Online timber trade Gadero is growing rapidly. With a buy-and-build strategy, the business wants to make quick strides abroad. 'Acquisitions accelerate growth, but also stress the system.'
When Henk Jan Bijmolt started selling wood online for log cabins, verandas, fences and other do-it-yourself garden projects eleven years ago, some people thought he was crazy. Who wants to order wood online? But Bijmolt was not to be deterred and persevered. Soon he proved his critics wrong. Consumers discovered the convenience of ordering wood online and Gadero recorded double-digit growth year after year.
It earned the business several FD Gazellen Awards, a prize for the fastest growing businesses in the Netherlands. The Groningen company also finished high in the Deloitte Fast 50. Gadero is now one of the largest suppliers of garden wood in the Netherlands. The business has more than 200 employees and turned a revenue of over 30 million euros in 2020. Although Gadero remains primarily an e-commerce company, there is a showroom in Breukelen where customers can view products and pick up orders.
Acceleration
The corona years accelerated growth, says Bijmolt. 'People had time on their hands. Suddenly everyone started spending money on the garden. Then they quickly came to us, because we have more choice in garden wood than the hardware stores.'
The fact that more and more do-it-yourselfers end up at Gadero is also thanks to Gadero TV, the company's highly successful YouTube channel. Its videos with tips on things like building a garden shed or erecting a fence regularly get tens of thousands to even hundreds of thousands of views.
Buy-and-build
Bijmolt's ambitions extend beyond the Netherlands. Some 20% of revenue currently comes from abroad: Germany, Belgium, France and, recently, Denmark. Bijmolt would like to increase that share. A buy-and-build strategy should help. In 2020, Gadero acquired a small timber trade with showroom in Germany, followed a few months ago by an acquisition in France - another timber trade with showroom.
Completely unfamiliar with the German takeover market, Bijmolt had a business in affiliate marketing before he started Gadero, which he sold to a German buyer. Moreover, Gadero had been supplying in Germany for some time. Still, the acquisition of Q&S Gartendeco was not an unqualified success, Bijmolt says. 'On paper it seemed nice, but in practice it was less straightforward. Takeovers accelerate growth, but also stress the system. This was a small business of six employees with a totally different culture and business philosophy than ours. For example, they accepted smaller margins, so they had little budget for service. They were also not IT-minded at all, whereas at Gadero as many processes as possible are automated. It took some time before they got used to our way of working in Germany.'
Finger exercise
At the end of 2021, Gadero disposed of its German lumber business again. The German adventure was a good finger exercise, says Bijmolt. 'In hindsight, we should have done more research. But it was a learning experience. Our organization is now better equipped for takeovers; we know which playbook to pull out.'
That playbook came in handy during the acquisition of Chaletbois-Jardin, a small company in France, which went very smoothly. Although it also helped that in this case it was a one-man business, which made the integration a lot less complicated.
Not a must
Gardero does not rule out new acquisitions. The business is regularly approached with propositions. Local timber stores or small web shops in the Netherlands are not so interesting for Gardero. The lumber yard is primarily looking for international growth.
Bijmolt himself has taken a new path. After already stepping down as director in November 2021 and taking on an advisory role, in March of this year he sold his remaining pick of shares to investment company Egeria Group, which already owned a large portion of the shares.
Bijmolt, who calls himself "more entrepreneur than manager," will now focus entirely on his investments in start-up businesses with his company Veams. "The start-up phase is more my thing.
