A taxonomy of the early growth of Belgian start‐ups

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the heterogeneity of the initial growth trajectories adopted by young firms, using an approach similar to Delmar et al. 's analysis, in order to better understand and describe the underlying development patterns. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyze the development during their initial years of existence of the population of all firms in Belgium which are more than three years old and have grown above micro‐firm size between 1992 and 2002 ( n =2,152). The authors measure the evolution over time of three basic economic data (number of employees, sales and assets) and seven financial data (value added, operating income, current income, net income, cash flow, working capital and shareholders' equity). Findings – A taxonomy was identified defined around four stable typical growth trajectories. These trajectories were adopted by a majority of firms in the sample and were not related to firm size or industry affiliation. Originality/value – The paper's findings confirm, using an original empirical approach, previous results related to early growth and highlight the oversimplification of the life‐cycle approaches often used by practitioners and policy makers. They also open interesting research avenues regarding the endogenous and exogenous factors explaining the adoption of a given trajectory by a firm as well as why the trajectories identified are relatively stable over time.