Thierry D'haenens

Accelerating leaders in growth - CEO & Founder at Better Growth

Antwerp Metropolitan Area

About

In 2016 I started my entrepreneurial adventure with Sportr, a platform to connect athletes and sports clubs. The goal? Getting people to play sports flexibly! In those 3 years, I built a great network, but we struggled to get our story to the right audience. After 3 years, both the team and the financial side of the story were burned out. I took all that knowledge with me and decided that in my next adventure, I would focus more on what I had struggled with myself with Sportr: a good growth strategy to bring a story to the market. That's how I ended up at GrowForce, where I spent 3 years helping and mentoring B2B companies with Growth Hacking and Growth Marketing techniques. At the same time, I also founded the GrowForce Academy, a 6-week course through which we taught over 600 professionals and entrepreneurs the techniques ourselves. The biggest struggle remained the same: Companies were struggling to bring their amazing offerings to market. So, after 3 years of GrowForce story, I decided to walk my own path in August 2021. The demand for a good go-to-market strategy kept coming back. I got tons of energy from sparring with other entrepreneurs to help them with this. And in May 2022, Better Growth was born out of this. Our mission continues to be what I've seen entrepreneurs get themselves and their organizations stuck in for years: To help B2B companies take their story to market and, most importantly, learn how to do it themselves. How? Better Growth is an exclusive community of like-minded sales leaders who support each other to achieve their goals through sounding board discussions and inspiring events.

Experience

  • Founder & CEO at Better Growth
    Jun 2022 - Present · 4 yrs 1 mo

    Community, programs, and guidance for growth professionals in B2B.

  • Co-Founder at Founders Running Club
    Apr 2025 - Present · 1 yr 3 mos

    Global community for founders, investors, tech, creative ppl, and startup enthusiasts. 22 cities, 26000+ people. Co-founder of the Antwerp Branch

  • Validation Lead at ANWB
    Jan 2022 - Jun 2022 · 6 mos

  • Growth Advisor at Freelance
    Oct 2021 - May 2022 · 8 mos

    I help with validating business ideas, educating your S&M team, scaling campaigns or optimizing growth processes. This wil result in an increase of adoption, revenue, or retention for your business.

  • GrowForce (3 yrs)
    • Director of GrowForce academy
      Apr 2019 - Oct 2021 · 2 yrs 7 mos

      Creator and director of our educational platform where we transform our field experience into value-packed courses. We teach the most up-to-date marketing strategies, tools, and tactics to business owners and professionals that want to stay on top of their careers. Taught over 500+ alumni from 300+ companies.

    • Growth Consultant
      Nov 2018 - Oct 2021 · 3 yrs

      We help companies create predictable sales funnels with their venture brand. The GrowForce team does this by teaching them how to automate the growth of their lead generation and bring their value proposition, sales and marketing process, technology stack and sales team to a higher maturity level. Clients include founders of leading European companies. Client information is not disclosed unless you reach out to me personally.