8 reasons to grow your business in Belgium

8 Reasons to grow your

business in Belgium

My credentials

I am not a Belgian (I am American)

But I have built 10 companies in 6 countries (UK, Belgium, USA, Poland, Morocco, Czech Republic)

Director of the Founder Institute Brussels, 5 years teaching ( KU Leuven and Solvay)

The 30 second message…

Belgium is a lot better place to start/grow a business than you would think…

There are people, resources and support, but if you are successful you will probably need to go outside Belgium to get “real” funding

1 It is easier to be unique in Belgium..

Interest in becoming an entrepreneur …

4%

50%

http://geert-hofstede.com/belgium.html

Risk takers are rare…

2 Belgium is an easy place to start - up

Start-up support

• Administrative : 3-4 days• A wealth of gov’t subsidies–Wallonia– Flanders–Brussels– Europe

• Business angels (as good as any country)• VC (sort of)• More orgs to help start-up than start-ups

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3 The first money is (relatively) easy

What you can expectFrom government sources:• Feasibility studies: up to 75%• Innovation center support: 50% • Internationalization: 40-60%Angel investors: About the same as the rest of the world(but somewhat easier due to early matching investments)

4 World class talent …

• 16 high-level universities. Among them, seven are listed top 100 World Universities.

• The highest proportion of highly-educated entrepreneurs of any EC country (http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/sme/files/survey/static2008/belgium_static_en.pdf )

• Overall high capacity to innovate (10th) according to the Global Competitiveness Report 2013 - 2014.

• University-industry collaboration is ranked 6th worldwide

5 A great test market

• 3 markets / 3 places to test

• Risk adverse“ if you can sell it in Belgium you can sell it anywhere”

• Center of the action

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80% of Europe’s purchasing power lies within a radius of 500 miles (± 800 km) from Brussels

More international organisations are located in Brussels than Washington D.C., along with about 120 international government organisations, 181 embassies, over 5,000 diplomats and 1,000 lobby groups.

6 A launch pad for internationalization

• Belgium is the most globalized country in the world.

• Exports amount to more than 80% of national GDP

• Belgium is the 10th largest exporting country in the world.

• Belgium ranks 5th in the their European Attractiveness Survey for new investment projects

Source: Ernst and Young

7 It is (relatively) cheap

at the beginning and the end …

Rents are a lot lower

A developer in Brussels is 1/4th the cost of a developer in San

Francisco

Capital Gains Tax USA

Held less than 2 years: 28%

More than 2 years: 20%

Capital Gains Belgium

0% (with a little planning)

Watch outs …• Finding people ready to take the risk• Scaling: Belgium isn’t really a market• Multi-lingual/ multi-administration

complexity• An eco-system (make sure you’re

challenged)• Round 2 funding

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Moving forwardsSome of you may have noticed, only 7 reasons were listed in this presentation…

Now we have an eighth…

8 Brussels will be the place for the world premiere of scaleupweekend June 12-14

Scaling up and building new businesses is hard. The Startup Weekends have proven

how much people can get done in 54 hours.

Using a similar formula, we will focus on how to expand on existing ideas, how to communicate better, how to sell more

effectively, and how to set up systems for scaling a business.

Our Promise“Bring in a good idea and you’ll leave with a better business!”

Learn morewww.scaleupweekend.com World Premiere Event. Brussels June 12-15

Who To Contact

Shehryar PirachaScaleup WeekendCo-Director+32 483 015291shehryar@scaleupweekend.com www.linkedin.com/in/piracha

Bryan CassadyScaleup WeekendCo-Director+32 475 860757bryan@scaleupweekend.com www.linkedin.com/in/bryancassady