Dennis Goedegebuure, Author at Dennis Goedegebuure

𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗙𝗲𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 2025

By Dennis Goedegebuure

𝗟𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗱𝗮𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝗙𝗲𝗯𝗿𝘂𝗮𝗿𝘆 🗓️🗓️🗓️

what is your perspective on the rest of the year?

With 1/6 of the year done, ask yourself:

👉 Am I on track to accomplish my 2025 goals

👉 Where doo i need to focus

👉 What did I learn

In February;

✅ Cleaned out the garage

✅ Interim coach of my sons hockey team

✅ Visited the Escher exposition in the palace

✅ Created a 30-day personal plan

❌ Finalized tax filings

❌ Start to read a book

So many things, so little time.

It goes fast, don’t waste it!

LET’S GO!

🚀🚀🚀

🔔🔔🔔This is 𝚢̲𝚘̲𝚞̲𝚛̲ reminder: 𝗙𝗲𝗯 𝟭 🔔🔔🔔

We are one month into 2025. While spring flowers are appearing, it’s time to reflect on month 1 of the year.

• How much time did you spent with your loved ones
• Do you balance all the balls you keep in the air
• Are you on track with your plans
• What went right/wrong in January
• Did you meet your goals
• Plan for the coming month

Set up a system for regular check in & reflection.
With every curve ball life throws at you, it’s easy to get distracted and derailed.

The end of every month is a 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱𝘂𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸 𝗶𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳.

Do it, and adjust.

LET’S GO!
🚀🚀🚀

Career Break – Enjoying the sabbatical

By Dennis Goedegebuure

After dedicating 22 years to my career, I’m excited to announce that I’ll be taking a sabbatical to focus on my family and personal goals. Over the next 2-3 months, I’ll be taking a break to spend quality time with my loved ones, finish my taxes, organize my home & work in the garden, and prioritize my health and fitness goals. Additionally, I’ll be learning new things, specifically AI.

During this time, I’m open to discussing advisory roles and consulting for interim positions. I’m eager to build new relationships and connect with individuals who could benefit from my skillset and expertise. Please don’t hesitate to let me know if you or anyone in your network would be interested in discussing potential opportunities.

Looking forward to this new chapter and the exciting opportunities it may bring!
My deep gratitude to all I’ve worked with over the past 22 years, and the companies which have been generous I’ve been able to make this happen.

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.
LET’S GO!

Isolation while Working from Home

By Dennis Goedegebuure

This is Cooper, a 2.5 year old CockerPoo. A CockerPoo is a mix of a Cocker Spaniel and a Poodle. Smart but at teh same time very energetic. This dog in particular needs a lot of love. Early mornings he comes to the side of my bed to see if I’m awake yet. The whole day, he wants to be close to me, and lays at my feet while I work from home.

In his world, I’m his best friend. He has not a lot of other people in his world. His big brother Auggie sometimes gets annoyed with him, as Cooper always wants to get all the attention. If I call Auggie to hug him, Cooper desperately comes to seek attention.

Cooper sits in the window, waiting for the rest of the family to get home. Our 4 kids love him, but Cooper would like them to play more often with him.

As the kids are busy with friends, sports and homework, sometimes Cooper gets bored. On his morning walk, he is able to socialize with other dogs in the park.

The world of Cooper is limited to the home he knows.

Working from Home since Covid

Since the outbreak of the Covid, I’ve been working from home. First it was mandatory, while we were dealing with all the lock downs. The last 2.5 years, in new job in The Netherlands, it was practically the only option.

Working from Home makes your world smaller. I have missed the office culture, the small talk over a coffee or lunch with other smart people around. While working from home, every chat or meeting is a video call in an outlook invite. It’s just not the same speaking to a face on a screen over a Teams meeting.

One of the biggest advantages working in an office environment, is having the ability to jump in a meeting room with a white board to discuss an idea or open issue. You get to a resolution or decision very quickly, while having dedicated time for small talk too build a company culture.

Happy New Year 2024

In the New year, I want to go back to a more personal interaction working model. Somewhere where I can find inspiration, share jokes and stories about life, complain about the weather or get the latest Netflix recommendation, which I will never be able to watch.

Cooper will be sad if I return to a day-to-day out of the home working habit. At the same time, I will be extgra happy to return home and cuddle with this love bug.

LET’S GO 2024!

What’s Next? Which PEAK to Climb?

By Dennis Goedegebuure

The next step in my journey, what we call career, is that back in February this year, I’ve joined Peak Capital as an entrepreneur in residence, where I will be working with the portfolio companies of Peak on growth marketing.

Two years ago, I met with Johan van Mil in a Starbucks next to the Fanatics office. While catching up over coffee, we discussed our long term plan to move back to Europe, eventually. Little did we know due to Covid-19, the Goedegebuure family accelerated this plan in 2020. Johan and I go way back, from my time in The Netherlands working for eBay. Back then, I was a customer of his email marketing agency. The relationships you built over the course of your career can be invaluable for future steps.

The first month with Peak has been filled with learning the VC investment work. There is a two way street of sharing, where my expertise and skills are welcomed by the teams, while I learn what questions are asked to potential startups to invest in.

The companies I’ve met so far, are really interesting from a growth perspective and filled with super smart people. Not the scale I’ve worked on in my past, but with a higher growth rate than a PayPal for instance. For me it’s interesting to get a peak in the kitchen how the teams in companies like Studocu, Precisely, Hello Customer, Storychief, Mibo, Trengo or Creative Fabrica are working on the future.

While I’m working on my own next step, the two days working with the Peak Capital team, and the portfolio companies, allows me to build new relationships and refresh my Dutch online network. Many thanks to both Johan, Stefan and the rest of the Peak Capital team for the warm welcome.

Life is a Journey, Not a Destination

By Dennis Goedegebuure

It’s been quite the adventure, and on this wild ride we call life, our next journey has started; we have made a family decision to move back to The Netherlands. Fifteen years, four kids, five jobs, and six different houses, never a dull moment in our lives!

A year working from home, a year home schooling, a year shelter in place, a year of 24/7/365 being within the same family. Even as we all love each other so much, it has taken its toll. We desperately want to get out of the house, see other people, be around family & friends. It has made us painfully aware we literally live at the other side of the world from our family and friends. Due to Covid-19, the kids couldn’t travel back over the summer to see their grandparents, something we have done almost every year we lived in California.

It’s been 15 years since we entered the US. Back in 2006, I was working for eBay, transferring from a job in Amsterdam to a job in San Jose California. Since then, I had jobs at Geeknet, Airbnb, Fanatics and recently at PayPal. At the end of last year, I finished with my job at PayPal. We have taken the time to manage this difficult move. Any cross-continental move is difficult, let alone in the middle of a global pandemic, with 4 kids homeschooling and a dog, while interviewing for a new opportunity back in Europe.

Since we made this decision to move back last year in July, we made a lot of stressful and sometimes painful decisions. But these decisions keep life interesting, and most important; allow us to understand how blessed we are. We are lucky because we have the option in life to move countries and continents. We have been very careful to make sure we keep our health, which we did so far.

We are leaving many friends behind in the US, but fortunately, thanks to the online connectivity and our experience of a full year of video calls for work and pleasure, I’m confident we will keep in touch with all the people I so much have missed over the last 12 months.

I will be looking forward to welcome my US friends at our Netherlands address as soon as Covid-19 allows travel corridors to open up again, and we have managed through this whole process.