Not Another CEO Podcast | Global Talent & Community - Nicolas & Alina Vandenberghe - Chili Piper

Global Talent & Community - Nicolas & Alina Vandenberghe - Chili Piper - Episode #45

May 20, 2025 / 01:10:17/E45

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

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