Tag: Betacowork

I’ve sold Betacowork and it is great for its coworking future

New and old owners of Betacowork Coworking Brussels

Erik, Toon, Ramon & Eric

Last week I closed the deal to sell Betacowork to three of its coworkers: Toon Vanagt, Eric Rodriguez and Erik de Herdt. This is great news for me, but it is also for Betacowork and its community of coworkers. I love coworking but I don’t want to manage a coworking space any more. I want to be just a coworker and move on with new businesses and learning.

Ever since I decided to sell Betacowork I’ve been trying to find the best solution for the business and the community . I first tried to create a cooperative with the members so that they would take over, but it did not work. Then I started contacting some members and coworking entrepreneurs that I thought could be a good match: interested in coworking and Betacowork, understanding coworking, looking forward to the benefits of acquiring a profitable business and to take it forward.

I could not have thought of a better match than the three coworkers that have taken over. They’ve been members since the early times of Betacowork, they’ve launched their companies here, they’ve found each other and some of their employees at Betacowork… We have mixed DNA! And all this without counting all the time that Toon Vanagt has spent being my counselor, bouncing ideas back, and helping me out.

Another page of the book of my life has turned over, and this gives me great relief. I’m still part of coworking, I just don’t own a space any more. The next things to do are relaxing, learning (mostly programming), and getting my motivation and energy up to launch new businesses and projects.

In the last six years I’ve managed to create an amazing place to work and to bring together an extraordinary community. I will do all my new stuff while working from Betacowork: it is the best place on earth to work from. Why would I go anywhere else or, much worst, stay at home?

May 11, 2017

Presentation of the first translation: Het Coworking Handboek

I never got to write this post when I should, so I decided to do it a bit later as if it had been written that same day. It is not that I’ve been thinking about it all this time: I thought I had done it and just realized I hadn’t. Why didn’t I write it? Keep reading and you will understand :) Posted on August 11, 2016

Today has been an amazing day. You could say that two of my babies have seen the light on this very day. Early this morning, my son Alex was born :)

And just a few hours latter I had to run from the hospital to Betacowork for the presentation to the media of the first translation of my book The Coworking Handbook: Het Coworking Handboek.

paul-bosmans-ramon-suarez-het-coworking-handboek-presentation

Paul Bosmans and Ramon Suarez

Thanks to Paul Bosmans and Pulse Foundation we have been able to finance the translation of the handbook to Dutch and will soon also launch the French translation (scheduled for September).

Thankfully I did not have to do most of the talking, after the little sleep and stress that I carry over from last night I am not in peak performance. Luckily Paul picked up and made an introduction explaining the project and why the Pulse Foundation supported it. The reason is simple: they want to promote coworking as a resource to leverage to promote entrepreneurship in Belgium. It is not just that they understand it from a theoretical point of view. Paul created the foundation and is running it as a coworker at Betacowork Coworking Brussels. He is an entrepreneur that helps entrepreneurs and promotes entrepreneurship.

Another person present that is very important for the book is Helena Vansynghel, the translator who also happens to be a betacoworker. She works for Betacowork doing the translations to Dutch of the site and a selection of posts. If you want to work with somebody that is good, that you can depend on and that can really manage a project, Helena is your woman.

At Betacowork, we try first to work with our coworkers for all the work that we can’t do ourselves. Pascal van Den Driessche is in charge of the cover design of the handbook, and he has also created the logo of Betacowork and done a lot more work for us. Katia Xenophontos and Pierre Leonard will take care of the translation to French.

It is not by chance that so many things happen among the betacoworkers, or among coworkers in any other coworking space: we talk a lot, we share a lot, we know a lot about each other and about our businesses. This translation came to life thanks to an invitation by Paul to attend the presentation of the annual report of Pulse Foundation. There he explained what were the main areas that the foundation wanted to work on to promote entrepreneurship in Belgium, and among them was coworking! This is one of those serendipity moments that happen so often at coworking spaces. I immediately thought of a few ideas that could help Pulse Foundation promote coworking in the country, and among them was to translate the handbook to the main languages of Belgium: Dutch and French.

If you want to get your copy of Het Coworking Handboek, just click on the cover :)

And if you want to translate the book or can get the money to pay for the translation, contact me!

December 17, 2015