A holding company named after its founder. Who is, conveniently, named after a metal.
Iron Holding is my personal holding company. The permanent structure around a simple decision: team up with engineers, build companies worth keeping, then keep them.
01THE FOUNDER
I'm Iron. Dutch, and yes, that's my real name. I build software companies without writing the software. The first one started in my final year of university: Fiks, connecting students with companies for internships. Struggled a lot. Did some stupid shit. But it produced the model everything since runs on: I team up with engineers who love building products and take everything else off their plate. Positioning, marketing, sales, support. They ship; I make sure someone's paying for it.
Six years later that model runs three bootstrapped companies: Simple Analytics, privacy-first web analytics; UniHosted, managed infrastructure for UniFi deployments; and SignalBase, real-time B2B intelligence. No venture capital anywhere in the stack. Every company funded by its own customers.
I write it all down on The Road to 1 Million ARR. The numbers, the decisions, the misses. No rocketship stories. Long term I want to move from founder-operator to capital allocator: starting, acquiring, and backing outstanding businesses. Iron Holding is the structure for that. A short list of companies, a long horizon, and a name that was frankly too good not to use.
02TIMELINE
2019
First startup, final year of university
Fiks: connecting students with companies for internships. Struggled a lot. Did some stupid shit. Every page of the playbook traces back to a mistake made here.
THEN
Simple Analytics
Co-founded the privacy-first analytics company. No cookies, no fingerprinting, no consent banner. Bootstrapped in public while most of the industry raised and burned.
2025
Same model, more companies
UniHosted and SignalBase join the registry alongside Simple Analytics. Same setup every time: an engineer who wants to build, me on the commercial side.
2026
Iron Holding formalized
The year of consequences: when the risks and life-changing decisions of last year unfold. One structure, a small registry of companies, nothing for sale.
2046
Scheduled check-in
If this page still exists and the companies on it are still running, the thesis held. See you then.
03FREQUENTLY ASKED
Straight answers
Q-01
Is this a venture fund?
No. There's no outside money here and never will be. I operate companies; I don't assemble portfolios for other people's returns.
Q-02
Do you invest in startups?
Today: rarely, quietly, and only in businesses that share the standard. Long term, that's exactly where this is going: founder-operator to capital allocator. If you're pre-revenue and pitching a deck, I'm not your audience. That's a compliment to your ambition, not an insult.
Q-03
Would you buy my company?
Possibly. If it's small, profitable, privacy-respecting, and you care where it ends up, read the intake specification and write me.
Q-04
Why the industrial theme?
Because it's accurate. Holding companies are infrastructure, not content. The most honest way to present one is a spec sheet. And "Iron" was already on the birth certificate.
Q-05
Are you hiring?
The holding is one person by design, and the companies hire rarely. But if you're an engineer with a product, that's not a job application. That's a partnership. Start here.
Q-06
How do I reach you?
Email works and gets read: iljbrands@gmail.com. Or use the contact form. You'll get a reply from me, not a pipeline.