Scaling your business – the story of Edgard & Cooper, episode 1

Vlerick Insight Talks: Professor Veroniek Collewaert meets entrepreneur Jürgen Degrande

Veroniek Collewaert

By Veroniek Collewaert

Professor of Entrepreneurship

13 December 2023

In 2015, Jürgen Degrande co-founded the healthy pet food company, Edgard & Cooper, while he was still studying at Vlerick Business School. Today, the scale-up has a team of over 200 people, working in Kortrijk (HQ), London, Paris, Rotterdam, Madrid, Düsseldorf and Milan – and its products are distributed in 13 countries and sold in over 15,000 shops and online. With over €80m in revenue, the company is now officially a scale-up, aiming to achieve zero carbon, fully sustainable packaging, and 100% ethical sourcing.

How did Jürgen achieve this? In this interview by Veroniek Collewaert, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Vlerick Business School, he shares from firsthand experience what it takes to successfully scale a business.

Video still - Insight Talks - Jürgen Degrande

In this first episode, Jürgen talks about how scaling differs from starting your company. He shares his biggest scale-up challenges and when he knew that Edgard & Cooper was ready to scale. Finally, he gives some tips on how to prepare your company for scaling.

Thumbnail YouTube Edgard & Cooper video series

Scaling your business – the story of Edgard & Cooper, episode 1

In this first episode, co-founder Jürgen Degrande talks about how scaling differs from starting your company. He shares his biggest scale-up challenges and when he knew that his start-up was ready to scale. Finally, he gives some tips on how to prepare your company for scaling.

According to Jürgen, scaling is when you transition from a product-market fit to a phase where various departments of the company have to grow. This not only results in increasing complexity, but you must make sure that you scale in a sustainable way as well. The only objective when scaling is to grow your business as fast as you can, whilst keeping all the balls in the air.

Jurgen identifies three major challenges faced by Edgard & Cooper during their growth journey: scaling the people business, making sound financial decisions, and adapting sales and marketing tactics as the company expands. The conversation delves into the complexities of maintaining an entrepreneurial culture, managing talent, ensuring sustainable profitability, and navigating financial decisions, especially in the context of external factors like the pandemic and inflation. Jürgen emphasises the importance of aligning and communicating across different departments to achieve the primary scaling objective – rapid business growth.

When asked about the readiness to scale, Jürgen highlights the significance of achieving the right product-market fit and establishing a solid foundation in unit economics so you have the basis for sustainable profitability in the long run. He shares insights into using data, conducting surveys, and optimising product offerings to prepare for scaling. Jürgen also advises entrepreneurs to build a strong foundation across multiple aspects of their business, citing examples like selecting supply chain partners capable of long-term growth.

Reflecting on the lessons learned over the past eight years, Jürgen underscores the importance of having a solid foundation in various business angles. He mentions the selection of partners who can grow together with the company and emphasises the need for adaptable commercial decisions that can evolve with the scale-up journey.

Interested in more insights by Jürgen Degrande on scaling your business? Watch episode 2 of this Insight Talks series.

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Sylien Kesteleyn

Sylien Kesteleyn

Portfolio Manager