From Booking.com founder to organic greengrocer

'Look', says Bruinsma, pointing to the water of the Vecht behind his shop, ‘the offal was just thrown in there. Years later, cattle jaw parts were found during dredge work. Well, that's how it used to be.'

The alumnus talks about it on a small scaffolding behind his greengrocery named 'Venkel aan de Vecht'. Him and his wife have been running it for a year now. It was a butcher's shop before, and Bruinsma lived right next door. When the butcher stopped at the age of 76, he bought the building. The butcher was allowed to continue living there until he moved to a senior home after six years. For Bruinsma and his wife Esther, it was clear that they wanted to preserve the building for the village, and keep it open as a shop as well. 'The idea for an organic vegetable shop came from my wife Esther, she missed one in the village. I then said jokingly; So, will you be going to the auction at six o'clock in the morning?'

Stew

Meanwhile, one of his colleagues - 'there are five of us here, everyone of us works one day a week' - is chopping and cutting onions and tomatoes for a stew. 'They are back in demand again, last year our homemade stews were quite popular,' says Bruinsma with a laugh. 'I was just looking up a recipe.'

The store is doing well, he says. In the future, however, they will not open until 13:00 in the afternoon during weekdays, instead of 9:00. Except for Saturdays. 'The days are simply rather long, and we have found that the mornings are quieter anyway. I have a lot of respect for people who do this kind of work professionally full-time, where you must stand all day and are physically active all the time. I'm really exhausted at the end of my greengrocer's day,' he says.

Beef cows

Of course, it stems from a bit of idealism. 'One of my motivations is to give organic farmers more of a right to exist. If there were more stores like this, it would be better for the environment, the country, and people. Currently, the number of organic farmers has been stable for years.' Bruinsma enjoys his trips to the countryside, where he buys cheese, meat, and eggs. 'Sometimes I find myself walking between a herd of beef cows in the meadow. The selfie I took there the other day did very well on LinkedIn,’’ he says jokingly.

Entrepreneurial vibe

The obviously fairly inexperienced greengrocer brims with passion. It must have been like that somewhere in the mid-nineties too, when he stood at the cradle of Booking.com. Bruinsma had finished his studies in technical business administration and, like his college friends, wanted to become an entrepreneur. 'Thanks to rector Van den Kroonenberg, the campus was buzzing with this entrepreneurial vibe, everyone was somehow involved in entrepreneurship.'

'It was the right time for me to get out'

–With the internet and email era just emerging, Bruinsma built his own online hotel reservation system, after he shortly considered a camping website. That 'travel agency for hotel reservations' quickly grew into a major player. The 'attic room' in Enschede was soon traded for a head office in Amsterdam, and offices in Singapore and South America quickly followed. In 2003, he left Booking and sold his shares.

According to the experts, that would have been too early, because only a few years later Booking - when taken over by an American investor - made the real hit. Bruinsma shrugs his shoulders. 'It was the right time for me to get out. You can't look into the future.' At the time, it offered him the opportunity to travel a lot with his family. He spent a month in Bonaire, and bought a house in Tanzania.

Back to Booking.com

Bruinsma returned to Booking in 2011, in the ICT department. 'I simply applied for a job, preferred coding and did not want to get involved with the management.'  One of his contract conditions was to have time off if his children were also free from school. 'They agreed, and I had 72 days off in the year.' Every now and then he gave a talk for new employees. But many colleagues didn't even know they were working with the founder of the multi-million dollar company. In 2017, he was 'done’. 'I started in an ICT department of 120 people, which eventually grew to 2300. For me it was finished, I couldn't improve anything further.'

My friends from back then, whom I met on the very first day in my activity group, are still my best friends'

And so, his next chapter became a greengrocer’s. 'This is only possible, of course, because we no longer need a 'bread-and-butter job'. We’re well aware that that is a massive privilege.' Yet that doesn’t mean that the alumnus has spent his recent years idly floating around in a sloop on the Vecht river, because he cannot sit still. He is often asked for entrepreneurial advice and giving lectures. He does the first once a month on request, in the pub just around the corner. 'I simply share my own story.' Bruinsma only gives lectures for his alma mater. Last May, for example, he was there to give a talk to student association Audentis.

'I always tell students that it is extremely important to step out of your comfort zone and be an 'active student'. That way you get to know people, you see and hear a lot, you start organising and building a network. My friends from back then, whom I met on the very first day in my activity group, are still my best friends. Many of them also became entrepreneurs, we encouraged each other. In that respect, Enschede has been a decisive factor in my life.'

Training together

Does he still have ambitions? Bruinsma has to think for a moment. 'Stay fit', he says resolutely. 'Esther and I are now training together for the Van Dam tot Dam run. But I also cycled the Elfstedentocht last year.' Moreover, he does not want to spend more than half an hour a day behind a screen. 'I did enough of that while programming, now I don't have to anymore. Although I did write a software programme for our cash register system. I didn't like the one Rabobank had.'

'I already did all the things on my bucket list'

He also wants to guide the children a bit, who are now all studying and have left home. One of his sons studies mechanical engineering at UT. 'He hardly comes home, is far too busy as chairman of the Drienerlose Hockey Club.' Is there perhaps still a bucket list? Bruinsma beams: 'I already did all the things on my bucket list.'

He considers it a huge honour to receive the Van den Kroonenberg Oeuvre Award today. Does that make him a figurehead of UT? No, he doesn't see himself that way. 'I also have no ambition at all to be a Dutch celebrity, I avoid media appearances as much as possible. But I will always make an exception for UT.'