Shop owner. Self-taught developer. Brussels.
Julien runs Chez Julien, a specialty food shop in Brussels. In 2025, he started building software tools for his own shop using AI-assisted development — no technical background, no team, no funding.
The quality of what one non-technical person could build surprised him. A demand prediction engine. An interactive workflow map. A cooperative social network spec. Real tools, not toy apps.
Grassroots Hoppers is the question that followed: if one shop owner can build this, what happens when communities do it together — and what if every tool came with a playbook so the next person doesn't start from zero?
Grassroots Hoppers is built by GPFC srl, a registered Belgian company. The entity is real. The code is open. The first products are being built in public.
The roadmap includes cooperative governance — a legal structure (SC — société coopérative under Belgian law) where contributors become co-owners. That structure is being designed now. Until it's filed, the commitment is simple: everything is open-source, everything is documented, and the governance templates will be published for any community to adopt.
We'd rather be honest about what's real than promise what isn't.
Bottom-up, citizen-driven, not corporate.
Movement from person to person, community to community, city to city. Also: a nod to Lindy Hop, the dance community where this idea was born.
Hopping from open-source project to open-source project, taking the pieces you need to assemble your own design.
The Grassroots Hoppers are a community of community builders spreading city by city, like Transition Towns for digital infrastructure.
Whether you want to partner, contribute, book a talk, or just say hello.