Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

Made it to Techcrunch with the Virgle.com domain: “Virgle.com - how Google and Virgin forgot a domain“. I wonder how this story will develop. Will post updates here.

UPDATE: Virgle&Google ‘not amused’ with Techcrunch coverage. Caspar Wenckebach steps in to prevent me from saying stupid things.

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A few weeks ago I spent a few hours shoeshining (Story and Photos) at the New Tailor shop in Amsterdam. This Friday we are going to repeat the same event but we will start at 4pm and have some drinks with it too.

If you want to join us just leave a comment here so we know how much champagne to buy! And, free shoeshines by me for everyone!

Dutch Invitation:

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten komt schoenen poetsen

In navolging van de eerdere succesvole zaterdagochtendsessies kunt u aanstaande vrijdag 11 april van 16.30-19.00 uur kennismaken met en uw schoenen laten poetsen door Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, serial entrepreneur van ondermeer thenextweb.org, fleck.com en in het verleden V3 Redirect Services en HubHop. Onder het genot van goede espresso, de lekkerste taartjes en een glas champagne vertelt hij graag over zijn successen, flops en zijn voorliefde voor maatpakken van New Tailor. Laat u inspireren en kom langs!

De Amsterdamse vestiging aan de Honthorststraat 2a, tussen de Paulus Potter- en de PC Hooftstraat heeft die ochtend specifieke stoffen van alle Boris pakken voorhanden. Boris staat bekend om zijn gepoetste schoenen, witte hemden en flamboyante maar altijd geklede driedelige ruitpakken.

Boris: “Net als ieder ander heb ik een hekel aan netwerken. Dat schichtige geleur met je visitekaartje op een avond waar de meeste aanwezigen zich het liefst verstoppen achter een glas bier. Terwijl je koortsachtig probeert uit te vinden wat je in godsnaam aan iemand hebt dreunt diegene zijn standaard verhaal voor je af waarna je hopelijk zelf ook even mag. Helaas merk je na 3 seconden al dat je netwerkpartner ongeduldig over je schouder kijkt op zoek naar de volgende netwerk opportunity. Netwerken is net werken.

Me @ work:

Dutch social network received a large investment yesterday. They couldn’t find the founders so the Dutch evening news decided to visit The Next Web Conference and ask a few influential Internet experts their opinion. Guess who they found… ;-)

Good NOS quality version:

Lousy quality Youtube version:

This Thursday we are hosting the first Dutch Bowlr competition. A lot of teams have been training for this event and we heard that people really look forward Thursday. The Twitter All Star Team has just posted a promotion video for our event which is simply hilarious. It starts a lot of well known Dutch twitter celebrities and details from a Twitter All Star Team training session.

The members in the Twitter All Star Team are indentified not by name but only by Twitter username: @Dutchcowboy, @Frankmeeuwsen, @Jimstolze, @Marjolijn, @Markies, @Marlooz, @Mathys and @Tonwesseling.

They also announced that they will cover the event live on Twitter and with photos via MobyPicture.

Watch the video here: http://www.vimeo.com/641606

As of February 2 I will be a professional shoeshiner. That is correct. I will be shining shoes. I am following in the footsteps of James Brown, Alejandro Toledo and Malcolm X and millions of other shoeshiners. I have updated my LinkedIn profile to reflect my new profession too.

You can read the whole story here on the New Tailor blog, in Dutch:
http://newtailor.nl/blog/

What it comes down to: I don’t like ‘networking’ much more than anybody out there. I talked about this with the founder of New Tailor (who happens to make my suits) and I told him he had an excellent network of clients who I would love to meet. We also agreed that a regular networking meeting would be boring. I suggested that everybody hates to shine his shoes, maybe even more than networking, and offered to do that during a monthly meeting. While I shine shoes I will be able to talk to interesting people and I assume that shining someone’s shoes makes a bigger impression that just handing our business-cards.

So now it is official. I’m shining shoes.

I hope to see you on Saturday, February 2 between 10 and 12 at new Tailor in the Honthorststraat 2a (between the Paulus Potter- and the PC Hooftstraat) in Amsterdam. I will only do one pair per person and you will have to wear the shoes.

Hope to see you there!

Dutch weblog Hyped has a very funny article about the fact that I am regularly featured in Dutch magazine Quote. They argue that I must know people at Quote (I do) to be mentioned that often in the magazine. Well, it is true that my name came up a few times in Quote magazine but not nearly enough make a fuss about.

More interestingly they say that I have been an important contributor to their latest ‘business babes’ edition having tipped most of the women in that issue. Unfortunately that isn’t true at all. I do know a lot of women (and men) in the industry but Quote doesn’t need me to find them.

Anyway, here is the article, in Dutch:
Internetondernemer Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten informant Quote? - Hyped.nl