It would be too simple to say that finding your startup co-founder is like dating; for #Aligned's founder, Gal Deitsch, there was a deep, serious search involving co-founder pitch deck, working on projects together, home visits, and more. Gal takes us through his journey to finding his two co-founders in this episode of Founder2Founder. In our conversation with Gal: 0:22 - Quick explanation of what Aligned does 1:17 - How did Gal get the idea for Aligned and turn that into a startup 3:54 - Steps Gal took to find his co-founder 5:58 - How Gal 'dated' his co-founder candidates 7:54 - How Aligned ended up with 3 co-founders, and why Gal chose to bring on someone else to be the CEO 9:28 - How Gal's experience as a manager previously helped him know what to look for 11:07 - Pitfalls to watch for when searching for a startup co-founder 13:26 - Did you seek out any advisors or mentors for going through this process? 15:17 - Key qualities to look for in a co-founder 17:03 - Tips for entrepreneurs just starting out on this search 18:46 - If Gal had to do it again - would he change anything? #Founder2Founder is a series of interviews with startup executives in the Hetz portfolio, where founders explain how they successfully executed a key project, gained a key skill, developed a strategy, or otherwise have advice to share to their fellow founders. Our interviewer is Liz Cohen, Head of Content at Hetz Ventures. #HetzVentures is a global-facing VC investing in highly talented and ambitious Israeli founders who operate at the cutting edge of deep technology. Our approach is to lead with an entrepreneurial mindset, partnering with our portfolio companies to help them become the next market leaders. Our team serves as a tech and data-driven, active, hands-on partner from the moment we start due diligence all the way to helping raise future rounds of financing. Our international network consists of active connections to corporate executives and investors, empowering both founders and network members to engage and rise to the top of their industries through innovation.

The team at Deepchecks made a bold move in January 2022: They pivoted their entire company approach from building enterprise-first to engaging the ML/data science community by building #opensource software as their core offering. Philip Tannor, CEO & Co-founder of the continuous ML validation startup shares what it takes to get to that kind of decision, how to actually launch #OSS, whether it impacts hiring, developer advocacy, metrics, and more.

"It's not you, it's me." Imagine saying that to your Fortune 500 customers! As Yuval Yifrach, co-founder and CEO of #MarketBeyond knows, sometimes you have to make incredible choices as a startup founder - in order to ultimately prevail (including acquisition by Bright Data in Market Beyond's case).