Hot Sauce Maker, App Developer, Rock Climber, say hi to Niels de Hoog

Niels de Hoog is a freelance developer by day and hot sauce connoisseur by night— or actually, we’re not sure how he divides his time, but he’s a creative balancing a fun passion and a passionate career. Sometimes you need that diversity to keep you motivated and going.

Hi Niels. Tell us about yourself and you work as a developer by day and hot sauce maker by night.

For the last 10 years I’ve been developing apps for iOS and Mac. While I’m very happy doing this, I also realized that I like creating things with my hands from time to time. This realization led me to invest more time in other areas of interest of mine, like cooking. Alternating between work that requires focused thinking and more creative, hands-on work keeps me motivated and energized.

Let’s talk freelancing. What motivations or happenstance brought you to freelancing?

As someone with a slight aversion to authority, freelancing felt like the logical choice after I had spent some years gaining experience as a software engineer. The decision to go freelance felt scary at first, but once I transitioned I never wanted to go back. The only scenario in which I can see myself returning to conventional employment is if I get offered my dream job. My dream job is not clearly defined, but it would involve using my skills to help solve one of the main challenges we’re facing today, such as the transition to clean energy.

What’s the best benefit of freelancing? What’s the biggest struggle and how do you confront it?

Freelancing allows me a lot of freedom. I get to choose what projects I work on, and to some extent, how I arrange my time. In the past I’ve spent several months working remotely, from different places around the globe, such as Taiwan, Argentina and Spain. I wouldn’t have been able to do this in most jobs. 

The biggest struggle for me has been knowing when to say no to a project. It’s always a difficult decision to reject a project you don’t feel good about, if you don’t know when the next opportunity is going to come along.

How do you self-motivate?

My motivation and energy depends heavily on how healthy and fit I feel. After work and on the weekends I live to go rock climbing. When I climb everything else just disappears, and I’m focused only on the movements. This help me deal with stress, stay fit and boost my motivation.

So hot sauce? How did this idea come about? What’s the origin story from on how you executed from conception to launch?

It started with one of my cooking experiments, where I decided to make my own sriracha from scratch. One day some friends came over for dinner and noticed the batch of sriracha that was brewing in my kitchen. They were excited to see this and made me promise to prepare a few bottles of sriracha for them as well. Before I knew it, I was making hot sauce for almost everyone I knew.

As I was getting deeper into the hot sauce world I noticed that there were so many delicious hot sauces out there, that were nowhere to be seen on the supermarket shelves. That’s when I decided that in addition to making my own hot sauce I wanted to introduce spicy food lovers to the world of craft hot sauce makers. I put together a webshop called keepit.cool where customers could sign up for a craft hot sauce subscription and as soon as I had gathered the first 50 customers I started shipping boxes. 

Honestly, the subscription model sounds amazing. How do you select which hot sauces to send?

Every sauce that ends up in the box is first taste-tested by me. I usually receive samples from producers, which I put in my fridge for a couple of weeks. The ones that I end up using the most are selected for the box.

You’re working with a team for Keep It Cool, right? How would you compare it to working solo as a freelancer?

The business was started by me, but I’ve been lucky enough to have friends and colleagues who were willing to help out with or give advice on various aspects of the process that I’m less experienced in, like design, writing compelling content, and marketing.

It seems like you’re balancing interesting work and a passion project. Do you think you need both to create a long-term work-life balance?

Indeed I do. Obviously it’s great if your work is also your passion, but even then I think it helps to diversify, and peek outside your comfort zone every now and then. That’s how it works for me at least.

Okay, favorite Croissant space and why?

My favorite Croissant space is Rent24 Magna Plaza. It’s close to my house and located right in the center of Amsterdam. It’s not only super convenient, but the vibe of the building and the people are a great motivation and help me stay focused.