30Under30 Nominee: Luc Maas

Great to hear from 30 Under 30 Nominee Luc Maas who co-founded Tellet, the AI-driven insights company that helps the world’s largest organisations understand people better by combining the depth of interviews with the scale of surveys.

How did you get into the industry and reach this point?

I’m the co-founder of Tellet. It actually started with a very personal idea. I noticed that when someone passes away, often all that’s left is a photo album, which doesn’t really capture their stories. Together with my co-founders, we built an AI interviewer that could record the memories of your loved ones and turn them into a book or podcast. A way to unfold someone’s life in their own words.

Along the way, we met a market researcher who completely reframed how we thought about this. We realised that the same technology that helped families preserve memories could also help companies deeply understand their customers. That insight pulled me into the world of insights and I’ve been building in that space ever since.

Why should someone consider a career in market research, data and insights?

Because at its heart, it’s about people. If you’re curious about how people think, what drives their choices and how the world works from different perspectives, this is the place to be. I’ve always been someone who asks more questions than I answer and market research rewards that. You get to turn curiosity into clarity and that’s a powerful thing.

Career paths are rarely without challenges. Can you share a moment from your career when things didn’t go to plan, but the lessons learned remain with you to this day?

Before founding Tellet, I worked in venture capital. It was fast paced and very financially driven, but I quickly realised I didn’t see myself in that world long term. I remember sitting with a career coach who asked me the classic “where do you want to be in five years?” and I honestly couldn’t answer. I could picture myself sailing around the Caribbean, working on Wall Street or starting a farm in Romania. That uncertainty felt like failure at the time.

What helped me was a very different kind of coach, an 80-year-old life coach/therapist named Ute who lives in the east of the Netherlands, about an hour away from Amsterdam. She helped me see that the point wasn’t to know every step ahead; it was to commit to what felt meaningful right now. For me that was building something from scratch. Choosing entrepreneurship and starting Tellet turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made.

What two things should junior researchers focus on as they progress in their careers?

First, learn how to work with AI rather than against it. It’s going to shape our industry more than anything else in the coming years. If you can creatively apply AI to your work, you’ll always be ahead.

Second, don’t underestimate storytelling. Data and insights don’t mean much unless you can bring them to life in a way that inspires action. That bridge between numbers and people is where real impact lies.

Do you have any advice for our sector?

I think we need to embrace a bit less modesty about what we do. Research isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s the foundation of business decisions. Without understanding people, no product or company can succeed. In the coming AI era, a lot of consultancy and strategy work will be automated. Insights professionals will be the ones who: make sure companies stay human; interpret the trends; and bridge the gap between data and people. That’s not a side role. I’m convinced that this industry will grow and will be even more central to the future of business.

Is there anyone who has helped or supported you in your career who you’d like to acknowledge or thank?

I’d like to thank my team at Tellet, because building a company is never a solo act. Also, a funny one, in my very first year working in this space, someone at an event casually explained to me what Ipsos was. I was a bit shaken that I had never heard of it even though it’s one of the biggest firms in the industry. That moment was humbling and I’ve been catching up fast ever since. So, I’d also like to thank him.