Some founders build fast. Some listen well. Yannick Bierens (Courant '25) does both, and he helps the founders around him do the same.
A three-time founder, Yannick graduated from the Courant MS in Computing, Entrepreneurship and Innovation program last fall and joined NYU’s Startup Sprint this past January. Coming from a technical background, he arrived with a build-it-first, validate-later mindset. During the Sprint, that changed. Yannick quickly became a champion of the customer-centric approach the Leslie Entrepreneurial Institute instills in founders.
A community staple
Soon after the Sprint, Yannick became a fixture at the Leslie eLab and was selected for Antler’s fellowship. He became an unofficial Founder in Residence at both Antler and the Leslie Entrepreneurial Institute, and later an official one at the Institute. He guided first-time founders, spoke at events, and stepped in as a coach to support our team. Antler’s investment team came to appreciate him too, because he urged other founders to stop building and start talking to customers, so they’d know they were building the right thing.
When the venture didn’t hold up
Then Yannick’s own experiments and customer discovery showed that the problem he was solving wasn’t important enough to keep pursuing. He invalidated his venture. For most founders, that would be a reason to step back from starting something new for a while. Yannick isn’t like most founders.
He took the toolkit from his earlier ventures, plus the training and coaching he’d received through the Startup Sprint, and got to work on a new venture in insurance brokerage. Within weeks he was validating the problem with insurance-market customers, building a network, and shipping an MVP. That early validation, along with his resilience, quick learning, and strong instincts, earned him a place in NYU’s Summer Launchpad Accelerator, which accepts fewer than 3% of applicants. There he spent the summer building Binder, which makes it possible for any insurance broker to launch their own AI-native insurance agency.
A rare combination
A fail-fast attitude, real customer-centricity, natural curiosity, and a drive to lift up fellow founders are rare, especially among technical founders. That combination is why Yannick is the first recipient of the Max Stenbeck Founder of the Year award.
“Yannick Bierens, the first Max Stenbeck Founder of the Year, embodies Max’s enthusiasm for innovation, engaging teams of talent, and support for new ideas. We at the Max Stenbeck Charitable Fund are excited to see where he and his team take Binder and and to observe its impact on the insurance industry.”
— Max Stenbeck Charitable Fund
