Everyone brings his or her knowledge and experience with them, wants to learn from each other and can discuss everything in a familiar environment among like-minded people. The Social Entrepreneurship Course is very valuable for start-ups and seasoned entrepreneurs. Participants Iris van Beers and Jan Willem van Bokhorst look back on a successful first half of the program.
'I was informed of the Social Entrepreneurship Course and turned out to be eligible for a scholarship,' begins Jan Willem van Bokhorst, together with companion Remco Wagemakers owner of Oscar Circulair. 'After delving into it, it seemed very interesting to me. The program turned out to be in line with the phase our company is now in. A phase that involves many issues. Moreover, it seemed wise to us to look at the company from a greater distance.'
“The program fits in well with the phase our company is in now.”
Iris van Beers, owner of Mixblik together with her partner Esther van der Hoeven, also turned out to be eligible for a scholarship. 'We both come from the social sector, and both have experience with foundations such as Amnesty and Vluchtelingenwerk. But business experience, we have less. Our company is actually a washed-out project. However, at that time we were on the eve of a new phase and were looking for more tools to steer this in the right direction. We were just a year busy and ran into major issues about, for example, investment in machinery, business space and personnel. So the program came at exactly the right time for us.'
Deepen or not
Jan Willem: 'You often go through the parts with seven-mile boots. That's good. You will receive sufficient theoretical and practical information so that you can decide for yourself whether it is useful for your company and you want to delve further into it, or whether you put it aside.'
'I also find the intervision parts very fascinating. With other entrepreneurs, look at the problems that play out within your company and theirs, the reflection on them. It gives you some distance to your company and new insights and perspectives.'
'There are certainly already points with which I want and can continue within the company,' Jan Willem continues. 'We have further designed and completed our organization chart and the leadership team, partly with the knowledge of the course. In addition, we look at the staff hiring process differently, we have secured our mission a little more sharply in the organization and we will monitor and manage the impact even more concretely.'
'I have also encountered things in the program that I know we are going to apply, but only when the time is right for that. So we keep that knowledge in the barrel for a while, and it may help us to make informed decisions in the future.'
"A summary of all the problems you may encounter in the future."
Iris: 'The program is a summary of all the problems you may encounter in the future. All the knowledge you get now is too much to implement right away, and besides, a company and its entrepreneurs are not always ready for it. But everything I have learned and will still learn stays in my head and gives me more of a helicopter view, so that we make a well-informed choice at a decision moment.” For example, I learned a lot about the constructions you can make of a foundation and a bv side by side, and how you can record social goals and statutes of a bv. With that knowledge, we started looking at a new structure for our company.'
Less technical
'I expected it all to be a bit more technical,' Iris says. 'More of a business education, but the approach is a bit more global.
The program seemed useful to me, because I had never really thought about things like my leadership style or our corporate culture. Our corporate culture is largely built on the background of the women who work here. Nice to discover that we are quite unique in that.'
"Freedom to spar with each other in all openness and confidence."
On the half
Both Iris and Jan Willem are now halfway through the program, the sequel will be released this fall. Jan Willem: 'It's a fun group to work with and in the course of the program you get to know each other's business and the problems that your fellow entrepreneurs encounter. With some people I already see big changes. I look forward to further developments within our group.'
'You are not from the same city and are not in each other's waters,' Iris adds. 'That's very nice. I like the best part is the look into the kitchen of other companies. Those moments, those conversations, have a great added value in the program for me.'
'There is no one who wants anything from you,' concludes Jan Willem. 'No one in the group who wants to sell you anything, no one you want to sell anything to. That makes the interaction in the group very valuable. It gives more freedom to spar with each other in all openness and confidence.'