In my last blog, I mentioned I was a bit afraid of going back home. On my way home, I was wondering what it would be like to find my “old” life back.
Would it be exactly the same as before or completely different?
The answer is a bit of both. Fundamentally, I feel like things did not change so much. I did notice small differences, like people having set new life goals for themselves. They are passionate about new things and have different interests. Regardless, when talking to them, it seems like I never left.
The city did change more than I was expecting. I’m happy to notice that Brussels moved forward in terms of mobility. I’m so glad to see innovative products like Electric bikes and scooters take the streets. Belgians and particularly inhabitants of Brussels (also called “Brusseleers”), continue to be passionate about things they believe are important. Climate change is a big topic in Brussels like I never saw before, and people protest on the streets to force our government to take action! From an teroGO perspective, this is awesome as we’re on a mission to raise awareness about causes that are important. Personally, climate change is a big one!
Belgians are passionate and kind! That is the first major feeling I got while settling back in Brussels. It wasn’t (and still isn’t) easy for me to find my marks but having friends and family around that are so kind definitely made a big difference!
It is thanks to my brother-in-law, Antoine, that we are close to signing a small office space for teroGO. We will most likely set up shop in Mundo B, a cool co-working space that will allow us to be surrounded by many NGOs that we want to help with our app.
We were able to go to some awesome events to promote and let people know about teroGO.
First, we went to the 100% relay race, where we were able to give away t-shirts to super excited young people that are now using our app. We got help from some amazing volunteers and friends like Jill Hamoir and Jeanne Duesberg (some of you might have run with these ladies in SF). Thank you again!
Thanks to our growing network in Belgium, we are able to go to events to show teroGO. We joined the Play4Peace Gala, where we even got the chance to see Jonathan Borlée download and use our app.
Moreover, we are lucky to be currently working with some amazing companies and have already launched or in the process of launching several challenges with big names like D’Ieteren and Sisley. Thanks to the help of this network, we also got a lot of intros that could lead to potential partnerships. More on that in our next episode, probably!
All in all, I have a good feeling about this. Belgium is different than San Francisco in many ways. I am, however, convinced that it is a good place to push teroGO to the next level. We, of course, still face a lot of challenges. We need to sign new customers to be able to reach our end-of-year goal and need as much help as we can get to reach this.
Like I said in the beginning, going back home was a bit scary. But I heard someone say here that you can be happy wherever you are. You just have to make the best out of it. I am currently trying to continue to apply the cool things I learned in SF in my personal life. Let’s continue to discover, go to parts of the city we have never been to. Take the car on the weekends to go on adventures.
Continue to push forward this amazing project that is teroGO and see where this baby can GO!
Cedric Vandermeersch
Lead Business Development in Europe, teroGO
cedric@atlasgo.org
Connect on LinkedIn | www.staging-terogo.kinsta.cloud | Belgium
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