Herculean Chronicles: bootstrapping. “How did you start?” Back in 1997, we had an idea at the bar of the squash club, made a ridiculous plan the day after, and rented the biggest venue in Belgium without any money. As simple as that 😉 In 1999, the first edition was official.

In the first chapter of the Herculean Chronicles, I discuss all the circumstances and people who probably influenced me to start the Hercules Trophy. Let’s return to the roots. This might sound boring to many, intriguing to the fans and maybe inspirational to people who want to start a business. You need strong roots and a long-term vision to build a legacy that positively touches thousands of hearts and can conquer fierce adversaries through collective resilience.

The bar story.

Picture this: Belgian beers, good friends, and a dream as colossal as the number of glasses we clinked. I was with my buddy Mario at the squash club’s bar when he asked, “What’s your big dream?”

“I want to organize a global corporate Olympics inspired by the ‘omnisportday’ concept from our squash club”, I replied.

Mario, a maestro in operations, and I, a marketing enthusiast neck-deep in IT, decided at that very moment to start.

The business plan.

The next day, we scribbled a ludicrous business plan on a white piece of paper, cooked up a name, and, without a dime to our name, booked the largest venue in Belgium. Easy-peasy, right?

We kept our corporate jobs, roped in Ivo, faced a gazillion obstacles, crossed paths with Inge – an ace in sales who also became my wife – went global with Kris, diversified in the employee engagement category, and boom—Herculean history was in the making. No big deal, just like that 😉

25 years on, we’ve touched the hearts and minds of thousands worldwide. Unsung heroes among us now feel a part of the Herculean community. I’m also thankful for all our adversaries who increased our collective resilience.

The bar at the squash club was indeed the tipping point. But many more “moments that matter” happened before and after. So, let’s dig a bit deeper into the roots.

Before the tipping point.

This tale isn’t just about luck; it’s about people and choices. I believe that life is about encounters and connections. I’ve always been the kind of person to trust people (too) fast and leap when opportunity knocks, believing it would bring me closer to my big dream but also knowing we would face many obstacles.

Grandparents.

My entrepreneurial spirit is rooted in my grandparents’ resilience. I don’t come from money like many other founders, but my grandparents from both sides were entrepreneurial during and after the war.

My grandparents from my mother’s side built a slippers factory near their home, next to a church. Every Sunday, they brought the community together after church. I didn’t understand why they gave so much to their employees, their customers and their families, but now I’m doing the same thing.

My grandmother was a tough cookie and a true connector. Her husband was a humble leader who believed in people. He died too young in the year before I was born, and people always told me I looked like him. My wise grandmother was able to inspire me until she passed away at 94 years old.

My aunt and uncle bought the slippers business from my grandmother, and that was the first time I saw a couple actually running a business. I still have the image of both of them in a little grey office at the factory, working together day and night, with all the stress it brought to them and my beloved nieces. They eventually relocated the factory to East Germany – which came as a shock to many – and became very successful. Unfortunately, my aunt passed away too early.

Excellence is the norm.

I was an only child from two loving but strict teachers. An interesting combination of a Catholic and an Atheist. My mom was my teacher in 3rd and 4th grade, and she was by far the most passionate teacher I ever had. My dad got into school management, and I heard stories about how he cared for students and people. They always had my back but expected nothing less than respect and excellence.

They provided me with a loving childhood, and I tried to please them as much as possible. Outstanding results came with hard work. I worked longer and more efficiently than the average student, which made me stand out.

My math teacher, Mr Robbens, was a true inspiration and is the reason why I got into Math and Tech in the very early days. I also enjoyed reading and writing, but I developed a love-hate relationship with nearly every language teacher.

My parents pushed me to do different competitive sports from a very young age. Not one was a team sport. Skiing, sailing, tennis… they wanted me to be the best in everything.

And last but not least, never follow the herd; lead it. That was probably the most important lesson they gave me. I experienced what can go wrong when you follow the masses. Later, I learned about the wisdom and stupidity of the crowds. And during the pandemic, I experienced how mass hysteria and totalitarianism work.

Offload pressure.

Anyway, I created too much pressure on myself and experienced the negative effects of focusing on results instead of enjoying every step of my journey. When I was 15 years old and had a 7.5/10 on a test, I would cry and make a complete fool of myself in front of the whole class. That had to change.

Around the age of 16, I stopped playing tennis. I had the technique and received training from the best, but I couldn’t win and couldn’t handle the pressure. I was “too nice and respectful,” and the game of tennis was also “too long” for me to stay focused or offload pressure. On the contrary, it created more stress.

So, I started playing squash in BBS Mechelen with my two best friends. A few months later, Ronny approached me and told me he wanted to coach me. He was an older, charismatic person who would become my first real mentor after my parents and grandparents. I trusted him; he was tough on me, taught me how to go on the court, beat my opponent and shake their hands afterwards. I became addicted to the game and found a great way to offload stress. My self-confidence boomed. For many years, Ronny was one of the Marshalls of the Hercules Trophy.

Connections and storytelling.

At the squash club, I learned about tribes and storytelling. I spent more time there than at the University of Leuven. At a young age, I joined the squash club’s board as manager of festivities, and I also wrote the monthly club magazine, “Stroke!” The majority of the members were at least 10 years older than me. In those days, I didn’t connect with students of my age and was constantly looking to learn from older people.

From the age of 16, I worked every weekend in a famous computer shop in Mechelen. The late owner was a pioneer in Belgium. Every year, he had a booth at a big conference about “desk materials”. I sold 16-bit soundcards like crazy and developed a love of sales.

I was also a ski instructor and a fan of Club Med with its GOs, GMs, and shows. I started to feel how social sports unites people in a way that little else does.

