4 traits of legendary founders & Are co-CEOs brilliant or bananas? [20VC, May 2025]
“Having co-CEOs lets us spend twice the time talking to customers and refining strategy. It’s literally our superpower.” -- Eléonore Crespo
Dear reader who doesn’t have time to listen to VC podcasts,
Forget garages and dorm rooms—today’s origin story is straight out of Grey’s Anatomy. After three brutal surgeries left Eléonore Crespo bedridden for a year, she experienced a classic ‘forced founder epiphany.’
She traded her cushy VC job at Index Ventures to dive headfirst into entrepreneurship.
Over 69 minutes, Eléonore shared her playbook with Harry Stebbings:
Relentless talent scouting, hyperactive communication with her co-CEO, early US ambition, counter-cyclical boldness, meticulous diligence on partners and thoughtful work-life integration.
Eléonore is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Pigment, a planning platform built for agility and scale and one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies. With Pigment, Eleonore has raised about $400 million from the best in the world, including ICONIQ, Greenoaks and IVP.
Harry hosted Eléonore on 20VC on May 9.
Enjoy🍿
[Time saved: 65 minutes]
Let’s hear it!
Eléonore’s CIA-style co-founder hunt (she literally made a target list): Eléonore’s co-founder search wasn’t casual coffee chats. Think Mission Impossible-like intel gathering. She interrogated founders, investors and execs with ruthless precision:
Who are the absolute top CTOs you know?
What makes them epic under pressure?
Ater exhaustive back-channeling and meticulous research, Eléonore created a shortlist—and right at the very top was Romain Niccoli, former CTO of Criteo.
Your co-founder is your most important hire. Go full espionage mode.
Co-CEOs: “We talk 3x a day. That’s our superpower.”: Most VCs cringe at co-CEO setups, but Eléonore swears it’s Pigment’s “secret sauce.” With crystal-clear, complementary roles (she runs business; Romain, product & tech) and an obsessive three-times-a-day communication habit, Pigment thrives:
“Having co-CEOs lets us spend twice the time talking to customers and refining strategy. It’s literally our superpower.”
They’ve somehow avoided any fights—just daily productive disagreements. Weird? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.
Yuri Milner’s 4 traits of legendary founders (one is shocking): Eléonore shared billionaire investor Yuri Milner’s 4 key traits of the greatest founders he’s seen:
Deep understanding of human psychology: “You must deeply know people to hire the best.”
Exceptional storytelling: “Tech brilliance alone isn’t enough.”
A brutally honest partner (spouse, sibling, co-founder, anyone who tells you the uncomfortable truths)
A loving family that can anchor founders through (inevitable) tough times
Think about talent like elite sports scouts: Hiring is Eléonore’s absolute obsession—she scouts like an NFL recruiter sniffing out next season’s superstar:
She scouts relentlessly: conferences, rival companies, literally anywhere there’s talent.
She keeps lists of top talent and carefully tracks them until a “trigger event” (M&A, layoffs, leadership changes) opens up an opportunity to poach.
Eléonore creates meticulous interview rubrics and question lists tailored to each role, deeply informed by the insights of industry veterans.
Hiring from the Olympic Games org. team: At the Paris 2024 Olympics, Eléonore met the CFO responsible for organizing the entire Games. Realizing his top people would soon have to be fired, she moved fast:
“I asked him straight up: Who’s the best person on your team? He pointed me to someone amazing, and I hired them immediately.”
Seize top talent at unexpected moments. Move swiftly when you spot greatness.
Filter out title-chasers and political hires: Eléonore has zero patience for political games or ego-driven hires. She actively filters candidates by bluntly highlighting Pigment’s brutal workload upfront:
“I show candidates a deck listing all the hard things they’ll face. Anyone fixated on titles and politics naturally filters themselves out.”
Kill ego early to protect your culture. Politics and fancy titles are red flags.
Raising more than is needed: Eléonore famously raised massive rounds early. Why so aggressive? She admits it wasn’t strictly necessary from a burn perspective, but it was strategic. Insurance against uncertainty:
“I’m building for 30 years, not short-term dilution.”
“Do I care about dilution? Not really. The right partners and a massive vision matter more.”
Takeaway: Optimize for runway and strategic partners, not short-term dilution fears.
Board power is real: Choose board members like you’re choosing co-founders—meticulously and skeptically.
A bad board can destroy your company—literally.
Always conduct extreme due diligence on board members, not just firms.
“If the board wants to fire you, they can. You can’t divorce a bad board.”
Double down during a downturn and steal your competitors’ lunch: Rob Ward (Meritech Capital) gave Eléonore a golden piece of counter-cyclical advice she fully embraced:
“When there is a crisis, it’s time to invest. Let’s go. Because your competitors cannot invest right now.”
Playbook on selling into the US: Most startups delay cracking the US market. Pigment jumped straight in:
Americans buy faster, bigger, bolder.
Landing big early customers (Figma, Brex) gave Pigment instant credibility.
“Selling to US customers early was hard, but actually easier than selling in Europe. The US moves faster.”
The hardest part of being a CEO no one talks about: Decision pacing. No one admits how brutally hard it is knowing exactly when to slow down decisions. CEOs constantly risk acting either too fast or agonizingly slow at critical moments.
On children, spouses and longevity: Eléonore deeply values work-life harmony. Family and children aren’t distractions; they’re sources of joy and resilience.
She deliberately separates work from home, rarely discussing Pigment at home. Family life energizes her, creating sustainable excellence:
“My family reminds me what happiness truly means. Kids teach you to appreciate life more deeply.”
And that’s 69 minutes squeezed into 4. Full episode here.
Make this weekend count!
Dominika
For those of you who can find the time to tune in, here’s a selection of my recent finds:
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- VC React Podcast (E37): Stargate, Builder AI’s Collapse, Iraq’s Startups, Diaspora Founders by VC React (June 2, 62 minutes) (Spotify)
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Disclaimer: This article was written by a human with some help from AI.