One Year of Red Tulip Systems

This post originally appeared on LinkedIn.

When Josh and I founded Red Tulip Systems a year ago today, we knew that we were embarking on something big. What we didn’t consider was that every year the entire country would erupt with our eponymous namesake to remind us of what a great decision we made!

Amsterdam and the Netherlands have been incredible hosts, providing access in so many forms: access to talent, capital, innovation centers like The Hague Security Delta, travel links, and lightning-fast internet - key when developing and testing cloud services and apps, like our WorkFone product. Our adopted home also provides an unbeatable quality of life, positively impacting ourselves and our entire team.

We also discovered an unmatched spirit of social entrepreneurship. In fact, today I had the privilege of sharing my journey with the current class at Delitelabs and helping them prepare for their interim pitch night tonight. The Netherlands exemplifies the idea that quality of life should be measured in more than economic profits - but that economic profits still matter.

So with one year down we can look back and be certain that we’re on the right path. Like any other young company we made mistakes, but we’ve learned and improved. I’m so grateful to everyone who has helped us get to this point - my wife and rock Beste; my co-founder Josh; our employees, advisors, and partners; and the friends and family who believed in us. Thank you so much for helping us get here. We can’t wait to show you how much we can do over the next twelve months!