The End of a Chapter: My Farewell to Datacenter.com

As I look outside at the empty streets and beaches closed because of the COVID-19 virus, it feels surreal and sad to leave the company within a couple of months I built from scratch over the past four years. Passing the torch as the CEO and seeing the company move towards an expanded vision, I feel a wave of emotions coarsing through my body. 

Empty streets and beaches of Limassol.

What started with a mere domain name grew into a data center company with great customers and awards, media recognition, and the opportunity to work with and learn from incredibly talented people. Of course, we also had our share of setbacks that came with starting, running, and growing a data center business. 

The start: nothing but an empty shell.

I am so grateful for every lesson I learned and all the incredible people I met along the way. Now, I'm excited to bring this knowledge forward during my next adventure – which is still to be determined. 

I smile whenever people ask me about giving up a good job at an American-listed company (Brocade) and moving with my family from the Netherlands to Cyprus to start a new company for investors. While the common assumption is that I’m courageous, more than anything I’m drawn to adventure. That’s why, when I had the opportunity to shape Datacenter.com, I pursued it wholeheartedly with the mentality of “I've done this before, how hard can it be?” I quickly learned my lesson...

For instance, when I began setting up a new international data center provider in a market that was dominated by well-established parties, my experience in this sector (both technical and commercial) was nil. However, I was committed to understanding and learning every day. And I did it.

Philosophically speaking, I cannot over-emphasize the importance of being curious, open-minded, and trusting facts rather than assumptions and beautiful stories; to being open to feedback and criticism with humility and gratitude from people who care about you and want the best for you. I also benefitted from knowing what I was good at, where my knowledge was lacking, and how to ask for help as needed.

As many of you know, the biggest obstacles we encountered at Datacenter.com were the ‘unknown strangers’ who posed a challenge – costing the team a lot of time and energy. Whereas strangers are one of the biggest risks to business leaders, they are the strength of start-ups or ‘builders.’ If you're inspired to start a new data center provider to challenge the current market, you should begin by getting acquainted with your unknown strangers. 

In hindsight, I realize what we did was crazy. Normally, a new data center company needs much more time to reach occupation and to streamline operations. But we did it.

Delivery of Data Hall 1.

So it wasn't courage that motivated me to undertake this amazing, fundamentally life-changing journey to start Datacenter.com, but rather the belief in myself and the team, the resolve that this was possible, and the determination to do it.

Starting a new data center provider was one of the best things I've ever done. It allowed me to evolve and learn at a ridiculously fast pace, without having the full picture of what success looked like or how to get there. I consistently learned just enough to navigate the near future and challenges. Looking back, I think this was one of the most important things that kept us moving forward and that resulted in huge milestones in a traditional industry where our goals would typically be regarded as impossible. We just kept pushing the market and eventually proved it was possible.

We just kept pushing the market and eventually proved it was possible.

Even from the outside looking in, it’s clear that Datacenter.com is breaking barriers in the industry, particularly through the flexible start-direct colocation model, combined with the extreme customer focus and service that are otherwise unknown in our industry. No matter what the future holds, I know we did a good job.

Our team in Amsterdam

With this post, I hope that many more founders and starters will take on a challenge in the future to bring about change in an industry. 

If you want feel better about the direction you want to go, screw it - take a risk!

Risk has it rewards, trust me!

What’s Next?

I am passionate about Datacenter.com and am extremely proud of what we created and accomplished in such a short period of time. As the CEO, I channeled my creativity, read, found inspiration, met talented and inspiring people, and discovered new opportunities.

Now, I'm going to take some time (although I can't sit still) to reflect and digest everything while enjoying the sun (during the local lockdown), windsurfing (if I can ever go out again), cooking, spent (, due to COVID-10 a lot of) time with my family and enjoying a nice cup of coffee in the morning.

I am privileged to have experience in both the information technology sector and the data center sector. In the past twenty years, I have built a wealth of knowledge, a great network and experience. And while I'm always traveling to expand my knowledge, skills, and experience, and crave a new challenge, I want to help founders by sharing and supporting information here and there. Ultimately, I like to create things, optimize things, and identify processes that lead to success.

If you are a founder or are just starting out with a burning question, challenge, or topic, please approach me here on LinkedIn and I will try to help in whatever way I can. 

I hope some of my reflections along this journey can help other founders to get started and make the decision to embark on a thrilling adventure or start a business. In the meantime, I'm going to keep focusing on the future there is still so much to do and learn.

Thank you for your support.

Jochem

PS: I'm not done learning yet and I'd like to learn more from you. Do you have any suggestions for a new adventure? Let me know! I hope you will comment below to share your ideas.