Dale Wesdorp

We never intended to start a company.

4 and a half years ago, I was at a pretty weird point in my life. I just finished an intense year participating in the Delft Hyperloop Competition as a “part-time” engineer on the Propulsion team. I did not take into consideration that “part-time” on a student team is not 20 hours per week, but rather a dedication of every hour that is available after deducting basic human necessities, like water and food (see how I did not include sleep in this summation?).

In parallel, I was also trying to get the final 30 points I needed to complete my Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering. All in all, this was one of the most stressful periods of my life and helped me figure out what I didn't want to do. I did not want to work in the Mechanical Engineering field. Luckily for me, fate was on my side and I forgot to enrol for my master's (Advanced Vehicle Engineering), leading me to have an unexpected gap year to recover from the previous year.

This allowed me to think, and figure out what I would like to do with my life. Growing up I had no clue what I wanted to do, and was always taking on new projects or jobs to pinpoint my goal through deduction. I always envied people who had it figured out, following a path set in stone from a young age. The choice for Mechanical engineering was based on the courses that I came easiest and sold it under the guise of my love for tinkering with scooters and bikes. In hindsight, this decision lacked the fundamental motivation to do this for the rest of my life.

During this period, Bo and I decided to do some software projects. I was already doing some freelance website work and received some more complex assignments that could not be solved within the WordPress framework. We thought about it for a while, and then decided to set up a VOF with the goal of making “cool software”. We did not have a real business plan and we were figuring it out as we went. Together with two team members from the Hyperloop team (Joppe & Mozes) we rented a small basement near our favourite Döner shop (Leeman) and started coding our first software projects. Those first few weeks were a lot of fun, we took on way too much work, spent all our revenue on food and drinks and were pulling all-nighters at an office without central heating.

Looking back at this time I’m mainly really proud of where we are now. We even have a slogan nowadays. I haven’t figured out what I want any more than I did back in the day, but that’s okay. In all honesty, I think you might never find that out completely - people change. But nowadays I wake up every day extremely excited to go to the office and grow as a team, both in the work that we do as well as individually. For me, Miyagami is a place where I can grow, keep on learning and have a lot of fun with the team while we do.