How Directfloor Founder Reda Tabaouni Turned Overloaded Vans Into an E-Commerce Empire

How Dutch entrepreneur Reda Tabaouni turned a school project into Directfloor, setting a national trend for online home renovation sales.

ALMERE, FLEVOLAND, NETHERLANDS, October 4, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- From Classroom Project to €3–4 Million in Annual Revenue: The Story Behind Directfloor

Founder Reda Tabaouni once delivered flooring himself across the Netherlands. Today, the Almere business employs 26 people.

Directfloor, the flooring business Reda Tabaouni started as a classroom project, now reports annual revenue of €3 million to €4 million and employs 26 people. Behind those figures is a founder who spent the company’s early years loading vehicles, answering customers and personally delivering floors across the Netherlands.

Tabaouni, Directfloor’s founder and CEO, says he covered hundreds of thousands of kilometres bringing laminate and PVC flooring to customers from Groningen to Limburg. For a long time, selling a floor online meant getting behind the wheel himself.

That approach helped him understand his customers. It also created a problem: as more orders arrived, the business became increasingly dependent on the time and physical capacity of one person.

“At the beginning, I did whatever needed doing,” Tabaouni said. “If a floor had to be delivered, I delivered it. You are happy when another order comes in, but eventually you have to ask whether the way you work can keep up.”

The limits became apparent on the road. Tabaouni obtained a Category C truck driving licence as transport requirements increased. According to his account, repeated vehicle overloading violations ultimately resulted in a conditional driving ban.

The experience became a turning point. Continuing to grow required a different approach to transport and a different role for the founder.

It also challenged an assumption that had shaped the early business: that working harder and taking on more tasks personally would always be enough.

Tabaouni began shifting his attention from individual deliveries to the organisation behind them. The website, customer communication, marketing and order handling became central to his work. The challenge was to build a company that could fulfil its promises without relying on him to complete every journey.

The customer lessons from those journeys remained useful.

Flooring is a substantial purchase that buyers expect to live with for years. Customers wanted to know how colours would look in their rooms, how surfaces would feel and what else they needed before installation. Product photographs could answer only some of those questions.

Tabaouni personally covered sample shipping costs during the early stages, allowing customers to inspect materials at home before placing larger orders. The expense came before any guarantee of a sale, but helped address the uncertainty of buying flooring online.

“Standing at someone’s front door gives you a different understanding of a sale,” he said. “There is a renovation schedule, a room they want finished and a decision they may have spent weeks thinking about. The order matters to them long after the payment goes through.”

Today, Directfloor combines an online store with a showroom at Karperweg 14 in Almere. Its range includes laminate, PVC flooring and related interior products.

Customers can browse and compare products online, request samples or visit the showroom to see materials in person. They can also discuss preparation, underfloors, finishing and installation before deciding what to buy.

For Tabaouni, the showroom and website reflect different ways customers make the same decision. Some know exactly what they need. Others want to compare several options or ask questions before committing.

With 26 employees, the company now operates on a different scale from its early delivery rounds. Directfloor says it reinvests more than €8,000 each month in digital marketing across Google advertising and social channels.

Its next phase includes expanding activity on Snapchat. Through his personal account, @redaceo, Tabaouni plans to share everyday moments from the business, products and experiences from building the company.

The larger task remains familiar: making sure the operation behind the website keeps pace with the orders it attracts.

Directfloor’s development gives that challenge a concrete shape. A classroom idea became a business reporting millions in annual revenue, but the transition depended on its founder recognising that doing everything himself had become a limit.

About Directfloor

Directfloor is a flooring specialist based in Almere, Netherlands. The company employs 26 people and reports annual revenue of €3 million to €4 million. It offers laminate, PVC flooring and related interior products through its online store and showroom at Karperweg 14.

Tabaouni is available for interviews about building Directfloor, the costs and practical challenges of online retail, and the shift from personally delivering orders to running a business with 26 employees today.

Media Contact

Reda Tabaouni
Founder & CEO, Directfloor
Website: https://directfloor.nl
Snapchat: @redaceo
X: https://x.com/RedaDFE

Reda Tabaouni
Directfloor
+ +31 36 234 0300
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