I got lucky: I built with people I'd known for years

Operating a startup is a longer journey than you'd expect – and so is a co-founder relationship.

People obsess over the idea, the market, the timing. Yet the thing that actually carries you through the years is the one we question the least: who you choose to do it with.

More than a shared vision

A co-founder relationship needs constant alignment, a shared vision and a culture you build together. But far more than that, it needs the daily grind of deciding together: the small calls, the big ones, and the economic scenarios that could undo what you spent years building.

What got us through

I got lucky. Some of my co-founders I had known since school. I could trust them deeply, because I already knew who they were under pressure.

We didn't always agree – no real partnership does. But what I value now more than ever is that we always respected each other, we always picked up the phone, and we always had a joke ready. That is what gets you through the worst weeks. Not the cap table, not the strategy: the people.

What I tell founders today

Choose your co-founders like a decade-long partnership, not a hire.

Who did you choose to build with – and would you choose them again?

Still looking for the right co-founder? Cofoundista matches founders in Europe through structured profiles, a fit score both sides can read, and intros only when both say yes.