Hi Marcel, could you please introduce yourself?
I am Marcel ten Brinke. A positive and enthusiastic man who loves personal development, enjoys his family and friends and wants to connect people and companies to jointly have more positive social impact.
I am originally a “tukker”, as Dutch people would say [coming from Dutch province Twente], I grew up in a small village of Vriezenveen. I completed the Human Resource study and lived in Ede, Utrecht and Curaçao. Now back in the Netherlands where Amsterdam is a very pleasant place to live.
In the past 13 years, I’ve been working as a business developer at corporate software companies such as ADP, AFAS and SAP, in the areas of payroll, human resource and enterprise resource planning. I was mainly focusing on supporting companies in innovation, changing management and working on optimization of companies’ internal and external processes.
How did you get to the Share Council?
At some point, I started to realize that I want to get “outside of the box”. When I came across Quintus Willemse, who later became my business partner, during a drink at the Industrieele Groote Club in Amsterdam, there were 3 topics that appealed to me the most. First, the idea that I had in my head for a long time: to give employees an opportunity to easily become co-owners of a company. This would increase their interest in company’s success and make them feel more affiliated with it.
Second, I found the software component and blockchain technology really cool and full of opportunities. Since I had 13 years of experience in this field and just bought my first bitcoin at that time, I wanted to bring it to the next level. What this innovative technology can do with our financial system is absolutely incredible and I look forward to it.
The third goal of mine was setting up my own company, a dream I had already for years.
So about 2 years ago those three things convinced me to jump into this new adventure called the Share Council.
What is the purpose/goal of the Share Council?
That every company in Europe has an opportunity to make co-ownership available to the team of specialists they want to grow their business with, in an easy and reliable way.
Could you tell us more about the creation of the Share Council and the way it works now?
The Share Council, formerly Stem software, was created out of necessity when we wanted to make co-ownership of the Foryard company for their employees. The bureaucratic complexity was challenging in terms of content, but also costly and time-wasting. So, we were looking for a suitable alternative. The main question was: how could we bind employees, investors and the community to the company without having to constantly reinvent the wheel and incur costs for lawyers and notaries?
The spiritual father of our system, Sjoerd van der Velden, came up with an opportunity of giving joint ownership an alternative form, whereby Quintus created the link to the system and the underlying blockchain technology to it. Share Council started with facilitating startups to grow their business with the right people. Since then many functionalities have been added whereby we can digitize old methods of certification and even connect entire communities with each other.
In the Share Council software you can cut shares into small pieces and make them easily available for your employees, investor or community. In the system you as an employer or employee have your own portal where you can see the value of your ownership in real-time. You can buy and sell those pieces. Administration on paper and Excel is no longer necessary, you no longer make mistakes when recording data. In addition, no lawyer or notary fees are incurred.
One of our ideals is that every company in Europe gives employees the opportunity to easily become co-owners of their company. Become responsible for the company together and profit together when the company achieves success. There are progressive companies that already set this up years ago and made certificates available to their employees. This is a beautiful old school structure that we are now translating with The Share Council into a digital form that gives everyone real-time insight into their certificates or share-holding.
How exactly does co-ownership work?
As a company you make a certain percentage of shares, let’s say 10%, available for your employees. We cut that 10% of your shares into small pieces so that no large amounts are needed to acquire a share, and everyone is given the opportunity to get a small piece of it. These pieces of your shares can be a million tiny pieces of 0.10 cents each. So the total value that the company makes available for joint ownership is 100 thousand euros.
Those are placed in a portfolio and made available for an “internal market”. In other words, only to the employees who work at that company. The employees and co-owners of the company make agreements on how much co-ownership they want to save or buy and see the value they have agreed on in their own digital wallet per certain period of time. In addition to the salary slip, you can save on a monthly basis for some co-ownership within the company which you are working for.
In that wallet, it is not only the number of pieces that you co-own, there is also a smart contract that has been adjusted exactly on your agreements with the employer. As a result, trade is also legally covered. That is only possible because the system is set up with our spiritual father, who is a Partner of a large law firm in Utrecht, Bruggink and van der Velden.
Could you explain how co-ownership i.e. in start-ups or in a network of connected people could be organized differently by using blockchain?
We see that technology is not important when solving a problem. What really is needed is a flexible solution to gather wishes and requirements and to apply them easily for startups, SMEs and accelerators. To make shares easy to trade and to be able to solve the current problems of administration and extra costs digitally with a real-time software solution.
We are unique that we use Blockchain technology and that we are one of the first companies to actually be “live” with it and have the right applications to turn the updated technology into a great added value. Of course, there are plenty of critics who say that we do not need blockchain technology at all for this solution. That’s completely right but here you could also compare a Nokia 6310 and an iPhone 11. Yes, it is true that you can use both for calling, but it is not only about calling, isn’t it? 😉
The main advantage of using blockchain is that data and transactions are not recorded on one source but are decentralized by more than a thousand different sources. Each tiny transaction is approved by a couple of thousands of computers before it is finally recorded. That gives you the certainty that transactions cannot be modified or cancelled randomly and ensures the accuracy of each transaction. The unique code of every transaction is linked to the contract that comes with it. That makes it very reliable for the employer and for the employee.
In our opinion, blockchain technology is just the same as a new Android or iPhone. It fits exactly with this time of living for both younger and older generations.
Is it safe to use blockchain?
Yes, it is completely safe. Until now it is the most secure way to save and store data.
Suppose a certain company would like to implement participation or co-ownership, which steps would the Share Council take?
You have 4 steps that are required to organize participation/co-ownership for your organization:
1. Objective participation: determine what goal do you want to achieve with this and who will be involved;
2. Translation into software: translate the participation plan, statutes and contracts into
a digital solution;
3. Going “live”: after approval of a participation plan, we invite other co-owners to the
system. After they’ve registered their personal details, transactions of co-ownership can be entered;
4. Grow successfully: after introduction we discuss the treatises, functionalities and the realization of the intended goal. When this basis is set up, enthusiasm often arises to also use the system to enable other forms of participation. We advise and support this.
The Share Council: a fair share for each and every one.Â
If co-ownership sounds like something you would like to have in your company you can always contact us. We are 1 office for all companies and questions and we can put you in touch with the right specialists that we have in our team. Sometimes no specialist is even needed, so we can start straight away.
Check out our website: https://www.thesharecouncil.com/
Contact us via Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11303882
Or just make a coffee appointment with us: https://www.thesharecouncil.com/consult
We look forward to meeting you and strengthen each other’s business!
If you are interested to learn more about Blockchain technology, we are part of the Dutch Blockchain Coalition where, together with us, they have developed a complete course and made it available for you (free of charge): http://nationaleblockchaincursus.nl/
Discover your potential, work together in a team and you, of course when you make everyone responsible through co-ownership, have an unbeatable organization! 😉
