Users of the application--which currently offers discounts for around 25 brands in the grand duchy for users who complete certain fitness challenges--will therefore be able to select whether they also want to opt in for discounts in the Belgium city as well. 

No Big Deal co-founder Nigel Bergstra told Delano on Thursday that following the Liège rollout, Brussels will be “the next natural choice”. A new update will also offer part of the app functionality to be available in French. 

It has been almost exactly one year since Bergstra and his fellow co-founders, Daniel Klemetz and Wojciech Szejerka, developed the concept and used last year's Christmas holidays to really put in place a concrete plan. “I think it started on the user side and creating this instinctual, and then we realised that we can make it a sustainable business model by enabling brands [to be] in the process,” Bergstra said.

The app got its launch in autumn (read more about its start here) after being registered in spring 2020 around the same time the health crisis was beginning in the grand duchy.

In fact, Bergstra thinks the winter holidays are a good time for new users to discover the app anyway, since it helps solve two problems in particular: the tendency of people to put on weight in the cooler months as well as discover gift ideas.

“Just recently there have been a few additions and there will be more coming,” he says. “There are some really cool brands that have good Christmas gifts and packages…you can walk a bit, you get a Christmas idea, and then you can get a discount and buy the gift.”

There has been an emphasis on bringing lesser-known, local brands to the forefront on the app too, which the co-founder anticipates will continue as No Big Deal continues its expansion. 

“We deliberately avoided [selling to large corporates] for now and went for smaller, local brands, which I think brings a cool element to the app and because there are a lot of these local companies you might not normally hear of which plays towards the app being abour discovery,” he says. 

“You go walk around, you discover parts of the city, but also you’re in the app, discovering local brands, which is an element that we didn’t expect but is quite neat.”

No Big Deal is among the startups to participate in this year's Web Summit taking place 2-4 December.