6 Takeaways from the first Growth Club Meeting
Rarely good projects come by staring at a laptop or a wall. They are generated by actively engaging with others, by being curious about what is being said and done, by exchanging thoughts.
This is why PWI Entrepreneurship Programme has created TheGrowthClub.
Women Entrepreneurs (also the potential ones) are invited to gather every last Friday of the month to get together over a good meal, share thoughts, achievements and plans with their peers and hearing the experience from an invited entrepreneur.
The first gathering took place a few weeks ago and our guest speaker was Véronique Bockstael, CEO of BeCentral.
Véronique is a “serial entrepreneur” who is convinced that entrepreneurship, provided that owners and founders play it right, is an essential and inspirational force in making societies and people excel.
Entrepreneurship, provided that owners and founders play it right, is an essential and inspirational force in making societies and people excel
Véronique, through her speech and guided discussion, shared with us her story as serial entrepreneur and gave us valuable takeaways.
Here are the main insights, Véronique shared with us:
#1 Do a proper market research, make a business and a financial plan — before — you start;
#2 Starting a business as a family is a no go: be careful to commit your family budget, unless you have a big enough financial buffer;
#3 If you have a co-founder, make sure to be on the exact same wavelength in terms of ambition and openness towards external funding;
#4 You are never ready to start a business. Female entrepreneurs and wannapreneurs tend to hold themselves back more and longer than male ones;
#5 If you’re in for being coached/mentored, be careful: you do not need or want to be served more ideas and opportunities. You have enough of those. Starting entrepreneurs suffer from lack of focus, more than anything else;
#6 Your best source of funding are your clients: get your sales organized right from the start.
What was outstanding is that Véronique shared with us the failure of one of her businesses: she explained what this failure taught her on a professional and personal level, and how she managed to launch a new business, feeling stronger and better skilled. By sharing her personal story, Véronique managed to teach us some very practical, easy-to-implement and wise techniques to help us set up and grow a business.
With this lunch, Véronique sets the tone: TheGrowthClub is definitely a comfy, cosy and very rich place to learn about entrepreneurship.
Come and join for the next one on Friday 29th June.
