This week I formally kicked off for my ultimate corporate learning experience: the start of my own company. This milestone is set with the registration at the Chamber of Commerce today. In September 2007 we (me and two partners) will be in business with Atrivision. We will focus on the link between organisation, learning and technology delivering practical solutions for organisation. I will update you on the exact details of this new venture when we are in business in september. For this post I want to focus on the learning aspect of this excercise.

What struck me is the learning experience you go through setting up a company. And what surprised me (or maybe not) is how little of this is covered in formal education. I finalised my MBA just a year ago, but I must say you face a lot of new challenges they don’t cover in a business administration study. And, you learn to cope with them very rapidly in action. I ‘developed’ my own blended learning program on the fly with some formal workshops at the Chamber of Commerce. These covered issues like ‘How to set-up your financial administration’ and ‘Formulating general terms & conditions’. I added a lot of semi-formal learning reading books for specific knowledge and entrepreneurial inspiration. These ranged from a review of the Entrepreneurship module from my MBA (I faced a transfer issue regarding this knowledge following the course in 2006) via Million Dollar Consultancy to Purple Cow and ZAG. The Dutch book “En nu laat ik mijn baard staan” (”And now I am going to grow a beard”) also served as a source of inspiration. Besides this semi-formal part I found the informal part very helpful, consisting of several meetings with experts in accounting, tax, contracts and (venture) capital. Last but not least we are part of the TOP(Temporary Entrepreneurial Positions) programme of the University of Twente. This enables us to be part of a network of Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurs. And, this also gives us the opportunity to work with a scientific and business mentor. For the scientific part Prof.dr. Joseph Kessels will be our mentor and we already had an inspiring meeting with him. His book on HRD in the Knowledge Economy will serve as a guide for defining the value proposition of Atrivision. In addition to all this we also will have our offices at the Knowledge Park just opposite to the Campus. I am therefore thrilled by the idea that the learning will continue at full throttle in the upcoming months. We have established a learning ecology or social network that will be a sound basis for informal learning.

I am confident that we are going to be successful with our new company. But if not, then at least we had a wonderful learning experience that will stay with us for life. For everyone looking for a course or study to follow, I can recommend setting up your own company. Or you can join Atrivision, since we will be an entrepreneurial network organisation willing to share learning with you!

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