The Founder's Marriage

Hey everyone,

Happy New Year!

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IDEAS
The Founder's Marriage

Finding a cofounder is no different to finding a spouse.

The person you choose to build your company with will become more intimate with your life than most romantic partners.

You'll share the highest highs, weather the lowest lows, and spend countless late nights wrestling with problems that seem impossible to solve.

They'll see you at your absolute best and your absolute worst.

You might spend more waking hours with your cofounder than your actual spouse, especially in those crucial early years.

You'll share bank accounts, make life-altering decisions together, and trust them with your most ambitious dreams.

The relationship requires the same fundamental ingredients:

• Shared values

• Unwavering trust

• Complementary strengths

• And that ineffable "click" that makes the magic happen.

One of the saddest facts of modern society is that 50% of marriages end in divorce.

If we agree that co-founder relationships are like marriages, half will end in a split.

So, what’s the point of me saying all this?

Well, you wouldn't logically rush into marrying any random person off the street, right?

In the same way, when looking for a co-founder, one shouldn't rush to find the right one.

The ultimate challenge in life is to avoid rushing into a marriage or cofounder relationship out of desperation.

Picking “the one” will literally make or break your company.

Our inclination with starting something from nothing is always to move as fast as humanly possible.

However, the counterintuitive thing about finding a cofounder is that it is inherently slow.

In fact, taking your time to find the right cofounder will allow your startup to move way faster than the competition in the long run.

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INSIGHTS
1 Article

What’s Getting Funded in 2025

With the start of every new year comes the inevitable flood of predictions about what's to come.

One of the most fascinating areas of prediction is where venture funding will flow in the months ahead. While it's no surprise that AI features prominently, few would predict a US manufacturing renaissance and ambitious new city development projects.

When I look at the landscape of opportunities ahead, three verticals mainly capture my attention:

• Voice AI: We're reaching an inflection point where typing will feel as antiquated as dial-up internet once did. The next wave of human-computer interaction will be voice-first, and the companies that nail this transition will define the next era of computing.

• Personalised Software: The time for one-size-fits-all SaaS is ending. With LLMs enabling truly adaptive solutions, companies can deliver software that moulds itself to specific contexts rather than forcing adaptation to its own system.

• Agentic Applications: Three months after OpenAI's o1 release, we're only beginning to glimpse what's possible with autonomous AI agents. Companies that can effectively harness these capabilities to solve real business problems—while maintaining reliability and trust—will capture enormous value.

I do not doubt that funding will flow to those who don’t just build better tools; but reimagine how we interact with technology.

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THOUGHTS
Quote I’m Pondering

“You’d take a lot of time finding the right partner, right? They would be half of your company. Why should you take any less time finding a third of your company, a fourth of your company, or a fifth of your company?

When you’re in a startup, the first ten people will determine whether the company succeeds or not. Each is 10% of the company. So why wouldn’t you take as much time as necessary to find all the A players? If three were not so great, why would you want a company where 30% of your people are not so great?

A small company depends on great people much more than a big company does.”

— Steve Jobs

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Thanks for reading,

— Luca

P.S. Make it feel like a German car door…