Best For The World™ 2022: Environment
B Corp
About Patrick
Entrepreneurship has shaped me—and taught me what growth really asks of a founder.
I am Patrick van der Meulen: entrepreneur, operating partner, keynote speaker and impact investor. I build mission-driven companies and work alongside founders when ambition, growth and responsibility start to converge.
Raised by entrepreneurship
I grew up in an entrepreneurial family and discovered early that building something of your own was more attractive to me than following a conventional path. While completing a Bachelor in Commerce in Groningen, I was already working on electric vehicles. Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth then gave that drive a clear direction: I wanted to use entrepreneurship to make positive change commercially scalable. In 2015, that commitment brought me full circle when I was trained by Al Gore as a Climate Reality Leader.
From an idea to an international company
In 2013, I founded the company that would become Soly together with my brother Milan and our father. We started with conversations at kitchen tables and a simple mission: make solar energy accessible to everyone. Over more than twelve years, Soly grew into an international energy company with 180 employees across nine markets. We raised approximately €60 million and the businesses I helped build generated around €200 million in revenue. That journey taught me how to find product-market fit, build a commercial engine, enter new countries, attract capital and turn a mission into a company of real scale.
What scale taught me
Growth creates energy and opportunity, but it also changes the founder's job. The decisions become more consequential, the organisation more layered and the relationship between founders, leadership, board and investors more important. I learned that revenue and funding are not the same as resilience. Strong teams, clear governance, disciplined cash management and a small number of decisive KPIs are what keep a growing company in control.
The chapter that changed my perspective
Not every chapter of Soly ended as we intended. I experienced loss of control, difficult governance and, ultimately, the collapse of parts of the group I had spent more than a decade building. It was a demanding period, but also a defining one. It made me more reflective, more precise and more aware of what founders need around them when the stakes rise. I share those lessons openly—not to look back, but because hard-earned experience becomes valuable when it helps someone else make a better decision.
Building again through GoZero
I chose to return to the work itself. Through GoZero, I helped acquire and stabilise energy lease activities, restore operating control and customer continuity, lead turnarounds and portfolio recovery, and complete the strategic sale of our South African business. Rebuilding confirmed something important: progress rarely starts with a perfect plan. It starts with clarity, ownership, cash control and doing the next essential thing well.
What I do today
Today I work as a founder and operating partner alongside founders, CEOs and leadership teams worldwide. I help companies with international expansion, product-market fit and go-to-market strategy, stronger leadership teams, and staying ahead of change. I also help founders keep control of cash, governance, investors and KPIs. Depending on what the company needs, I step in as an advisor, interim operator, mentor, keynote speaker or selective investor—combining capital with time and practical involvement.
What drives me
I remain convinced that entrepreneurship is one of the strongest forces for progress. I am sector-agnostic, with deep experience in energy, climate, mobility and impact, and I am most useful when a company has traction and the founder's role is changing. I bring optimism, directness and an operator's perspective: ambitious about what is possible, honest about what it takes and always focused on turning decisions into action.
“My ambition is simple: help good founders build better companies—and use entrepreneurship as a force for good.”Work with Patrick
Awards & milestones
FD Gazelle (medium-sized company)
FD
Technology Fast 50 2021
Deloitte
Best For The World™ 2021: Environment
B Corp
Duurzame Jonge 100
DJ100
Sprout Top 3 ‘Best young entrepreneurs of 2016’
Sprout