Entrepreneurship in pairs and with support

I’m more of the Excel guy and he’s more the one making the pres’, in a nutshell!

Entrepreneurship in pairs and with support

Aurélien Dobbels and Nicolas Legay, co-founders of Cocoonut since 2020

Why not on your own?

I tried to carry the project and everything, but in the end, if you do it alone, you run out of steam quicker, you feel less motivated too, I think. Well, at the beginning you are, but you lose motivation. And then we motivated each other. And the next step was to move on to structuring the company. And so that’s what we did. We didn’t ask ourselves too many questions.

Choosing your partner

Even before the creation of the company, we “dated” each other a lot. Just like a couple, because you create a baby together and it’s not to divorce three weeks later. So, this “human fit” aspect is the basis for me. I feel like that this is how we operate, every time, by confronting our points of view, we always manage to come up with something that is much better than what each of us brought individually.

How are the roles divided?

I’m more of the Excel guy and he’s more the one making the pres’, in a nutshell!

So far, we try to do as many things as possible together. When we split things up, it’s because one or the other really wants to do it. And then the other will be there to proofread or as a support. And so, one of us will take the lead on certain things… We try to go to important meetings together because I think that’s what attracted our first investors and partners: it’s the energy we give off.

Tips to find a partner

It’s important to talk about it, I think, around you. At least for those who are looking for it… In the end, if we had kept the thing to ourselves and said: “I’m not going to talk to them about it because they are going to steal the idea from us”, in the end, we would never have met our current partners and we wouldn’t be anywhere. So, I think if we had any advice to give, it would be this one.

First impressions during the coaching sessions?

A little apprehension: you still have to structure your ideas. What do you have to do? How will you do it? How much will you earn? How much will it cost you? And this allows you to shape your vision and structure your project.

Benefits of a coaching programme

It’s also about meeting people who are in the same phase as you, or others who did it before… And taking advice, taking feedback and trying to get something positive out of it and avoid the mistakes that others have already made. So, not necessarily reinventing the wheel, but rather listening to those who have more experience in this.

And at the start, this is very important. I think it saved us a lot of time and energy.

If you had not been accompanied by nyuko?

Would I have done the same things? I don’t know. But anyway, it helped me. So, I think that’s the main role that nyuko has. And well, so far, we’re doing pretty well… So, I guess that you brought your contribution to the history of Cocoonut.