Génération Do It Yourself
#526 - VO - Alice Bentinck - Entrepreneurs First - The Founder Matchmaker
01 Mar 2026
Chapter 1: What is Entrepreneurs First and how does it find founders?
For the last 10 years, I've been building and running Entrepreneurs First, trying to find founders basically before they founded a company. We've now built $15 billion worth of companies. We've got 500 seed-funded companies. We now work with about 400 individual founders every year. So the nuggets that we're looking for are not companies, they're people. Why do early stage companies fail?
It's often co-founder breakups. If you have a great co-founding team, it doesn't matter if the idea sucks because you will iterate to the point where you get to a good idea.
Is megalomania good?
In a founder, yes. Megalomania has always been important to the people that have influenced the world. They believe they are different to everyone else. And this is not sufficient to succeed, but it is necessary. You can be super smart, super ambitious, but if you don't believe your odds of success are different to everyone else's, you're never going to make it.
We are the average of the people we spend the most time with. My name is Mathieu Stéphanie and I invite entrepreneurs, athletes and artists to raise my average and yours. Just before we begin this episode, I'll switch to French for a brief moment to thank my sponsors. If you are recruiting for the first time, well, frankly, I would like to say something.
Bravo, because it's the most beautiful gesture, the most beautiful thing to do in a company. And that means that it's moving forward, that there's business, there's concrete. But don't lie to yourself, recruiting is also a bit scary because a employee is not just a name in a Slack or a new email address. It's a contract, a convention.
A first payment sheet, statements from the URSAF, and honestly, that can become a real stress. And that's where my partner Payfit comes into play.
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Chapter 2: Why do early stage companies fail due to co-founder dynamics?
Payfit is the solution I would have dreamed of having for my very first hiring. A simple tool, 100% online, in less than two hours, hand in hand, you can close your first payment. No need to be an expert, Payfit guides you at each step and secures your steps and makes you save a monstrous time. And in addition, Payfit has launched a new exclusive offer that is unbeatable.
Listen carefully, for business creators only. Do it. Yeah, that's the first recording of the year, but it will be probably released later on. Hi Alice, how are you?
I'm very good. Thank you so much for having me today.
Chapter 3: What is the significance of megalomania in founders?
Yeah, I'm so happy. So you're just in Europe for a few days, are you?
I was over for the Christmas break, but I'm going back to my new home in California in a couple of days.
It's a new home. Since when did you move there?
We moved out about two years ago.
Two years ago.
Yeah.
How do you like it?
I love it. It's a very special place. The weather is incredible. The people are super interesting. And even though I live in San Francisco and it's a very small city, having lived in London for 15 years, it does feel like a very, very small city. But I think part of its beauty is that it is such a small city. And so you're constantly bumping into people.
I've never lived in a city where or in a place really where on a daily basis you bump into people on the street that you know, you know, going for walks or doing walking meetings or, you know, I've got kids. So like in the kids parks. And so in some ways you are constantly networking because you're constantly bumping into people.
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Chapter 4: How can you determine if someone is the right co-founder within 48 hours?
Do it ! And what is the deal with the companies, with the founders?
So we invest, they get access to $250,000 of investment. We also provide a stipend as they go through the program. Or we're now running residencies as well. So we have multiple products now. One is a non-residency. One is a residency which we're running in the US. So young Europeans can apply to go and live in our pretty incredible new house in the Mission in San Francisco.
No way. How big is it?
It's enormous. And it's very cool. It's one of those traditional, you know, San Franciscan Victorian houses. And we pay for your living costs, your food, basically make it as easy as possible for you to just focus on building your company. And then once you've found your co-founder, once you've developed your idea, we then invest $250,000.
And then you get access to another three months of support to get ready for Demo Day. And then Demo Day is in San Francisco with 200 partner level individuals from some of the world's best VCs.
Okay, so it's eight weeks first. You go in the house for eight weeks. Then if you invest, you get an extra three months in the house?
