Peter Hinssen - The Day After Tomorrow: How to Survive in Times of Radical Innovation

INTRODUCTION:

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

Live in the Future, then build whats missing.

PAUL GRAHAM

My grandfather was an entrepreneur. During the Second World War, he raised a family in the Netherlands, where he endured five long years of German occupation. Especially the final winter, known as the Hunger Winter, was incredibly tough on the young family, as blockades cut off food and fuel shipments from farm areas, and millions of Dutch people had to survive on food kitchens.

After the war, my grandfather who was mechanically extremely gifted started a firm repairing failing equipment for farmers who had been unable to invest in their tractors and harvesters during the war. Soon he realized that Belgian farmers had suffered less than the Dutch ones and he moved his entire family to the neighboring country to start his business.

In true entrepreneurial spirit, he expanded into a wide variety of endeavors. He started a garage, sold tractors, built sheds and storage facilities, and launched a bus company that organized tours around Europe. One of his killer ideas was organizing inspiration tours to the holy city of Lourdes, taking busloads of Catholics on a journey to a remote village in the Pyrenean mountains, where the holy mother had apparently once materialized in front of Bernadette Soubirous. It was a goldmine.

His son, my father, was the brainy kid in a family of five children. The designated nerd, he was put in charge of fathers business accounting when he was only 14, because he had a real knack for mathematics. Thats when my father started to realize that my grandfather was constantly on the brink of bankruptcy. He noticed the serious cash flow issues, and knew that the repo-man could seize the family house and its assets any day. It never happened, the business of my grandfather pulled through in the end, but it left an emotional scar on my father. He swore he would never do anything that would put his family in financial danger, and vowed he would never take such foolish entrepreneurial risks. When he graduated as an engineer, he started a safe corporate career at Exxon where he worked his entire life.

Growing up, I remember my father coming home exhausted from meetings. As the years ticked by, I saw him become increasingly frustrated by bureaucracy and corporate politics. I listened as he told discouraging tales about an insane amount of incompetence and inefficiency in such a large, red-tape organization.

Thats when I swore I would never, ever, work in a large corporation.

We all turn into our parents someday. Thats what they say (although Ive never quite figured out who the they are). Well I, for one, didnt. I turned into my grandparent and became an entrepreneur. My entire career has been centered on the startup life. Ever since I was a little boy, growing up in a world where technology was rapidly becoming commonplace, I knew I wanted to start things up myself. I dreamt of creating my own companies, and of building new exciting opportunities.

So. A life of startups it has been. Ive had the extreme pleasure to be the founder of three technology startups early on in my career. And they were nothing like the hip, exciting and glamorous tales of entrepreneurship some will have you believe. Oh, there was excitement, and lots of it, but not the safe kind that is offered by a rollercoaster ride or bungee jumping.