Joeri Tuijn
Founder & CEOAn engineer who sees solutions where others see impossibility.
Joeri has spent 27 years building things that weren't supposed to work. Not because he enjoys being contrarian (well, maybe a little bit), but because the problems worth solving are usually the ones everyone else has given up on.
He built Straightcurve from zero to $20M across seven countries. Not by following the playbook, but by reimagining what a garden edging system could be – then building the supply chain, manufacturing relationships, and distribution networks to make it real.
Along the way, he discovered something: the skills required to scale a manufacturing business globally are exactly the skills needed to tackle climate infrastructure. Supply chain mastery. Manufacturing partnerships. Quality control across continents. Building teams that execute.
So he pointed those skills at a bigger problem.
Housing accounts for 39% of global carbon emissions. Every conventional home built today locks in decades of carbon emissions and energy consumption. The construction industry knows this but pivoting is hard – because the alternatives seem too expensive, too complicated or too risky.
Joeri doesn't accept that framing. With Straightcurve, he proved you could scale circular manufacturing profitably. With Essier, he proved carbon-negative materials could compete with premium timber. With Elysium Living, he's proving you can build homes that actively heal the planet – at scale, at competitive prices, without subsidies.
- Build real businesses, not pitch decks
- Vertical integration where it matters most
- Long-term thinking over quarterly results
- Profit is fuel for mission, not the mission itself
What drives him: He doesn't consider himself a business owner any more than a parent considers themselves a child owner. He builds things, grows them, then hands them to people capable of carrying them forward. This isn't about him. It's about creating infrastructure that outlasts everyone involved.
People often ask if he's worried about the scale of what he's taking on. He's not. He's been solving "impossible" problems for three decades. The only difference now is the size of the problem matches the urgency of the crisis.
He's looking for believers, for those who've not given up. He's looking for talent, obsessed with what they do. People who see a problem and can't stop thinking about solutions. People who care more about what works than what's conventional. And most importantly, understanding we're all part of something bigger.
If that's you, keep reading.