Background
Baan was born and raised in Rijssen as eldest son in a family of ten. His father was a carpenter, and his grandfather on his mother"s side was cofounder of a regional bus company.
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January Baan
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After selling the company, he founded, a company to provide web-related Enterprise resource planning products. At the age of 16, Baan started working at a meatworks, leaving secondary school without a degree. After serving in the military, Baan got a job at an accounting firm.
In 1970, he started working for a wholesale firm, where after two years he became head of the accounting department.
When the company bought their first computer, Baan got acquainted with automation. Mid 1970s Baan started working as a consultant, and shortly managed the financial department of a large company.
In 1978, January founded The, a software company providing Enterprise resource planning solutions, which became a major player in the Enterprise resource planning software industry. January Baan left the in 1998.
After his efforts with the, Baan became a venture capitalist and invested in companies like Top Tier and WebEx.
Both were eventually valued above $1billion. Top Tier was later sold to Systems, Applications and Products, while WebEx was sold to Cisco. In an interview, Baan said that ".. with WebEx and Top Tier I was an investor.
Baan, and, I do for life.
I am not a serial entrepreneur at all." In 2005, Baan wrote a book on his life as an entrepreneur, called The Way to Market Leadership.