No, once you get the funding, you then have to survive on your own and find your own place to live.
And what do you get in exchange of the 250k?
So we take, it's structured as 125k for 8% and then a further 125k as a MFN, which is a kind of convertible note that converts at somewhere around 1% typically.
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Chapter 5: What challenges do European founders face in accepting failure?
Yeah.
Because most of the time you're like, yeah, okay, make it for free. Or, you know, you're like, no, I mean, try it.
Yeah, and it won't always work out. And I think we've got to get more okay. You know, we talk a lot about, you know, attitudes to failure and that being one of the challenges for Europe. But I think it really is. And it's not just founders being afraid to fail. It's the customers, you know, the clients of these startups being afraid to fail, being afraid to look bad in front of their boss.
And the more that we can kind of remove that fear around failure I think that would really help Europe.
I think it's even more true with all of the AI stuff happening right now. And I'm probably sometimes not that good in this area, I have to say. I mean, you know, you get those young guys coming around and trying to sell you something and you're like, oh yeah, I have no, I mean, I'm too old for this, you know? But it's, I mean, we're laughing, but I think it's a drama.
So I think we have to take responsibility out of this. It's very interesting. And talking about AI, this has changed a lot, I believe, because, I mean, you know, I don't know, we talked about Lovable and Antonio Sica before recording, and he was sitting in your chair a few months ago, and... like last week, just for fun, I built my own URL shortener, right? You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, like Bitly. And like, this is insane. I mean, I'm not able to do that in the real world, right? And you can do bricks like this, like a Lego everywhere now. How much has it changed your work? Because I believe the competition is bigger in a lot of areas.
Well, I mean, maybe there's more competition, but I think the main thing to focus on is there is an increasing supply of people that want to be founders. You know, EF's mission is to increase the supply of high quality companies that are built every year, you know, create companies that wouldn't otherwise happen. And we have never seen more individuals, more young people growing.
wanting to be a founder and seeing founding as not just a viable career path, but an aspirational and desirable career path. And this is such a great thing for the world. And so you say there's more competition, but I think there's greater supply. As in, I'm delighted that there are more people coming in. I'm delighted that there are more early stage investors.
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Chapter 6: How has AI changed the startup landscape?
Like, it's really hard to quit that great investment banking job, that hedge fund. Because if you are good at your job, they will not let you quit. And one of the things that, you know, when Americans say to me, oh, you know, why doesn't Europe have a Google or, you know, whatever? Larry and Sergey would have worked at a hedge fund. Mark Zuckerberg would have become a consultant.
You know, these are the kind of careers that... are very desirable still and are really, really hard to get out of. And I think people underestimate just how strong the golden handcuffs are. And so if we are now going through this sort of golden era where young people are not even trying those career paths and going straight into founding, it's a great thing for the world.
But those same companies and McKinsey and Google and, I don't know, Goldman Sachs, they do the same in the US. How come some American people just leave and create companies?
Well, it is different in the US. So I think it depends East Coast versus West Coast and it depends on the university. So, you know, if you go to the Stanford campus, everyone wants to be a founder and everyone is a founder. You know, everyone's got self-founder on their LinkedIn and they are building and experimenting with things.
And actually those traditional career paths aren't aspirational at all. Also in the US you have more graduate jobs in big tech companies.
Does the employment security change this thing? Does the fact that the American, I mean, they can get fired like, or they get fired like from day to another. We, it's not the same in Europe. So you're kind of, you know, warm in your job, in your, even with American firms, it's going to cost them a ton of money if they fire you. So maybe they keep you here and you're kind of happy with that.
Maybe, but I suppose we're not looking for the people who are kind of happy with it. You know, you're looking for the people who are sort of frustrated and who are rattling against the chains, but maybe don't see an alternative. And I'm delighted that more and more people are seeing it as an aspirational alternative. So, yeah, I don't it's not about turning people into founders.
You know, I don't think we should be pushing people who are very happy in their corporate jobs.
