Hi Gerard,

Sometimes we do not seem to be so alike. I had big dreams when I was a teenager while practicing with a tennis racket at home against the walls of my bedroom working on my volleys. I was playing the quarterfinal at Wimbledon against the defensive Björn Borg. But when I once played tennis against you to win a large glass of yogurt with fruit and then lost, I knew that this dream was not feasible. (more…)

Dear Erik

A couple of hours ago, I was on the observation deck of the new World Trade Center in New York City on the 102^nd floor. The view is breathtaking. Five days before, I was at a 2.5 day training by Kevin Billett in a ski resort – Predeal, Romania (http://www.thejourney.com/seminars-schedule/main-track-events/manifest-abundance/). The subject of the training was Manifesting Abundance. When observing New York from the observation deck, it became clear to me how magnificent abundance can be. (more…)

Gerard,

I guess you are the type of Dutchman who looks but doesn’t buy, or rather you bought the company but you didn’t pay anything out of your own pocket. Of course, you will pay eventually from future profits. We have two components to our plan. The first is still an upfront amount, the second is a series of future benefits depending on the result from their customer groups. We are now entering the next phase of talks. Everyone is excited and we are surrounded with good advisors. We are in competition with other buyers, but everyone knows that our company and the selling party are the best fit together for the future. This is because we have commercial synergy effects, particularly on the cost side. (more…)

Dear Erik,

In February of this year, we bought a recruitment agency in the Czech Republic with offices in Prague and Brno (GIT), which specializes in the IT industry. And, nine months later, I can say that this was a great decision. The entire team at GIT are really nice and highly competent and the results are good. (more…)

Hi Gerard,

Small companies exploit and large enterprises explore. That is basically in a nutshell what we wrote about in recent columns. We both have more or less small companies, but we have the ambition to explore. And then we see all sorts of obstacles. But now we have found a solution, no matter how simple it may seem. I think we have written before about organic growth or growth through partnerships, mergers and acquisitions. Now, I am in the middle of such a process of merger and acquisition. Not to sell but to buy, to bring the future forward in this manner. (more…)

Dear Erik,

I’ve been trying to solve what you describe all my entrepreneurial life: how to develop and integrate new ideas into our existing business. Often I experienced problems after the implementation of a new idea during the execution. At first there is excitement about a new project, but when it develops slowly and more and more time must be spent on it, enthusiasm wanes quickly. Normal work continues and after a few weeks or months, no-one is talking about the new project anymore. (more…)