Stop looking for a co-founder. You’re probably looking in the wrong place.
The pattern I noticed while travelling across 15 CEE countries to recruit the top 1% talent might change how you think about your founding team.
Tour status: 5/15 countries ✅
We’re reporting back from Bulgaria and Skopje, and for a good reason.
The advice has been the same for ages: find your co-founder early, align on vision, lock in equity, and move together.
It made sense when your options were limited to the people in your environment.
It makes less sense when you’re about to fly to SF for a month alongside 15 teams.
Here’s exactly why:
Bulgaria: the analytical room
⚠️Spoiler alert:
Christo Peev, the entrepreneur who built and sold a company for $10 million, wants to build a pre-acceleration program in Bulgaria. The winner of that program gets a guaranteed spot in the 2027 ReaktorX batch.
There were 35+ builders set on solving problems using their analytical thinking and reasoning.
Here’s what they actually did, so you understand what an investor is observing when they evaluate you:
Reached for frameworks
One of them dropped “design thinking” mid-conversation. He didn’t use it correctly, but that’s not the point.
These are students with no formal startup training. Knowing the framework exists and reaching for it anyway already puts you ahead of most people in the room.
Questioned the question
A group was working on how to help athletes train for longer. One of them, an athlete himself, stopped everyone and said: the problem isn’t about training longer, it’s about recovering faster.
And he wasn’t the only one. Most of them were looking at the questions on the table and said: this doesn’t sound right, I think the actual problem is somewhere else.
That capability, to question the question, is one of the clearest signals of developed critical thinking. Most people accept the frame they’re given.
Landed on conclusions on their own
At the debrief, one of them pointed out that working in a large group was a mistake. He should have joined a smaller one, because they moved faster and talked more bluntly.
I asked him: so why did you stay in the large group?
“Comfort”
Correct. And what’s the lesson? Leave comfort behind.
In the large groups everyone is looking for consensus. As an early stage founder, you want a small group of exceptional people who will tell each other the truth.
But…
Analytical intelligence without creative range gets you a very well-executed product that doesn’t stand out.
Skopje: the room that turned a jacuzzi into a gaming spot. Literally.
It was the most unique room I’ve stepped into on this tour. These builders were high in EQ and creativity, and it showed in the way they solved problems and interacted:
The idea that redefined how we travel
One guy came up with the concept of an app where you plan a trip, save it as a template, and whenever someone else copies your trip, you earn a commission and they receive discounts.
The concept would be a unique travel experience based on real trips from real people, not influencers or travel guides.
How a small gesture will get you remembered
At the end of the evening, one of the participants found me and said: “I saved you two of the chocolate rolls, I noticed you liked them and didn’t get to eat many”.
She noticed a small thing that cost her nothing to act on, and that got her remembered.
That ability to notice what people need before they say it is the same ability you use to find product-market fit.
Yet…
Creative range without analytical intelligence gets you a pitch deck that sounds good but doesn’t translate into practice.
Two extremes complete each other 🤝
Bulgaria thinks in solutions. North Macedonia thinks in possibilities. Neither is complete without the other.
And yet if I had asked everyone in both rooms to find a co-founder before applying, most of them would have paired up with the person sitting next to them.
Blagica said it better than I would have:
Don’t tie yourself to someone from your city when you might find the perfect co-founder in SF, or in the batch.
That’s why I actually prefer that you apply solo.
The tools available to a solo founder in 2026 make it possible to build, validate, and get to first revenue without needing a second person to split the work.
Find the right person once you know what you’re building and what you actually need from them.
If you’re a builder ready to take the next step or an LP looking for early access to ReaktorX, DM me on LinkedIn.
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