Stagent and Artwin join forces — Building Products [Mischa Sigtermans](https://mischa.sigtermans.me) [ Thoughts ](https://mischa.sigtermans.me/thoughts) [ Books ](https://mischa.sigtermans.me/books) [ About ](https://mischa.sigtermans.me/about) [← Thoughts](https://mischa.sigtermans.me/thoughts) September 20, 2023 · Product Startup Stagent and Artwin join forces for the future of bookings ========================================================= After years of building Stagent, we're joining forces with Artwin to create the leading booking platform in the Netherlands. Two years into building [Stagent](https://stagent.com), I started reaching out to my competitors. Not to size them up. Just to say hi. Marlon de Graaf was one of them. He runs Artwin, the market leader in Dutch booking software with over 200 agencies on his platform. We grabbed coffee. We talked. What kept me coming back to those conversations was something I rarely find: Marlon understands both the technology and the industry. Most people I talk to are one or the other. They either know booking agencies inside out but treat software as a necessary evil, or they're pure tech people who don't really understand why a rider matters or what an advancing document is for. Marlon gets both. We kept in touch. Low key. No agenda. Just two people building in the same space, comparing notes. At some point those casual conversations became more serious. From competitors to partners ---------------------------- I'd started Stagent out of frustration. As a DJ, I'd watched booking agencies drown in spreadsheets, email chains, and manual processes. The tools that existed were either outdated or built by people who didn't understand the workflows they were trying to automate. So I built a better one. Artwin had been solving the same problem for years, with a codebase and customer base that reflected two decades of investment. They had the relationships. They had the trust of the majority of Dutch booking offices. What we had was a modern tech stack, a product built for how agencies work today, digital press kits, payment processing, and features like [Nightshift](/thought/nightshift-why-fridays-gig-is-on-saturday) that only make sense if you've lived inside the music industry. The more Marlon and I talked, the clearer it became. We weren't really competitors. We were building toward the same future from different directions. What we're building together ---------------------------- Together we serve over 150 booking offices in the Netherlands. The combined operation gives us a position that neither of us could have reached alone, and reaching it matters because the Dutch booking market is fragmented enough that agencies have been suffering with disconnected tools for too long. The plan is to bring Artwin's customer base onto Stagent's stack, combine the best of both platforms, and build a product that serves booking agencies better than either of us could alone. And we're not stopping at the Netherlands. The booking industry has the same problems everywhere. Fragmented software, manual processes, agents spending their evenings on email instead of on relationships with artists and promoters. For existing clients on both sides, the transition will be gradual and careful. Nobody's getting a forced migration. The goal is to earn the move, not mandate it. Pablo from BENZ Agency put it well: combining Stagent's technological strength with Artwin's reliability is what the industry has been waiting for. When your users say that before you've shipped anything new, you're probably on the right track. What this means for me ---------------------- This isn't an exit. It's an acceleration. I'm still deeply involved in Stagent's product direction. This partnership gives us the resources and market position to build faster, to serve more agencies, and to modernize an industry that's been running on tools built for a different decade. I've been building Stagent as a solo founder for two years. Now I have a partner who's been in this space for twenty, with a customer base that will pressure-test everything we ship. The music industry deserves better software. Marlon and I have been building it separately. Now we're building it together. For more context on the journey: I've written about [how I secured the initial funding](/thought/how-i-secured-funding-for-my-startup) and [why I sold my previous agency](/thought/why-i-decided-to-sell-my-web-agency) to focus on products like this. *thanks for reading* Hi, I'm [Mischa](https://mischa.sigtermans.me/about). I've been *shipping products* and *building ventures* for over a decade. First exit at 25, second at 30. Now Partner & CPO at [Ryde Ventures](https://ryde.ventures), an AI venture studio in Amsterdam. Currently shipping [Stagent](https://stagent.com) and [Onoma](https://askonoma.com). Based in Hong Kong. I [write](https://mischa.sigtermans.me/thoughts) about what I learn along the way. [More about me](https://mischa.sigtermans.me/about). Keep reading: [Launching Onoma alpha: building AI memory that actually works](https://mischa.sigtermans.me/thought/launching-onoma-alpha). [← Thoughts](https://mischa.sigtermans.me/thoughts) Connect ------- [X](https://x.com/mischamartijn) [LinkedIn](https://linkedin.com/in/mischasigtermans) [GitHub](https://github.com/mischasigtermans) © 2026 · [RSS](feed:https://mischa.sigtermans.me/feed)