I didn't start this because I thought the world needed another networking community.
I started it because, at one point, I realized I needed it myself.
My career has always been about people. For years, I worked in international recruitment — speaking with founders, CEOs and senior executives, finding exceptional people for companies, assessing who belonged where, and making introductions that could change the direction of a business or a career.
Then I became a founder myself.
As Co-Founder of HireKosovo and Recruitmint, I moved from advising and supporting businesses from the outside to experiencing what it actually feels like to build one. I was building across markets and time zones — moving between Europe and the United States, between client conversations, hiring decisions, strategy meetings and the constant uncertainty that comes with building something new. At the same time, I was raising young children. Some days started with my family and ended on a US call hours after the European working day had technically finished.
There was always someone around me. My family. My co-founders. My team. Clients. Candidates. Partners.
And yet, sometimes, I felt remarkably alone.
I wasn't alone. I was missing peers.
That distinction became important to me. There are decisions you can discuss with your team. There are decisions you can discuss with your co-founder. There are things you can talk about with your family. But there are also questions that require someone who has actually sat where you're sitting — someone who has built through the stage you're entering, and can say things like:
I've made that mistake.
Don't hire that person yet.
You're solving the wrong problem.
I tried that expansion strategy. Here's what happened.
Your company doesn't need this yet.
You're thinking too small.
Or sometimes, simply: I've been there.
There were decisions I made while building that probably would have been easier, faster or better if I'd been able to put them in front of five or six experienced founders. Some mistakes might have been avoided altogether — not because another founder would have had the perfect answer, but because experience gives you questions you don't yet know to ask.
That stayed with me.
Founders don't necessarily need more advice.
We have more information than any generation of entrepreneurs before us. Google can answer almost anything. AI can analyze a strategy. Consultants can build a framework. Podcasts can teach us how successful people built their companies. LinkedIn can hand us thousands of connections.
And still, none of that fully replaces being able to say to someone you trust:
"Here's what's actually happening. What am I not seeing?" — and knowing the person across the table understands the weight of the question.
I became increasingly interested in the difference between having a network and having a circle. Most successful people eventually build enormous networks. But the number of people they can truly speak openly with often gets smaller, not bigger.
That's the gap I want Foundoors to fill.
My background made this feel surprisingly natural.
Recruitment taught me something I didn't fully appreciate until later: the quality of the room depends on who you put in it.
I've spent much of my professional life evaluating people — not just what's written on a CV, but how they think, what motivates them, whether they've actually done what they claim, how they communicate, whether they take ownership, whether another person would genuinely want to work beside them. And, increasingly, whether they fit the founder and company sitting across the table.
Foundoors takes that instinct in a different direction. Instead of asking who should this company hire, I started asking who should this founder know — and then a more interesting question still:
Who should be around the table with them every month?
There's a personal reason behind this too.
I am ambitious. I want to build significant businesses. Financial independence matters to me. Freedom matters to me. Growth matters to me. I want to keep meeting people who think bigger than I do, challenge my assumptions, and expose me to possibilities I wouldn't otherwise encounter.
But the older and more experienced I become, the more I understand that success isn't only about what you build. It's also about who is around you while you build it — the conversations you have, the people you can call, the places you're invited into, the ideas you're exposed to, the relationships your children eventually see around you, the experiences you allow yourself to have. And whether building a successful company ultimately gives you a bigger life, or simply a longer list of responsibilities.
I want both ambition and life. I suspect many founders do too.
That's why Foundoors exists.
another place to collect business cards
a lead-generation community
somewhere to perform success
a room full of people trying to sell one another something
I want to build the kind of room I wish I'd had access to when I first became a founder.
A room where you can say what's really happening.
A room where someone has already made the mistake you're about to make.
A room where people celebrate your ambition but aren't impressed by titles alone.
A room where asking for help isn't weakness, and giving it isn't transactional.
A room where relationships become valuable because they're real.
It begins with Conclave.
Six to eight carefully matched founders, meeting regularly and in confidence. People dealing with decisions of comparable weight. Different enough to give one another perspective. Experienced enough to contribute. Secure enough not to need to prove themselves. Generous enough to want the others at the table to succeed.
Around that core, I want to build something larger — The Table, where founders meet over dinner. The Gathering, where the whole of Foundoors comes together. Experiences that create friendships as well as business relationships. And, over time, a trusted network that spans wherever our members actually are, so geography stops being a barrier to knowing the right person.
And sometimes the value will be simpler than all of that. A founder will walk into a Conclave carrying a problem they've been thinking about for three months. Two hours later, they'll walk out seeing it differently.
That's enough.
I'm not building this because I have all the answers.
Quite the opposite. I'm building it because I've learned how valuable it is to have access to people who have answers I don't.
My role isn't to be the most successful founder in every room. My role is to make sure the right founders are in the room.
To protect the quality of that room. To create trust. To connect people who should know one another. And to build the kind of institution I'd be proud to belong to myself.
You can be surrounded by people and still carry the founder journey largely on your own. It shouldn't have to be that way.
Private circles. Real relationships. Important conversations.