Should Founders Stop Following the Plan?: Luca Bortolani & Özgür Genç (EP#578)

This episode was co-produced by Founders Hive, a community of successful startup founders, industry experts, and investors promoting entrepreneurship in Switzerland and helping early-stage business concepts get ready for seed-stage investment. Founders Hive is a partner of the Entrepreneurship Training programme, empowered by Innosuisse, the Swiss innovation agency supporting SMEs, startups, research institutions and other Swiss organizations in their research and development activities. Click here to find out more about Founders Hive, empowered by Innosuisse.

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Episode description:

Luca Bortolani is the Co-Founder and CEO of Twiliner, a startup rethinking overnight travel with lie-flat bus seats. Özgür Genç is the Co-Founder and CEO of Translation-X, a biotech company developing precision therapeutics for autism spectrum disorders. In this Opposing Views episode, they discuss a founder dilemma that sounds simple until the stakes get real: should you keep executing on the plan, or change course?

The tension looks very different in each company. For Luca, pivoting is expensive because Twiliner has to deal with hardware, operations and the reality of putting buses on the road. For Özgür, the question is shaped by science, clinical uncertainty and the responsibility of building for patients with real unmet needs. In both cases, changing direction is not something you do casually.

The conversation gets into what founders should keep fixed, what they need to stay flexible on, and how to know when new information should actually change the plan. Luca and Özgür talk about unit economics, customer willingness to pay, patient subgroups, investor expectations and the moments when execution alone is no longer enough. It is a very practical look at the difference between being persistent and being too attached to the original idea.

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