BECI defends the interests of entrepreneurs. Since the Starters community was launched in September 2023 by the Brussels Chamber of Commerce and the Union des Entreprises de Bruxelles, BECI has been there to lend a helping hand to growing businesses.
BECI’s Starters community is now celebrating its first birthday and reaffirming its mission to support promising startups as they scale up. Through the community, our specialists assist entrepreneurs in developing their activities, helping them on their journey to success. How does it work? The community offers a series of courses together with support and reorganisation programmes.
“80% of new companies fail before reaching their fifth year,” explains Alain Heureux, who specialises in entrepreneurship. He now aims to increase the number of businesses that succeed, and talked to us about how this can be done.
You work with entrepreneurs at BECI. Has this always been a vocation for you?
For me, entrepreneurship is an answer to the problems of the future. My friend Cédric Donck and I created the Virtuology Academy 15 years ago, with the aim of training people in entrepreneurship. Because we had realised that this isn’t a subject taught in schools – there’s no such thing as a ‘school of entrepreneurship’. Many people simply learn as they go. And that’s one of the main reasons why the failure rate for startups is a massive 80%. I’m convinced that if we teach people the basics of entrepreneurship, they will be less likely to fail.
More than a year ago, you were involved in creating one of the six BECI 3.0 communities – the Starters. How did that community come about?
I love Brussels, and I wanted to see the ecosystem grow, for it to make the region a capital of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.
“For me, entrepreneurship is an answer to the problems of the future”
It occurred to me that there was no community linked to entrepreneurship and to startups. There is support for startups in Brussels, through around 30 incubators. But we don’t then scale those startups sufficiently. And that’s why, with Eric Vanden Bemden, BECI Business Advisor, I founded the Starters community last September.
The aim of this community is to help entrepreneurs expand their activities. What support do you provide?
We offer several programmes through BECI, such as Starter Boost. This is an eight-week programme during which we train participants in the basics of entrepreneurship.
This programme is run as a partnership with the Enseignement de Promotion et de Formation Continue (EPFC) which was founded by the Université libre de Bruxelles and the Brussels Chamber of Commerce and Industry. This is an official organisation in the Brussels Capital-Region and is able to issue diplomas (certified by the ULB-VUB). We have also enlisted the services of CVO-Semper, the Dutch-speaking equivalent of the EPFC.
Who can participate in Starter Boost?
We aim to organise cohorts of 30 starters (members of BECI). Out of 1750 small companies, 50% belong to entrepreneurs and the other half are freelancers. I’d like to say to them: “Come and take a course at BECI that leads to certification both in French and Dutch, and become part of the BECI Starters community.”
The support programmes also include MeDoFly. What does that consist of?
To scale up a company, it’s not always a question of marketing. Sometimes you have to rethink the company and reinvent it from the ground up. That's what we offer through MeDoFly, which is a programme in three stages: Me, Do and Fly.
1. Me: First, we organise Scale-Up Nights at BECI, on the last Tuesday of every month. During this event, we invite growing businesses to relate and share their history. We then encourage the audience to join the programme, saying: “If you’d like to scale up too, join us in the Do phase”.
“The aim is for Brussels to become a focus for entrepreneurs.”
2. Do: This stage lasts three months, during which experts explore subjects such as business strategy, leadership, sales, marketing, human resources, financing, internationalisation, innovation, sustainability etc. These are themes that must generally be (re)considered for a company to scale up. At the end of these three months, the companies (ten per cohort) write a three-year growth plan. The plan answers this question: “In 36 months, how are you going to go from sales of 1 million to sales of 10 million?” And this is when the Fly phase begins.
3. Fly: This is the final stage, during which the companies pitch their action plan to a committee of five to six people. If the committee approves their action plan, a mentorship phase then begins.
The aim is to be able to follow 20 to 30 companies per year, which will gradually make Brussels into a focal point for entrepreneurs.
Who can register for MeDoFly?
In general, participants are companies that already have good sales figures. Either small to medium enterprises (SMEs) that are stagnating, or startups that have grown very quickly and are now wondering how they can continue to expand. But companies must be members of BECI to be able to register.
And alongside this, there’s also the Judicial Reorganisation Procedure (JRP)?
Yes, I'm working with Wassima Hadi (BECI’s finance manager) to develop a community of investors that will engage with JRP cases. Out of 17,000 companies created each year, 7,000 go bankrupt. The target is to reduce this number. Out of 1,000 companies that enter into the JRP every year, 200 can be saved.
And how can we ‘save’ them?
By trying to renegotiate with their creditors, by reducing debts and finding capital. In Brussels, it’s hard to find enough capital. We want to bring together investors and present them with companies going through the JRP. This will provide a means to save these companies and entrepreneurs.
Are there other programmes planned for the future?
Many of our existing initiatives are aimed at SMEs. Now we need to start thinking about what we can do for larger companies.
Alain Heureux studied law at Université Saint-Louis in Brussels. In parallel, he founded his first company at the age of just 18, in partnership with his friend Cédric Donck.
In 2007, Alain created The Egg Brussels, one of the first incubators in the city, located close to the Gare du Midi. Now aged 58, he has created more than 40 companies around the world.
For BECI, Alain helps entrepreneurs to expand their activities and to prosper in the entrepreneurial landscape of Brussels.
Sometimes all it takes is a boost to propel a
project to success. As Alain Heureux says: “To scale up, it’s not always a
question of marketing. You may need to rethink your company from the ground
up.” And BECI is here to support you.
Apply for the MeDoFly programme!