8 reasons to grow your business in belgium
TRANSCRIPT
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8 Reasons to grow your
business in Belgium
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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)
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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
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1 It is easier to be unique in Belgium..
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Interest in becoming an entrepreneur …
4%
50%
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http://geert-hofstede.com/belgium.html
Risk takers are rare…
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2 Belgium is an easy place to start - up
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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
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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)
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4 World class talent …
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• 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
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5 A great test market
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• 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
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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.
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6 A launch pad for internationalization
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• 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
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7 It is (relatively) cheap
at the beginning and the end …
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Rents are a lot lower
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A developer in Brussels is 1/4th the cost of a developer in San
Francisco
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Capital Gains Tax USA
Held less than 2 years: 28%
More than 2 years: 20%
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Capital Gains Belgium
0% (with a little planning)
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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…
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8 Brussels will be the place for the world premiere of scaleupweekend June 12-14
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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.
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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
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Who To Contact
Shehryar PirachaScaleup WeekendCo-Director+32 483 [email protected] www.linkedin.com/in/piracha
Bryan CassadyScaleup WeekendCo-Director+32 475 [email protected] www.linkedin.com/in/bryancassady