Christophe Morbee

The through-line

Christophe Morbee's consistent position is that steady-state business is not entrepreneurship. "Gewoon een bedrijf hebben die ieder jaar hetzelfde doet, dat is managen, dat is niet ondernemen" [7]. Everything else follows from that: the decision to sacrifice margin for growth at Besox, the willingness to put his own house on the line to fund an expansion, the refusal to move into private equity even though the money would be easier to raise, and the choice to concentrate a fund on pre-seed teams who have almost nothing to show yet.

The second half of the through-line is that the two halves of his working life feed each other rather than sitting side by side. Besox is a payroll and social secretariat business serving startups such as Aikido Security alongside established institutions like Vlerick Business School [5], and that same client base is what makes NewSchool work as an investment vehicle [7]. Early angel wins, notably a 4x on Officient, financed the move into a fund [7], and the fund's portfolio companies come back into the Besox orbit as clients and case studies [5][7].

On growing a business by refusing to optimise it

The Besox story is a deliberate trade of profit for scale. Morbee took over the family social secretariat, rebranded it and grew it 20-25% a year to 110 employees [7]. Through six or seven years of aggressive office expansion the company ran at profit margins between 0 and 5%, a level he accepted on purpose in exchange for that growth rate [7]. The same appetite shows in how he financed it. When KBC refused a second credit line of €215K because the management company was projected to go into negative equity, he moved banks and pledged his own house as collateral, and did it without telling his father: "Ik heb wel mijn huis in borg gegeven om juist die tweede schijf te krijgen" [7].

He is equally candid that the takeover itself was a piece of engineering. He held off on buying the family business until the son of his father's partner also showed interest, on the reasoning that a joint takeover by both sons made the negotiation easier and removed the incentive for the other father to push for a higher valuation [7].

On why pre-seed is the sane bet

Morbee inverts the usual risk framing: "Ik vind in mijn ogen een groot risico om te investeren in Apple vandaag dan om te investeren in pre-seed tech" [7]. He has considered the alternative and rejected it. Private equity would be a far easier market to raise into, and he reckons he would have raised €15-100M by now, but buying profitable companies leaves him cold: "Dan is voor mij echt meer making rich people richer" [7]. The point of the money, in his account, is to back founders who change what tomorrow looks like rather than to compound existing wealth. NewSchool is raising up to €15-20M to place across 30-40 pre-seed tech startups [7].

The returns argument is not abstract for him. The Officient exit came back at 4x in three years, which he describes with something close to disbelief: "Ik dacht maal vier op drie jaar tijd. Wat is dat hier jong? Welke wereld dat ik nog doen" [7].

On judging founders

Investment decisions rest mostly on the founding team, and he breaks the team down into three things: an internal drive to solve the problem, the technical capability to build it, and the ability to market and sell it [7]. The third is the one he watches hardest, because he considers it the skill Flemish founders systematically underinvest in [7].

Drive he tests directly rather than taking on trust: "Soms test ik dat ook wel, de drive van de founders, door in het weekend of na de uren of 's morgens vroeg te bellen om te kijken of dat er een telefoon wordt opgepakt" [7]. The pattern he is looking for is visible in the companies he has already backed. Aikido Security won the Trends Data Award for most promising tech startup of the year, then took scaleup of the year two years later, and Spotable won the same promising-startup award with NewSchool on the cap table [6]. His summary of what those teams have in common is unfussy: "I love finding teams like these who give their all and make it happen!" [6].

On the solo GP advantage

The case for running the fund alone is speed. With no partners to align with, decisions happen in days [7]. That matters most precisely where he invests, because at pre-seed a drawn-out fundraise costs founders months of sales momentum [7].

The second edge is structural and hard to copy. Besox's 4,000-client network supplies both dealflow and customer introductions for portfolio companies [7]. Running those companies' payroll also gives him real-time visibility into team growth and retention that, as he puts it, no other VC has [7]. The proof points he puts forward for the payroll business run the same way, through clients rather than claims: every payroll partner promises good service, so he would rather let customers speak, with experienced payrollers supporting startups and established organisations alike at a price that holds up [5].

On how founders should raise

His practical advice on round sizing is blunt. VCs are generally not interested in €300K rounds, because a fund organisation cannot be fed by small deals even when the multiple is large [7]. Founders who genuinely want venture money should be targeting €1-3M and up [7]. He runs his own raise the same way he tells founders to run theirs, working the room in person and inviting people into a closing directly: NewSchool has done further closings, with presentations he is happy for interested parties to sit in on [3].

On old-school HR inside new-school companies

Morbee actively transfers practices from the established side of his world into startups: low workload, nice offices, unlimited leave [7]. The argument is one of symmetry. If employees are asked to commit like an entrepreneur, they deserve an entrepreneur's freedom, and in his experience the natural rhythm of colleagues' schedules prevents the policy being abused [7]. The same instinct shows up in how he recruits for Besox, hiring across all departments and asking his network to circulate roles rather than treating openings as a back-office matter [1][2].

On the ecosystem flywheel

Exits, in his telling, do not end anything. Officient and Yuqido created a loop where employees tell him at office warmings that they have startup ideas ready for when the company sells, and where founders who have exited put money back into the Ghent ecosystem [7]. That is part of why he places the work where he does, recruiting into Gent [2] and pointing people towards the founders and investors worth meeting at events like Gitex [4].

Takeaways

• Treat a business that repeats itself annually as a management job, not entrepreneurship: "Gewoon een bedrijf hebben die ieder jaar hetzelfde doet, dat is managen, dat is niet ondernemen" [7].
• Growth can be worth buying with margin. Besox ran at 0-5% profit for six or seven years of office expansion to sustain 20-25% annual growth to 110 employees [7].
• Test founder drive empirically by calling or emailing at weekends, early mornings or after hours and seeing who picks up [7].
• Of the three things he underwrites in a team, drive, technical capability and the ability to market and sell, the selling is the one Flemish founders most consistently neglect [7].
• Do not take a €300K round to VCs; a fund organisation cannot be sustained by small deals regardless of multiple, so aim at €1-3M or more [7].
• A solo GP decides in days rather than months, which at pre-seed directly protects a founder's sales momentum [7].
• Running portfolio companies' payroll through Besox gives real-time signal on team growth and retention, plus dealflow and customer intros from 4,000 clients [7].
• Extend entrepreneur-grade freedom, including unlimited leave and low workload, to employees who commit like entrepreneurs [7].