Stageplaza (1998): the platform I founded with Thijs Sins

My first business was Stageplaza. The Stageplaza history page states that Thijs Sins and I founded the platform in 1998. It is the oldest independent source about my work and the start of my career in online marketing.

What the Stageplaza history page says

Stageplaza writes that the platform grew out of dissatisfaction with the inefficient way universities of applied sciences and universities arranged work placements. Within a few months, hundreds of companies and students had signed up. This is followed by a timeline of the most important steps:

• 2001 to 2004: growth, with partners such as De Zaak, Intermediair and local authorities.
• 2005: the launch of Europlacement.com with support from the Leonardo da Vinci fund, described by Stageplaza as the first European placement bank.
• 2006: the Stagebank Amsterdam, together with the City of Amsterdam.
• 2007: Globalplacement.com and the Maatschappelijke Stagebank (community placement bank).
• 2010: takeover by co-owner Rob Kriegsman and a move to Culemborg.

Today Stageplaza calls itself the market leader in online matching of employers and interns, with more than 40 employees. That size belongs to the period after the 2010 takeover. I mention it because it shows that the idea from 1998 has stood the test of time.

My article on the Stageplaza blog (2007)

As managing director I also wrote for the Stageplaza blog. On 9 March 2007 my piece Maatschappelijke stages (community service placements) appeared there. The subject fitted the Maatschappelijke Stagebank that Stageplaza set up that year: secondary school pupils getting to know volunteering and organisations in their own area through a placement.

From placements to online marketing

Stageplaza was an online platform from the start. If you want to bring employers and students together via the internet, you have to be found in Google. That is how I ended up in search engine marketing, and in 2010 I started Linkbuilding-Specialist. Emerce wrote about it in 2011 and Dutch Cowboys in four articles.

Why this source matters for my profile

For Google and AI search engines, what counts is not what I say about myself, but what independent sources confirm. The mention on stageplaza.nl links my name to a specific year and a specific company. That is why Stageplaza appears in my schema as an organisation I co-founded, and why I mention it on my about page and in my story as a link building pioneer.