How do you build a global tech company from scratch—and stay married while doing it? Nicolas and Alina Vandenberghe, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Chili Piper, join David Politis for an in-depth conversation on bootstrapping, hiring globally, handling layoffs, and building community with intention.

From convincing early customers to prepay for a non-existent product to implementing a decision-making framework that replaces most meetings, they reveal what it really takes to grow a successful, remote-first company together.

Takeaways:

Buy-In Without a Product: By focusing on real, unsolved pain points and validating ideas through milestone-based contracts, they built confidence and traction before writing a single line of code.
Hiring Across Borders for Talent, Not Cost: Nicolas explains how they built Chili Piper by hiring globally from day one, prioritizing talent regardless of geography. They developed a compensation framework by region and job level to ensure fairness while scaling a fully remote team.
Building Culture Through Annual Global Gatherings: The company brings its global team together once a year for a shared in-person experience—despite the cost. The cultural exchange deepens trust and unity across a fully distributed team, making it one of the most valuable investments they make each year.
Scaling with Asynchronous Decision Memos: To cut down on meetings, Chili Piper developed a company-wide decision memo process. Each decision includes context, options, and a designated “consensus caller.” This system supports clarity, inclusion, and transparency without constant live discussions.
Overcoming Financial Stress in a Bootstrapped Journey: Nicolas recounts moments when they had no cash in the bank—offering equity in lieu of salaries to early employees. Those shares later became life-changing, and the experience shaped their resilient, scrappy mindset.
Community as a Founder Superpower: Alina reflects on how building community—without tracking pipeline or ROI—has been vital to learning and joy. By showing up with genuine curiosity, she’s gained clarity on what customers really care about and how to serve them authentically.
Leading with Empathy, Curiosity, and Drive: In describing each other’s superpowers, Alina credits Nicolas for his deep empathy and organizational clarity, while Nicolas points to Alina’s intense curiosity and willingness to experiment. Together, they’ve created a leadership model rooted in trust and transparency

Quote of the Show:

" If you go with selfish reasons… people read that. Even if you don’t say it, they can feel it." - Alina Vandenberghe

Links:

Alina’ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alinav/
Nicolas’ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nvandenberghe/
Website: https://www.chilipiper.com/

Ways to Tune In:

Substack: https://notanotherceo.substack.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1NQ9oAB2XKlgWeL8iEQXg0
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/not-another-ceo-podcast/id1751581707
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@NotAnotherCEOPodcast
Transistor: https://podcast.notanotherceo.com/

#NotAnotherCEO #BusinessSuccess #ChiliPiper

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:59 Early Challenges and First Customers

07:28 Building and Scaling the Team

12:59 Remote Work and Company Culture

17:55 Decision Making and Documentation

34:23 Alina's Superpower: Curiosity and Community Building

35:59 The Value of Community in Business

40:03 Nicholas's Superpower: Empathy and Human Insight

44:34 Challenges and Triumphs in Entrepreneurship

51:25 The Future of Chili Piper

54:25 Personal Backgrounds and Entrepreneurial Journeys

01:02:28 Balancing Family and Business

01:06:18 Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

01:08:49 Outro

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