In 2015, Nicolas Finet, Thibaut Vanderhofstadt, Michael Valette and Charles De Groote had just finished their studies and believed the digital age was about to change the world. That belief led them to found Sortlist.
“The digital revolution had completely changed the game. Competition had become global,” said CEO Nicolas Finet. “Several businesses were going to win big, others would be crushed. We wanted to help the winners meet the right people.” Sortlist was launched as platform for connecting businesses and service providers.
Innovation began at the conceptual level. “At the beginning, we did everything manually, over the phone.” Then, the online platform was developed. “We naturally translated into the three languages of Belgium. That’s why we were able to internationalise straight away!” It was followed by full digitalisation, data management, and AI, which enables smart briefing features, automated budgets, instant recommendations and predictive tools for service providers. “People no longer search like they did 10 years ago. With AI we can build intelligent and predictive tools to help businesses make quicker decisions.”
Innovation was not just technical or technological — it was also entrepreneurial. “After the Covid- 19 crisis, we had to reinvent ourselves to stay afloat. We revised our model, we closed many of our offices, located in nearly every European capital, in order to recentralise here in Wavre and return to profitable growth.”
Today, the scaleup covers 3,000 services, connects 100,000 providers, operates in 140 countries and employs more than 100 people. And what does the future hold? “Tools that are even simpler, smarter and faster.”
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