Deal With It is de podcast van investeerder en schrijver Eva de Mol, over de rauwe realiteit van ondernemen, geld en ambitie. Elke week gaat Eva in gesprek met ondernemers, investeerders en beleidsmakers over wat er écht achter de schermen gebeurt bij startups en scale-ups. Van fundraising en falen tot groei, macht en persoonlijke keuzes: niets blijft onbesproken.
Eva de Mol is co-founder van venture capital fonds CapitalT, spreker en auteur van Deal With It: Achter de schermen van het grote geld. Met een unieke combinatie van academische kennis en hands-on investeerderschap geeft ze een frisse blik op de toekomst van technologie en ondernemerschap in Europa.
Abonneer je op Deal With It voor eerlijke gesprekken, scherpe inzichten en inspirerende verhalen over ondernemen in de praktijk.
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Fighting wildfires with AI: The market VCs rolled their eyes at | Fiona Spruill
In late 2023, Fiona Spruill's world changed overnight. The CEO of Overstory was diagnosed with cancer, and both founders had to step away. Fiona called every board member and said: I'm stepping in.
Today, Fiona leads Overstory, a climate tech company using AI and satellite imagery to help electric utilities prevent wildfires and power outages. Before that, she spent 14 years at The New York Times, where she was running the homepage on the morning of September 11th, and became COO of Meetup.
In the middle of the pandemic, she moved her family from New York to Amsterdam to join Overstory as employee number 10.
In this episode, we talk about: Five lessons from Fiona:
1. Nothing prepares you for leading in a crisis, but honesty helps. When Fiona stepped in as CEO overnight, she told her team what she knew, what she didn't know, and showed up every day. Fourteen years in the newsroom of The New York Times taught her to make the best decision possible with the information you have, and to come back the next day.
2. Focus beats a big market. When Overstory chose to work only with electric utilities, many VCs rolled their eyes. Was the market big enough? Would they pay? But that focus helped Overstory build deep trust with its customers, who barely ever leave. Many start-ups die because they chase too many shiny objects.
3. Prove your impact. One utility in Canada attributes a 44% drop in vegetation-related outages to Overstory. Others use it to see exactly where to trim trees before a storm hits.
4. Protect your culture through hiring. Fiona still meets every new hire herself, and the team hires slowly on purpose. And with AI making it easier to fake interviews, Overstory now meets every candidate in person, after a candidate turned out not to be who they said they were.
5. Choose investors like business partners. Fiona's biggest fundraising tip: don't just look at the terms, but at who you'll be working with for years. Her red flag: investors who talk over you about your own business, instead of being curious.
We also talk honestly about what it takes to combine a demanding career with a family.
Disclaimer: I invested in Overstory's early financing round.
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27 Oct 2026
Waarom Amerika sport ziet als business (en wij niet) | Dewi Weber Dewi Weber
In Amerika praten ze over sportteams zoals wij over tech-startups: met waarderingen, investeerders en mediadeals.
Een studentquarterback kan miljoenen per jaar verdienen. En wie tien jaar op de PGA Tour speelt, hoeft daarna nooit meer te werken.In Nederland kijken we daar vaak een beetje vies naar. Maar wat kunnen we ervan leren?
In Los Angeles sprak ik met topgolfer Dewi Weber, die op de LPGA Tour speelt tussen de beste golfsters ter wereld.
Drie dingen die me bijbleven:
1. Vrouwensport groeit hard. Volgens Dewi is het totale prijzengeld op de LPGA in een paar jaar bijna verdubbeld, naar ruim 150 miljoen dollar.
2. Golf is een businesstool. Bedrijven nemen klanten mee naar toernooien, organiseren clinics en keynotes, en zien een ronde golf als vier uur ongestoorde tijd met een (potentiële) klant.
3. Topsporters werken als startups. Dewi houdt elke slag bij, analyseert de data, past haar training aan en test opnieuw. Zo wordt elk verlies geen falen, maar informatie. Misschien is het grootste verschil niet het geld, maar de mindset.
In Amerika is excelleren in iets unieks iets om te vieren. Bij ons iets om over te relativeren.
Wat denk jij: moeten we in Nederland sport meer als business gaan zien?
20 Oct 2026
"I Only Spend My Time With High Performers" | Matt Welle, CEO of Mews
Every week, Matt Welle books 20 minutes with three of his highest performers. No agenda. Just questions like: "Do we deal with underperformance fast enough?" Their answer is almost always no."They're the 10x employees," Matt says.
"They're picking up the slack, and they get frustrated when we don't take action fast enough." When he shared this on LinkedIn, people pushed back: shouldn't a CEO spend time with underperformers too?
Matt's answer is very un-Dutch: "They're not all equal, unfortunately. High performance is the thing I seek out."
Since his last visit, Matt raised $300 million at a $2.5 billion valuation. Mews now runs 15,000 hotels worldwide. But this year he also restructured 170 roles, to build a faster, AI-native company.
In this episode of Deal With It, we talk about:
✅ Why he spends his time with high performers, not underperformers
✅ How AI turned 7-person product teams into one "builder"
✅ How to do a restructuring the right way, for those who leave and those who stay
✅ Why work-life balance is a myth for founders building at this pace
✅ Why Europe makes it hard to scale, and why you should start anyway?
Is Matt right? Should leaders invest in their best people, or in the ones who are struggling? Let me know in the comments 👇🔔
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📬 Want more? Every week, I share research insights, lessons from the field and answers to your questions about venture capital in my free newsletter Deal With It: https://evademol.substack.com
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