Lisa: "I want to see the whole world"

Lisa van Roosmale (23) is on the verge of graduation. Next week she will defend her final thesis. If that goes down well, it marks the successful completion of her study Small Business & Retail Management. And the beginning of her career as an entrepeneur.

“Rather than finding a job as an employee, I want to start my own business. I have a passion for entrepeneurship. It is in my blood. Not because my parents are entrepeneurs, because they are not. It is just really something that fits me.

I have no idea what sort of business I want to begin. I have a very broad orientation, anything goes. Maybe a webshop or something to start with, anything that earns me money. My focus has been on my study results, so I have not really thought it through yet.

The only thing I do know is that whatever business model it is, I will start it with my friend. She is a classmate who also just graduated. We did almost all projects at school together. She complements me and I do so the other way around. We already agreed to start a VOF, a general partnership, together.

For the far future my wishes are still dreams. I would love to have a nice house, a great partner and be able to travel the world. And not retire at a very late age. Yes, that means you need to earn a lot of money. But only the money I would need to reach these goals. I would love it if, come retirement, I could say that I have seen all or most.

Of course, there are quite a lot of things going on that make me wonder what the world will be like in 50 or 100 years. What kind of world my children would live in. With climate, the depletion of resources, of our planet. Or the technological changes in society, the robotization.

But people are smart, I am sure we’ll come up with solutions. And we already are changing: be it vegetarian, transparency, less fossil fuels. Although I have to admit that I don’t really see a lot of people from my generation who make lesser use of their car. Nor do I,but I try to keep it in mind. And I am definitely a positive person. I do not worry all that much.” [Jan Ligthart]