Every Friday, we organised a ladder competition in the squash club. It always ended with great conversations at the bar. I hate administration but love processes, so I developed software with a planning algorithm to organise the ladder. We are talking about 1990-1995 when the PC was just invented, and emails didn’t exist. Later, I did the same for the Hercules Trophy, which became a competitive edge.

Heritage

Ronny and Francis started the BBS club many years before and invented a concept to collect funds for the club: the “omnisportday”. Every year, the club members participated in teams on that sports day with a great after-party. That was the actual seed of the Hercules Trophy. When Mario became president, he took the “omnisportday” a nudge higher. Then, I became president and transformed it with him towards the B2B market.

Finishing my Masters

The first 2 years of my Bachelor’s in Math were pure hell for me. We started with 100 students and ended with 30. I felt that all of them were smarter than me and came from another planet. The song “I’m the One and Only” got me through it. In the first year, I failed every course as I started studying way too late, and professors told me, “No one can come back from that”. That triggered me, I put myself in a very strict regime, so I passed on the 2nd attempt. On the day of the toughest exam, the professor got sick, and his assistant had to take over. Cum laude was the result. Timing is everything. After that experience, I found my intrinsic motivation, even started selling my notes, and did my Master in Math and Tech and two postgraduates in business administration and operations management.

Family-owned business experience

Royale Belge (now AXA) organised a student day and selected my dear friend Kris and me to join them as project managers in software architecture. The CIO, who was about to retire, gave us a dream team of older experts to develop the software architecture of the new insurance applications for cars and life insurance. He wanted to use our fresh energy and know-how to help transform the COBOL culture. After one year, we were successful, but I learned that I didn’t have time for such a slow transformation. So I left.

I joined Pauwels Trafo, where I had the life-changing opportunity to work closely with the 2nd(Vic) and 3rd(Emmanuel) generations of a family-owned multi-national. They were among the top producers of large electrical transformers, competing with ABB, Siemens, etc. They had factories on all continents, and the founder started in a garage across KV Mechelen, my favourite soccer team. Together with Werner, who would later become the referee of the Hercules Trophy, I joined the management and had the opportunity to implement IT from scratch worldwide with much older Plant Managers as my mentors. There again, I learned the art of selling my ideas. After 5 years, it gave me the title of “CIO of the Year” in Belgium. It was 1999, the year of the first Hercules Trophy.

Pivot

I took over as president of BBS and decided we should organise 2 “omnisportdays”. One for the members and one for local companies. We would double the price for companies, and we could use the funds to reinvest in the members. My dear friend and mentor Wim, who suddenly passed away in the week of Hercules Trophy Dubai 2022, and Emmanuel, played a pivotal role in giving me the confidence to do it. Approaching and convincing companies is a whole other ballgame than club members.

Pink brochure

I made 100 copies of a folded pink A4 brochure, a team was 100 EUR for 5 people and asked the members to join with their companies in the “omnisportday”. Sounds easy, but it’s not. It was the first time I experienced that most people are not in a position to take initiative within a company. And that many company leaders don’t invest in people. 20 teams showed up, we found some sponsors, and the party was epic. Mission accomplished, but it took a lot of effort.

And even today, 25 years later, it is very hard and selling tickets to companies has become our competitive edge. Every morning, we still discuss how we can improve the sales process. Our competitors are jealous of the network we’ve built through the years. It’s because of the network we have developed collective resilience.

And then the tipping point at the bar happened.

So now what?

It is a big dream, with two co-founders and a venue. We didn’t have a company to run it from, and our first concern wasn’t sales- it was catering. How naive. So we started talking to caterers. They were too expensive.

And then my mum passed me a serendipitous article from the Belgian tabloid GVA about this entrepreneurial couple, Ivo and Veerle. They organised BRAS Rommelmarkt and drive-in movies at the venue we rented, and apparently, they had a catering company. Ivo’s brother played tennis with me, so I checked him out.

I approached Ivo, an even crazier entrepreneur than me, and we made a deal that we would run the Hercules Trophy out of his company, and he would run the catering. For the first 5 years, we would re-invest all the profits in developing the concept. Ivo could make a profit on the catering. Done. It would take us, in fact, 7 years before we made some money for ourselves and started a separate company where everyone owned 1/3.

But more about that in the next episodes of the Herculean Chronicles.

Herculean learnings that worked for me

• Your life is about the people you meet. Learn to build relationships with a diverse group of people.
• Learn from people who are smarter or better than you.
• Learn to dream big daily.
• When opportunity passes, learn to take the leap.
• Look for wise mentors, listen and learn.
• Learn how to deal with pressure.
• You will face more obstacles than successes; learn to celebrate small victories.
• Work hard and efficiently, learn to be fast and act now, not tomorrow.
• Learn to automate processes as much as you can.
• It is better to be too early than too late; learn to be patient.
• Never follow the herd; learn how to be lonely.
• Practice competitive sports; learn how to lose.

Thank you Herculeans

My parents and grandparents, my late aunt and my uncle, my co-founders Mario and Ivo, my first mentor Ronny, future referee Werner, the owner of the computer store, my math teacher Mr Robbens, the professor who was sick, Chesney Hawkes, entrepreneurs Wim, Vic and Emmanuel and so many more people at school, University, Royale Belge, Pauwels Trafo and the squash club.

Read the previous chapter here.

Disclaimer

The Herculean Chronicles are my personal interpretation of 25 years of the Hercules Trophy. I’ve written 12 stories from a place of love and gratefulness, even for my adversaries. All the names are real, and it’s my way of thanking everyone and bringing the community together around untold stories. It’s also a way to explain the journey to my kids so they won’t make the same mistakes again and remember their roots. As it’s impossible to remember everything, please contact me and send me your stories to enrich the legacy.