred. Steph has moved to account management and Jeroen has joined for internal sales. This way we can follow up faster.”
Jonas: “I don't necessarily see that as an obstacle to our growth. If you want to grow as a company, you will always have to overcome certain hurdles, and then it’s just a matter of passing them as smoothly as possible.”
“If you want to grow as a company, you will always have to overcome certain hurdles, and then it’s just a matter of passing them as smoothly as possible.”
Robin: “Every growth has its challenges. There have certainly been growing pains. Then you need to adjust, communicate transparently with customers, and always hold a mirror up to yourself: what could have been better, what needs to improve, and what do we need to adjust?”
When would you say: now Tricore is truly indispensable in the IT landscape?
Jonas: “I think you should never think that as a company. You have to get up every day with the question: what can I do better today than yesterday?”
Robin: “If you think you are incontournable, complacency creeps in. We are certainly relevant today. I think most people or companies in Limburg have heard something about us. But there is still room for improvement.”
Stijn: “If we were to make a list today of thirty ideal customers in Limburg, I think a large part still has no idea who we are. We can still grow a lot in that. Not the whole world needs to know us, but the right people do.”
To conclude, I have a few dilemmas:
Growth or control?
Jonas: “Growth.”
Stijn: “Control.”
Robin: “Controlled growth.”
Quick switching or perfecting everything?
Jonas: “Why do I have to choose between the two?” (laughs)
Stijn: “If I have to choose, I will go for perfection.”
Jonas: “Quick switching and continuing to strive for perfection.”
Being technically the best or being commercially the strongest?
In unison: “Being technically the best.”
Robin: “Being technically the best automatically results in becoming commercially stronger.”
Stijn: “Selling stories and not delivering, we are not interested in that.”
And perhaps that best summarizes nine years of Tricore. A company that has grown from three founders with an idea on a beer mat to a team that increasingly supports organizations in their digital operations. Not by blowing our own horn. Not by chasing the fastest growth. But by sticking to the same foundation: quality, proactivity, involvement, and the belief that IT really works when problems are not only solved but, above all, prevented.
As a marketing partner, follows Melting Point that growth closely. With admiration for what has been built, but especially with a lot of enthusiasm for what is yet to come. Because the story that began in 2017 is clearly far from over.