I'm Tristan, 34 years old, with a background in test automation and software development. I've always enjoyed building systems, figuring things out and starting new projects. Most of that happened behind a computer, from programming and automation to websites and hardware.

Almost everything I enjoy doing happens behind a computer. For years that meant a lot of sitting, very little movement and days without much structure. I slept poorly, ate pizza, fries and other convenient food far too often, and on some days I barely went outside.

Eventually, that simply stopped fitting the kind of life I wanted to live. So I started fairly small. More consistent sleeping hours, better food, getting outside more often and gradually moving more. Running and strength training followed, and I started arranging my daily environment in a way that made movement easier.

Small changes gradually became a new routine.

Eventually I bought a sit-stand desk, followed later by a treadmill that fits underneath it. For someone who spends so much time behind a computer, that turned out to be a surprisingly practical combination. I could work, program or build a project while simply walking. Together with running, strength training, better food and paying more attention to sleep, my everyday life gradually became much more active and structured.

The further I went with it, the more I wanted to understand what I was actually doing. I started reading more about nutrition, training, sleep, recovery and what my body needed to sustain that kind of routine. That curiosity eventually led me into the world of biohacking, where people spend a lot of time looking at data, experimenting and exploring scientific ideas around everyday lifestyle.

One pleasant side effect was that by then I felt fitter and my days had a lot more structure. That also gave me more time and attention for something I had always enjoyed: building new projects.

Through the biohacking world, I was meanwhile coming across all kinds of products and topics that I wanted to explore further. EVOO, creatine and eventually high-flavanol cacao were some of them. Cacao in particular kept my attention. I started reading about flavanols, processing, composition and the surprisingly large differences between different cacao products.

Eventually I ordered high-flavanol cacao from the United States for myself and it became a product I enjoyed using as part of my morning routine. What also appealed to me was how concretely cacao could be compared through composition and laboratory values. That fitted rather well with my tendency to measure things, dig into the details and want to know exactly what is inside a product.

The more I read, the more interesting cacao became. I started learning how the cacao bean begins, why natural flavanol concentrations can differ between cacao, and how much the processing that follows can influence the final composition. Fermentation, drying, roasting and especially alkalisation can substantially change what remains in the finished cacao. I also learned how laboratories use techniques such as HPLC to separate and quantify individual compounds and flavanol fractions, including epicatechin, catechin and different procyanidins. Terms such as monomers, oligomers and DP1 through DP7-10 suddenly stopped being abstract laboratory language and became a way of understanding much more precisely what kind of cacao I was actually looking at.

There was only one practical problem: getting good high-flavanol cacao to Europe was incredibly expensive. The cacao itself was one thing, but international shipping and additional costs made small orders difficult to justify. When I discovered that other people in Europe were running into exactly the same problem, another project naturally started taking shape in my head.

That project became Mindkore.

I started buying high-flavanol cacao at a larger scale and importing it directly to the Netherlands. Like many of my projects, this one started fairly small. I figured out how the supply chain worked, arranged independent laboratory analysis, designed packaging, built a website and eventually processed the first orders myself.

To my surprise, more and more people specifically looking for high-flavanol cacao started finding the website. What began as a small side project gradually became a serious business. That also means Mindkore continues to professionalise, from laboratory analysis and batch documentation to logistics and food safety.

The idea behind Mindkore has remained fairly simple: make high-flavanol cacao easier to obtain in Europe, with clear product specifications, batch-specific laboratory results and as much transparency as possible about what is actually inside the package.

Of all the projects that have started behind my computer, I never expected this one to become quite so large. But perhaps that also fits Mindkore rather well: becoming curious about something, digging all the way into it and then wondering whether you can organise it better yourself.