Lessons learned from launching a creative leisure store in Brussels

After we announced in a previous post that Myriam and Nathalie opened their store in Brussels, we interviewed them to give you a more thorough overview of their entrepreneurial venture, what they learned out of it, and which advices they’d give to would-be entrepreneurs.

If you’d like to start your own business too, read more about our coaching offer which starts as low as 1750€.

IntoTheMinds: What were your three main motivations for becoming an entrepreneur ?

Myriam and Nathalie:

1. The lack of perspectives in our previous jobs

2 . The need for change

3 . Willingness to do something that we really liked

ITM: Describe briefly your three biggest challenges to start your business ?

M&N:

1. We had to convince the people around us who were scared by the risks and the uncertainty surrounding the project
2. Find the ideal location taking the important points of the market research into account. It took us almost 1 year …
3. Get the project financed by the banks. We took our project to several banks and despite our very good business plan and financial plan, nobody wanted to give us a loan. I had to use relationships in the banking group in which I used to work to make sure that our business plan got more seriously analyzed and eventually fought to get the loan.

ITM: Who helped you throughout the creative process?

M&N:

First “Impulse” (formerly the Brussels Enterprise Agency) where I attended several information sessions for would-be entrepreneurs and where I met several specialists who answered the questions on various subjects. Then IntoTheMinds for the market research part and for drafting the business plan. And finally, our accountant who really helped us to present the financial plan to the bank.

ITM: Besides having started your venture, what are your top three reasons for being satisfied ?

M&N:

1. Satisfaction of having successfully completed a project of this size despite all the obstacles we encountered
2. Happiness to work for yourself
3. Turning our passion into a business

ITM: How do you see your future personal and business lives?

M&N:

For now, we still have a little trouble to think about the future; we enjoy the current moments while remaining attentive to our business and financial objectives.

But one thing is certain, on a personal level we want to continue to have fun by sharing our passion with our customers. We hope to eventually delegate some of the administrative part of the work to people we trust, so that we can devote ourselves to creation and transmission of our knowledge.

We also want to change our store according to trends and offer new creative activities to our customers even if it means enlarge the store in a few years or maybe even open another sales point, who knows?

ITM: What are your three business advices to a would-be entrepreneur willing to start a business in your sector ?

M&N:

1. Do not believe it is enough to be very clever with his hands to open a creative leisure store
2. Make sure you have around you the right people to minimize the risks
3. Find out how to differentiate from the competition

By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab Dr. Pierre-Nicolas Schwab is the founder of IntoTheMinds. He specializes in e-commerce, retail and logistics. He is also a research fellow in the marketing department of the Free University of Brussels and acts as a coach for several startups and public organizations. He holds a PhD in Marketing, a MBA in Finance, and a MSc in Chemistry. He can be contacted by email, Linkedin or by phone (+32 486 42 79 42)