May 19

Well, things are moving quickly now....

Yesterday, the 18th, we met with Koert-Jan de Weert to talk about investers. Of course he couldn't promise anything, but he was very positive. He's going to take our plan around to his circle of contacts and see what he can put together -- and perhaps he can even get more investers than we are seeking, so that we can borrow less from a bank.

He explained the advantages of working with investers this way: a bank is an institution that in general brings you an umbrella when the sun is shining, and takes it away when it starts to rain. But an invester (if you hook up with the right kind) is usually someone in their later years, who made a lot of money as an entrepreneur, and would like to use their savings to help new entrepreneurs. Especially now, when the alternative is to invest their savings in stocks and banks that are almost completely removed from the actual person or business they are supporting. If we could connect with this sort of invester, he or she would probably be someone who is personally excited about our vision, someone who would drop by regularly to see how it's going, offer encouragement and advice, talk up our project among his or her friends.... In short, it sounded totally in keeping with our way of thinking and working.

Koert-Jan also explained a little how investment contracts work. Banking laws prohibit investers in the Netherlands from lending money to someone for more than a year -- if you do that, then you are acting like a bank and cutting into their business. So companies like Koert-Jan's have set up ways to work around this, so that the loan is called something else. The invester gets a sort-of share in the project, which we can later buy back from the invester. The result is that we can be more relaxed -- the invester (being a former entrepreneur himself or herself) knows that the first years can be slow, and they are looking at the long-term. When it rains, metaphorically, they won't come pounding at the door demanding their payments, but will come with a hammer and nails to help secure the roof.

In short, a very positive and eye-opening experience. Before talking with Koert-Jan, I had the impression that investers were mostly worse than banks -- that in general they demand their money back more quickly, with higher interest, and are more likely to want to take over your show and run it the way they see fit. I'm glad to learn this is just a negative stereotype! (with perhaps some basis in truth -- I'm sure there are investers like that, as well.)

So, after talking with Koert-Jan, I made the last changes to the business plan, added our resumes and scans of the floorplans at the end, and sent it off to him electronically to take around to his millionaire friends. He doesn't have time until the end of this week, so I'm hoping maybe early next week we'll have some preliminary reactions from him....

Meanwhile, I had contact with someone at Triodos (after playing a lot of phone tag and message forwarding, to get to the right person for our project) and sent her the electronic version of the plan as well. She'll review it and get back to us in a few days to make an appointment.

And Wednesday (tomorrow) we go to the Rabobank, whose representative has been reviewing the plan since last Thursday.

I've told people at the shop that I definitely want to stop (even though I don't know for sure what will happen in Bunnik) and we're getting ready to tell our landlord that we are definitely going to move....

Saturday I turn 45, and we're going to have a party for friends and family in the garden (it is supposed to be beautiful weather -- I need to get out and do some work on the flower beds....)

And next week Tuesday I have an appointment with the local midwife. It seems that I am 10 weeks pregnant (and I thought I was just pre-menopausal....)

Life sure is interesting.