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Chapter 7: What are the key traits of successful founders?
There are lots of people who shouldn't be founders. Not everyone should be a founder. It's an awful career path. It's one of the hardest, most harrowing career paths you can choose. But there's a bunch of people who should be on that career path, who want that steep learning curve, who want the kind of.
punishment that comes with being a founder because it is so fulfilling and it's about how do we get those people to make the leap and to see that actually the opportunity cost is not leaving their job the opportunity cost is staying in their job if you've got a billion dollar company inside you you've got a multi-billion dollar company inside you the real cost is staying in your nice cozy job
um that your parents are really pleased with or that your friends think is cool that is the real cost um because think about the impact you could have on the world think about the wealth you could generate and the impact you could have from that wealth um that is that is that is the opportunity cost
The fun thing is that you're not aiming or addressing those people because it's too late. They're dead to the entrepreneur world, right? I mean, those people who have been working for Google for 10 years, who have two kids, live in Paris, Berlin, or London,
We're going younger.
Would there be a kind of entrepreneur first idea to put on the table with those people? Like saying, you're experienced, or is it too late? Are they doomed?
I mean, if you look at the data on founders, there's this great book, Super Founders by Ali Tamaseb, who's a VC at DCVC and originally studied at Imperial in London. And it looks at all the data on founders that have built billion dollar companies. And the data shows that you really can be any age to create a billion dollar company.
But the interesting thing is, if you look at people who do found successfully later in life, it's typically that they've had a And so one of the things that I am very keen that we begin talking about in Europe, which seems way more normal in the US, is this idea of a founding career path. You know, you build a company. It doesn't work out. It's totally fine. But you've learned a ton.
Build another company. Doesn't work out. Totally fine. Build another company. Compound that learning. Whereas I feel like in Europe, we have this whole thing of like, go and work in this completely detached industry, but it's still business. And then use those learnings to start a company. But the learnings you get from a big business, that's about optimization. It's about impressing your boss.
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Chapter 8: How do you find and work with a good coach?
And so I think more this idea that founding may take two, three, four, five attempts. You know, you don't win a gold medal at the Olympics on your first time necessarily. It's something that you build expertise and muscle in. And the same needs to be how we think about founding.
Yeah, I think I've seen the statistics a couple of years ago about like the chances you have to succeed on your third company. They're like huge. I mean, like huge. Yeah. Even if you failed the first two ones. So it's interesting. The other fun thing is that, that's maybe my feeling, but you tell me if I'm wrong.
You were saying like, what you're looking at is technical background, I want to go back on that later on, action, speed, aggressiveness, playing to win, get a market, destroying everything else.
and to what i understand on alice when you left going for a non-profit and to where you're succeeding right now big time right i i don't know if i mean you you were that kind of person were you no and i think this is the this is the point it's that um
we are brought up in a certain way in Europe and I'm raising my kids in the US now and like they are brought up in a different way in the US. The school system is different, the kind of things they value are different. And so it's working out like how are those emerging behaviors displayed and then how do we amplify them? How do we give permission for those behaviors to exist?
Because I'm incredibly ambitious and have always been and have always wanted work to be a large part of my life and a large part of what I do and something that, you know, excites and motivates me. But when I was growing up, the word ambition, particularly for a woman, was a really dirty word. Like that was not something that I would have expressly said.
Yeah, if you go back in Europe, technical background, action, speed, aggressive. aggression or playing to win, get a market, destroy everything. That's typically masculine terminology.
Very, very masculine. But also I think a lot of it, you know, it's just not how we would talk about it in Europe. And it's not that we don't have that as Europeans. It's just that we have either suppressed those behaviors or present them in a different way.
And in your role now, Alice, at EF, you guys, all of you, is part of your job trying to permit to let people like a young woman coming to you and just let them do that. I mean, you have to give them the authorization like, like, Hey babes, wake up. Like, like you're that kind of person. You have the technical background. I can feel the action, but let yourself be that person.
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