Just F*cking Launch It!
Welcome to the Seventy-Sixth edition of Unstoppable Founders!
👑 #Unstoppable Female Founder
This week my Unstoppable Female Founder is a woman who has a blend of deep intellect and passion to drive real-world impact, Eleonore Crespo, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Pigment.
Eleonore graduated with a master’s in quantum physics from ENS Paris-Saclay, before going on to study entrepreneurship and innovation at École des Mines. That combination alone, hard science and strategic thinking, speaks volumes. She’s always been curious about the systems that shape our world and how they could be improved for the better.
Her early career took her to New York as a project manager at JCDecaux, then back to Europe for a role at Google working directly with the EMEA president and CFO. That experience gave her a front-row seat to how some of the world’s biggest companies operate behind the scenes. She then moved to the world of VC, as an investor at Index Ventures, she backed companies like Alan, Spendesk, Swile, and Slite—gaining even more insight into what makes a startup thrive.
While at Index Ventures she met Romain Niccoli, and together they co-founded Pigment in 2019. Pigment is a Paris-based business planning platform offering an AI-powered solution that enables organizations to integrate data, collaborate across departments, and make informed strategic decisions They’ve seen rapid growth over the past 5 years, tripling ARR and doubling its global customer base in 2023 alone. Late last year, Pigment raised a $145M Series D round, hitting unicorn status with a $1B valuation.
One of the core topics Eleonore often speaks about is how important identifying your ICP is as well as who your very first customers are. She spent nine months defining PIgment’s ideal customer profile before closing a single deal. Her advice to other founders is to obsess over your early customers rather than your revenue. Be ruthless about your ICP. And don’t be afraid to refer customers elsewhere, even a competitor, if they’re not your ICP. That level of clarity and discipline is rare in startup founders.
In 5 years, Eleonore has built one of the newest French Unicorns, all while raising 3-year-old twins. When she was asked about what success meant to her, she replied;
‘"My successes are having forged lasting friendships, having healthy children, having created a great business dynamic and a great understanding with my partner. Ultimately, success consists of asking myself if I am happy and if I make the people around me happy."
Researching Eleonore and her background, reading interviews, watching conference talks and Q&As, etc., you get a very strong sense of her ambition, drive and most importantly her optimism. She radiates energy and it’s no surprise she’s built France’s newest Unicorn!
📣 #TheRant
Just F*cking Launch It!
👋🏼 Hi, I’m Jen, a perpetually recovering perfectionist. My entire life I’ve struggled with perfectionism, wanting to make sure every single tiny detail was perfect before I hit the go live button, delivered the proposal to the client or launched the product. Constantly tweaking, fiddling and refining to my own detriment.
I’ve had at least a half dozen conversations with founders over the last 2 weeks which, in summary, were me calling them and their perfectionism out, causing them to delay launching. Perfectionism is insidious and becomes a form of risk avoidance masquerading as quality control. It's often less about making the project better and more about delaying the moment of truth when the world will render judgment.
Succumbing to this fear and perfectionism creates outcomes that are demonstrably worse than if we'd just embraced imperfection in the first place. In the context of being a startup founder, perfectionism dramatically extends development cycles. What could have been a 2-week MVP becomes a 6-month project. The negative consequences:
Your costs increase significantly while revenue is delayed
Competitors may enter and capture market share while you're still perfecting
Market conditions can shift, potentially invalidating assumptions you're building on
Perfectionism also creates a dangerous feedback vacuum. When you're tweaking and finishing your product behind closed doors, you're operating on assumptions and opinion rather than real user data. This means:
You're optimizing features that customers might not even value
You miss discovering unexpected use cases that could be your actual path to product-market fit
Your intuition about what matters grows increasingly disconnected from reality
“If you're not embarrassed by your first version of your product, you've launched too late.” - Reid Hoffman (no, no relation!)
From my personal experience, the relief that comes from finally putting your work out into the world is immediate. The pressure valve releases. The paralysis breaks. And then you no longer have time for tinkering and perfectionism, because you’re off and running gathering real user feedback.
So what are you delaying launching? What project or business or campaign are you delaying because it doesn't feel "perfect"?
Just F*cking Launch it!
You can thank me later! 😉
And if you really need help launching, Id be happy to help coach you through it.
💰#HypeCorner
This is where we cover funding rounds raised by female founders and their teams across Europe. With less than 2% of VC funding going to female led startups, the HypeCorner is simply our way of congratulating and celebrating these founders!
🇨🇭 Julia Wagner Co-founder & Advisor of UNOMR
🇬🇧 Christine Davies Co-founder & CXO of Mindset AI
🇫🇷 Amira Nakouri Co-founder & CEO of Klaimy
🇸🇪 Lina Kantola & Elin Breitholtz Co-founders of SAKURA
🇳🇱 Anastasia Kuskova Co-founder & CEO of beSirius
🇬🇧 Rachel Curtis Co-founder & CEO of inicio AI
🇹🇷 Gokce Oguz Co-founder & CEO of boby.ai
🇬🇧 Emma Burrows Co-founder & CTO of Portia AI
🇪🇪 Oksana Tolmatshova & Katrin Isotamm Co-founders of Esgrid
🇮🇹 Chiara Petrioli Co-founder & CEO of WSense
Huge congratulations to these founders and their teams. Wishing you all continued success!
🎤 Events for founders
🇲🇹 {Malta} April 24-25 EU Startup Summit showcasing many of Europe’s hottest startups, coming together to learn from some of the most successful European entrepreneurs of our time.
🇦🇹 {Vienna} FFX {formerly LTST25} hosted by Female Founders is back May 8th & 9th and this years theme is ‘The Real Deal for Founders’ Early bird tickets on sale now! Grab your tickets now!
🇬🇧 {London} SXSW lands in London June 2nd - 7th taking over the city merging creativity, culture and technology. SXSW London are now taking applications for musicians, film makers and speakers!
🇪🇸 {Madrid} South Summit Madrid - June 4th - 6th brings together global innovators, bold entrepreneurs, leading corporations, and visionary investors. Early bird tickets now available.
🇫🇷 {Paris} VivaTech - June 11-14th- is the world's rendezvous for startups and leaders to celebrate innovation. It's a gathering of the world's brightest minds, talents, and products.
🇳🇱 {Amsterdam} European Women in Technology is a must for your calendar, happening June 25th & 26th. 5,000+ women in tech, diversity advocates, allies and change makers for Leading the Digital Revolution!
🇬🇧 {London} Sifted Summit is back 8th & 9th of October, bringing together 3,000 founders, startup and scaleup operators and investors to celebrate the resilience of the ecosystem and how its leading players are preparing for the long-haul.
🇫🇷 {Paris} UnlockVC (formerly WVCE) is hosting its annual Summit from the 13th - 15th of October. This event brings together ambitious investors, trailblazing thought leaders, and industry pioneers for two impactful days of networking, learning, and growth.
Make sure to grab your Founding Membership to the Unstoppable Founders Community Hub. We only have a limited number before we hit pause on applications! This hub is exclusively curated for female tech founders building high growth startups; a curated investor database, workshops, templates, investment tools and more to come including exclusive investor matchmaking!
☀️ Have a wonderful weekend! ☀️
Jen