"2010. I need an internship. Nobody knows me. No network, and my parents don't know anyone in the industry.

So I do the only thing I know how to do: I send emails. Lots of them. Whole campaigns, to companies I've never heard of, in countries I've never set foot in.

And it works. I get several offers. I pick Los Angeles."

click: the lesson

"First lesson, and it's the one you'll see most often tonight: go get it. Don't wait to be found. Nobody is looking for you yet."

"I come back to Belgium. Quick reminder of the mood: the country has no government for 541 days, a world record, we beat Iraq. GDP has just dropped by 3%. One young person in five is unemployed.

And I know what you're thinking: sure, that was fifteen years ago, it's worse now. So let's look. Last December: 19.6% youth unemployment. 22% in Wallonia. And since January, your job-seeker allowance lasts twelve months instead of three years.

So no. It wasn't easier.

The only job I find is in Rochefort. 110 kilometres away. Each way. And underpaid.

I take it."

click: the lesson

"Start before you're ready. The context is never right. If you wait for a good job market, you'll wait your whole life."

The most important slide of the first half. Don't rush it.

"220 kilometres a day. Three hours in the car. And a starting salary that doesn't even cover the fuel: I'm losing money going to work.

It's the worst part of this whole story.

And it's the best.

Because three hours in a car is also three hours of listening. I start with Stanford's eCorner podcasts. Then Audible, and I go through pretty much every business bestseller in the catalogue.

Two years later, I'm employee of the month. Nobody trained me. I took the one thing I had too much of, dead time, and turned it into a school."

click: the lesson

"Third lesson: nothing is wasted. Even the worst commute of your life can pay you back."

"At the same time, I want to start something. From day one. Except I don't have an idea.

So I launch something that isn't even mine: the Café Numérique. Evenings where people talk about technology and innovation. The concept already existed elsewhere, I just brought it here.

And it becomes my lab. I test everything I'm not allowed to test anywhere else: posters, newsletters, sponsorship, public speaking, building a community.

I never made a cent from it. I got two things out of it: confidence, and the habit of taking responsibility.

Sixteen years later, it still exists."

click: the lesson

"Start before you're ready. No idea? Start a side project anyway. The idea comes while you're doing it, not before."

"And thanks to all that, Auctelia, the Café Numérique, the audiobooks, Lampiris hires me.

One day I want to move 200,000 euros of budget out of banner ads and into Google Ads. Nobody gave me permission, and it's not my level of responsibility.

So I go to my CMO and ask one question: do you trust me?

It works. And then it doesn't stop: I end up making calls on a one-million-euro budget. When Total buys Lampiris, the CEO invites me along as part of the acquisition.

A few years earlier, I was washing dishes at IKEA."

click: the lesson

"Go get it. Ask for trust, not permission. Permission never comes on its own."

"2016. Still at Lampiris. I notice I keep explaining digital marketing strategy the same way, to everyone, on whiteboards.

So I put it on one page. I call it the Digital Marketing Canvas.

[To complete by Jerem: one concrete figure or result, for example how many people or schools used it.]

At the time it's a side thing. But it's the first time I turn what I know into a tool other people can use."

click: the lesson

"Nothing is wasted. That one page is where teaching starts for me. You'll see it come back."

"2017. I want to travel. Problem: I don't know anyone abroad.

So I do exactly what I did in 2010 to find my internship: I send emails, I go get people.

And the Café Numérique goes to India, Nepal, New York, and more.

It's the last thing I do as an employee. And it's what gives me the nerve for what comes next."

click: the lesson

"Go get it. Same skill as in 2010. Just a bigger map."

"I go out on my own. And I hit exactly the same wall as in 2010: I don't have an idea.

Seven years later, same problem. Except this time I do something different. I stop looking for an idea and look at what annoys me in my own work.

And I find it. There's a part of my job I redo by hand every week, and it can be automated. So I automate it. And that thing I built for myself, I decide to sell it.

The product had been under my nose for two years.

Want a business idea? Don't look for an idea. Look at what you redo by hand every Tuesday."

click: the lesson

"Start before you're ready. You don't need a brilliant idea. You need something that annoys you."

"First client: TotalEnergies.

(pause)

Yes, that one. My former employer, the group that had just bought Lampiris. I sell them software I wrote on my own.

Then a few more clients. And that's it. It works, but it's not growing fast enough. And, honestly, I don't like that business. I don't enjoy getting up for it.

So I stop.

What I sold them wasn't really software. It was seven years of credibility. The internship, the 220 kilometres, the Café Numérique, Lampiris: all of that signed the contract for me."

click: the lesson

"Nothing is wasted, including the business you walk away from. And revenue alone is not a reason to stay."

"So I have a business that isn't growing and that I don't love. I want to do something I actually enjoy.

I become a trainer for Google. I train managers and entrepreneurs in digital marketing. Remember the Digital Marketing Canvas? That's where it pays off.

And I discover something I didn't know about myself: I love explaining things. What you're watching tonight started there.

And on the side, I start a new business. It's called Gatekeepr."

click: the lesson

"Start before you're ready. You don't find what you love by thinking about it. You find it by trying things."

"2019. Gatekeepr, a tool that audits companies' social media strategy. I go to San Francisco. I invest in two things: AI, and people."

click: the Google Cloud invoice, full screen

"This is my Google invoice for October 2019. One month. 16,541 euros and 81 cents.

(pause)

Look at the date. October 2019. ChatGPT comes out three years later.

In total, I lost 50,000 euros. And nobody came. Not 'a few people'. Nobody. I thought: if the product is good, they'll come. That's false. It's been false for twenty years, and I learned it for 50,000 euros."

click: the logo wall

"And before you ask whether anyone helped me fund all this: here you go. WSL, Noshaq, W.IN.G, Novallia, imec, Berkeley SkyDeck, 500 Startups, Y Combinator.

They all said no.

And on Gatekeepr, they were right."

click: the lesson

"Nothing is wasted. For eighteen months I worked with AI every day, at a time when nobody around me talked about it. That invoice is the most expensive of my life. It's also the most profitable. I just didn't know it yet."

"No more business. No more product. Back to zero.

So I do something slightly humiliating, and it may be the best decision in this whole story. Remember the freelancers I used to hire, in Ukraine and Russia? I go back to the platform where I hired them.

Except this time I'm not looking for someone to hire. I create a profile, and I put myself up for hire.

A while later, a Texas startup writes to me. They're called INK, they're in Houston, they need a Head of Marketing. Freelance. Remote. A guy from Liège.

At INK, we take the website from zero to a million visitors in under a year. The engine is generative AI. Before ChatGPT.

See what happened? The 50,000 euros lost in San Francisco are exactly what makes me useful at INK. I paid for my AI training in 2019. It paid me back in 2021.

And on the side, I start Marketing Makers and hire two people."

click: the lesson

"Go get it. When you have nothing left to sell, sell yourself."

"2022. Airplan. Software for architects, to manage their planning permission files.

And you know what? I sold it before I built it. Exactly like at Auctelia in 2010, where we sold machines we didn't own. Twelve years later, same lesson.

Today, 1,400 architecture firms use it, and we're three partners."

click: the two halves of the week

"And this is what my week looks like today. Fifty percent Airplan. Fifty percent giving sessions on AI, like tonight.

Look at those two halves. The first one is the product I never had. The second one is the job I stumbled on at Google.

Everything I was missing became my job."

click: the lesson

"Start before you're ready. Sell it before you build it."