Dieter

Not long ago, @conveoai was a handful of people in Antwerp. Today, we have offices across Europe and the U.S., and we work with more than 400 enterprises, including 50+ of the Fortune 500. This week at Tectonic in Ghent, I swapped founder stories with Manu Vanderveeren from Spott. Here are three things I’d tell any founder starting out: 👉 Early on, hire people who can grow into the job, because nobody knows yet what the job will look like next year. Later, add people who’ve done it for years. You need both. 👉 Start looking for senior leaders months before you need them. By the time it hurts, you’re already late. 👉 When you open in a new country, send a co-founder. Hendrik Van Hove moved to New York to head up our office there, because whoever goes first sets the culture. I’m proud of Conveo’s Belgian roots. The next few years are about showing the world what a company from here can do.

I asked @paulg at the @ycombinator Founder Retreat last week if we could find some time to talk through a project I'm working on at Conveo. I figured I’d get a 30-minute slot a few weeks out, maybe. He asked: “Do you have your laptop with you?” Yes. “Great. Let’s do it right now.” We ended up going for an hour on the spot. PG has nothing left to prove. He could have spent that time catching up with old friends at the event. He chose to sit down with a founder and dig into the details. What a legend. That’s the thing about great builders. The itch to build never goes away, even when it’s someone else’s company. And the best time to help someone is almost always right now, not “let’s find a slot.” (As for what was on that laptop screen, keeping it under wraps for now, but you’ll see it very soon.)