In this student entrepreneur Daan Schoofs tells how he started “DUODEKA” with Dion Duimel, Joseph Rousseau, Koen Lavrijssen, Rik van de Looi and Wouter van Ooijen. This interview is has been conducted in collaboration with Starterslift Tilburg, the center of Tilburg University for entrepreneurial students with talent and ambition.
Could you briefly describe what the business involves and what it is trying to achieve?
Letting everyone benefit from the possibilities of IT. That is DUODEKA’s mission. We work intensively with partners to develop and market IT products focusing on the business perspective. We align IT and business with the single purpose of improving business performance.
DUODEKA is a cooperative consisting of a group of young Serial Entrepreneurs specialized in PHP and JavaScript development. Through the combination of entrepreneurship and development we can focus on Agile Venturing and software development. Making small, smart investments, in recurring loops, to find a suitable solution as quickly as possible.
When did you come up with the idea of starting your own business?
Although I was always entrepreneurial during my studies, I was never an entrepreneur. Towards my graduation, after collecting research data in Jakarta and during the application processes for jobs, it occurred to me that I was in need of the kind of freedom in which I could fully focus on what I think is important. That’s when I started to teach myself programming and began thinking about building my own business.
What made you make the first step to start for yourself?
Once I decided that I wanted to start my own business, I was convinced that if I started small and surrounded myself with existing entrepreneurs, great opportunities would come by. In the Starterslift incubator I met the guys with whom we started DUODEKA.
Can owning and running a business be combined easily with your studies?
The starting and development of an organization requires continuous attention. The combination of a study and a business is challenging, as it creates a huge drain on your resources. You will simply have less FTE available.
What is the most important thing you have learned while working on DUODEKA and cannot be learned during an education?
The value of ‘just starting’. In the university world we are taught to reason extensively. This, however, overlooks the fact that having a business is mainly about doing and that contacting customer groups as soon as possible provides the most valuable insights.
What skills have you gained during your education which you are now using in your daily activities as an entrepreneur?
Entrepreneuring in IT is not exactly what you are taught during the study Public Administration at Tilburg University. Still, the focus of Public Administration on structures, processes and regulations has helped me on a daily base in building our organization. Extra-curricular activities have helped me to build competencies in project and team management as well as strategy development. This skill set is indispensable if you want to change a group of people into an organization.
How do you see the future of the company?
DUODEKA is a platform for (young) technical entrepreneurs in which everyone deserves his own spotlight. With that focus, we will expand and roll out our organization internationally. DUODEKA is an environment within which we continuously seek new opportunities for IT Ventures. By focusing on our entrepreneurial and commercial background, we will increasingly help benefit organizations from the potential of IT.
Finally, what would you like to say to students who are also planning to start their own business?
“Stop planning, just start.”
