ICT Entrepreneurs in the Netherlands Learn How to Turn Their Innovations into a Successful Business

On February 15, ACT hosted an Innovators Network event in Groningen (Netherlands) entitled “Turning your Innovations into a Successful Business”.  ACT organized this event together with the ICT Platform Noord, a public-private partnership that aims to stimulate the ICT sector in the North of the Netherlands. 

It was a busy agenda, including an informal get-together of entrepreneurs, VCs, lawyers and biz consultants to kick off the event and a networking happy hour in the evening.  However, the most important part of the day was the two-hour seminar on How to Turn Your Innovations into a Successful Business.   

Speakers at the seminar, which drew a large crowd of over 80 people, were Jonathan Zuck, President of ACT, André Carter, President of consulting firm Irimi Corp. and author of a book on innovation, Koen Konings, an IP lawyer with local law firm Dorhout Advocaten, and Cees Jan Koomen, founder of venture capital fund Point One.  The event was covered by lots of different Dutch ICT publications, including Computable and Emerce.

Both Jonathan and André emphasized the similarity of the challenges faced by SMEs in the U.S. and Europe. Small tech firms on both sides of the Atlantic have to deal with laws and regulations that affect them, find ways to raise money and just generally learn how to run a business.  As Jonathan pointed out, the Innovators Network was founded to help ICT entrepreneurs address these challenges.   

André also highlighted the importance of intellectual property to small firms, saying that “identifying and protecting IP is part of being a successful SME”.  He also reminded the many entrepreneurs in attendance that IP only translates into profit if a firm has taken care to protect it.  As André said during his presentation, many SMEs unfortunately don’t seem to be aware of this.  In fact, regular studies published by the U.S. Small Business Administration show that even though small firms produce far more IP than bigger firms, they are still much worse than their larger competitors at capturing it and benefiting from it. 

The next speaker, IP laywer Koen, gave a great presentation on the different types of intellectual property and how to protect them.  To conclude the seminar, Cees Jan, who is from the Netherlands originally but has spent a good part of his career in Silicon Valley, shared his experiences regarding the differences in business culture between Europe and the United States, and urged European entrepreneurs to support each other like innovators in Silicon Valley do.  He also suggested that Europeans have to become more comfortable with seeing inventive entrepreneurs get rich through their innovations.   

At the networking happy hour that followed the seminar, we got lots of positive feedback from the attendees, with many asking us to come back to the Netherlands soon.  We certainly enjoyed meeting the local ICT community and had a great time hearing about the many exciting business ideas that entrepreneurs in the Netherlands have. 

We want to thank everybody who came to the seminar, with an especially big thanks going out to Jan Hut of the ICT Platform Noord and Rix Groenboom of Parasoft, the two local Innovators Network members who helped to plan this great event and did an excellent job organizing everything on the ground. 

A video of the event can be found here.

Photos can be found here.