Some men love cars, some men love football. Others like watches or whiskey. But my passion lies somewhere else: I’m a guitar guy. Writing to you is Dries, Innovation Manager at The House of Marketing and the brains behind Know Your Vintage Guitars.

The early steps into trading

As a teenager I bought my first guitar. It was love at first sight. I practiced my skills and cherished this instrument to the fullest. But after a while I got bored of playing the same six strings, so I started looking around on second-hand websites to trade or sell my guitar. During the process of trading and selling, I noticed that I could easily obtain a guitar that was slightly better or prettier than the one I owned. After having sold a few guitars over the years, I got an idea: why not buy a second guitar, purely for the fun of selling and trading instruments? And that’s where my journey started…

For the love of vintage

As the years went by, my passion for the instrument kept growing. However, my taste developed and I got into vintage guitars: rare instruments with an impeccable sound and an even more pleasing design. Slowly but surely I started collecting and selling more and more vintage and high-end guitars and amplifiers. A hobby that evolved into the launch of my own online guitar boutique: Know Your Vintage Guitars. A project that didn't only let me spend time on my passion, but also influenced my career in marketing.

Practice what you preach

In daily life, I’m an Innovation Manager for The House of Marketing. This means that I assist and support promising start-ups in innovation strategy and processes, and business design thinking. Being surrounded by entrepreneurial minds was a big advantage when launching a business of my own. Knowing the importance of a solid business plan, a healthy cost structure and the right network certainly paved the way for my own plans.

In return, becoming part of a start-up myself brought me closer to the people I assist: it’s easier to understand other entrepreneurs when you share their experience. Creating a webshop, making promo plans, working on customer centricity and facing unexpected issues made me understand the journey of a business starter so much better. As a plus, my experience as a THoMer helped me to avoid certain beginner mistakes. The launch of Know Your Vintage Guitars was a classic case of ‘practice what you preach’; thus my day job and side project make for a great synergy.

A great advantage

At Know Your Vintage Guitars, I’m the one that is responsible for both the marketing and financial side, but also for the selection of instruments. A combo that requires quite some focus, but is also very rewarding – as was this start-up in general. Not only because of the recognition I get for making vintage guitars accessible in Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany, but also because it’s plain fun to spend so much time around these beautiful instruments. And being able to use my side project to improve my day job, makes for a fruitful advantage. What more could I want?