Today, I had a short but insightful conversation with Melcher Frankema 💟 that pushed me to think more deeply about something that has shaped my work over the past two years.
When I came to the Netherlands, I did what many internationals do: I worked hard and tried to “prove myself.”
I joined two programs, one at Hanze University and one at Venture Lab North. I published more than 60 podcast episodes. I helped organize events. I stayed busy, kept learning, and kept pushing myself forward.
I assumed that if you show your potential, the right opportunities will eventually find you. But after a while, I realized something important: Potential is not enough. Potential needs context.
It doesn’t matter how skilled or motivated you are if your abilities are not recognized in a new environment. This is where many internationals get stuck, not because they lack experience, but because they don’t know how to activate who they are inside a system that doesn’t know them yet.
You can have a degree and still feel lost. You can have experience and still feel invisible. You can work hard and still feel like the door never opens. A job offer alone doesn’t solve this. It's definitely important and it may solve income, but it doesn’t solve identity, belonging, or direction.
After hundreds of conversations with internationals and Dutch companies, I’ve realized that what we need first is:
A community that sees you before it judges you
A space where you belong before you achieve
A sense of direction before you chase confidence
This is why we built Flux Forward. Not just to teach skills or speed up job searches, many organizations already do that, but to focus on something more foundational: helping internationals activate their identity capital in the Dutch context, so they can contribute fully, not just apply for roles they already know how to do.
We do this through community activities and small groups, not just big audiences. We focus on real conversations, not networking for the sake of networking. And we support people based on who they can become, not just what they can do today.
When internationals activate their identity capital, something interesting happens: Companies don’t just hire them, but they adjust to retain them. They recognize what they couldn’t see before.
In simple terms, our mission is to prevent waste: wasted time, wasted skills, and wasted potential. The future isn’t something we wait for. It’s something we build by activating ourselves, together, inside the communities where we live. This is the work I choose to do. This is why Flux Forward exists.