He established the potato starch factory Eureka in Foxhol which laid the foundation of an industrial empire.

[1] He owned large plots of land in Drenthe for peat extraction, and was one of the founders of what would become the Holland America Line.

In Groningen, Scholten built the Scholtenhuis, a large residential house on the Grote Markt [nl], the main square, opposite the City Hall.

Using a loan from his future father-in-law, Scholten started a factory in Foxhol, because it was close to the potato fields, near a lake with clean water, and well connected to the outside world.

[7] In 1866, he crossed the border to build a factory in Hakenberg [de], Brandenburg, Germany,[8] and would continue into Austria-Hungary, and Congress Poland.

[2] The decision to open factories in other countries was mainly based on lower wages and the elimination of tariffs.

[15] In 1882, Scholten built a residential home on the Grote Markt [nl], the main square, opposite the City Hall.

[1] In 1872, Scholten had built Villa Gelria [nl] as his residential home on the outskirts of Groningen,[18] however he preferred a more central location befitting a man of his stature.

The owners were elderly, and Scholten patiently waited for their deaths, and acquired the houses from their heirs.

One month after the German invasion of the Netherlands, the widow of his son Jan Evert Scholten, was removed from the building, because the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the security service of the SS, had expropriated the Scholtenhuis as the headquarters for the Province of Groningen.