95. Seeing opportunities and acting on them

Dear Gerard

It is wonderful to see you have transferred your enthusiasm to your staff, this is how the personal can create success. It must be said that in certain sectors, it is almost impossible to survive and innovation can sometimes be very difficult. For example, media, in particular sub-sectors such as printing companies. Here, it can be very difficult to make a profit after expensive investments in assets such as printing presses. It is easy to say that you should cut expensive and older staff. Redundancies lead to major social problems. This means that you, as an entrepreneur, have to deal with possible consequences if your company is not as successful as expected. Everyone has to realize this and therefore we need to ensure proper training and continue investing in new developments. As an employer, you should encourage your people to develop further.But even then it is difficult to anticipate changes. Look at a company like TMG (Telegraaf Group), owner of the most widely read newspaper in the Netherlands. It invested early in a successful social media product, Hyves, which was the forerunner in the Netherlands of Facebook. Millions of, mostly, young people were active on Hyves. The prospects were great until Facebook came along and the young deserted on mass to the new medium. The large investment in Hyves has now been downgraded to almost zero. All attempts by TMG management to find a new strategy have until now been unsuccessful.

At the beginning of the year, a relative of mine came to me with a solid business plan in the soft commodity sector. The plan looked perfect in detail. The market is based in a number of countries where the product comes from and there are seven major worldwide players, which are the customers for these products. The market has consolidated in recent years and some trading houses have been taken over. Demand for the product grew in the US, Europe, Russia and China. The question for me was whether I knew investors who would believe in the business and would want to invest. The company’s founders were experienced and had a good network in the industry. I detailed the areas in which the plan had to be adjusted and, in particular, the entrepreneurial spirit which was needed. I think that the entrepreneurial atmosphere of a new company at all levels has to be the starting point to allow it to be distinctive. In addition, I considered that a strategic partner had to be found to obtain funding. The 2^nd candidate we invited was positive about the project. This entrepreneur had sold a large part of his company and was looking for a new challenge, especially in the market of soft commodities. A number of factors were very important as regards finding the right investor: the party must see the opportunities and must be able to provide finance when needed. The company was founded and is about to make its first deals. The knowledge and expertise were well developed. The future will tell whether the company will be successful. I am confident that the company will succeed and will be a fine example of a beautiful Dutch initiative.

Sincerely,

Jan Stam