In 1921, his luck began to change when a group of businessmen founded the N.V. Nationale Vliegtuig Industrie ("National Aircraft Industry, Incorporated"), and hired him as their chief designer.
For its first five years, 1925 to 1930, the company managed to stay afloat by making one-off purpose-built airplanes to order, slowly branching out into the private aircraft sector and trying to break into the military market.