Ten years ago, I started something with friends that was really only meant to be a blog. No business plan, no strategy, just the wish to write honestly about the founder's daily life, the way it really is. That blog became Gründerfreunde. A look back at ten years, and at why the real thing wins in the end.
I am not telling this out of nostalgia, but because the story shows something I hold to be more important than ever: reach and trust do not come from gloss, they come from honesty.
More on this topic: AI in the Founder's Working Day – background, practice and every article in one place.
How it began
At the start there was frustration. Everywhere you read founder stories that sounded like an advertising brochure: everything easy, always uphill, everyone a genius. Reality looked different, full of doubt, wrong decisions, and nights when you did not know whether the bills would add up. That was exactly what we wanted to write about. Unvarnished. The project can still be found today at gruenderfreunde.de.
The first piece was written at a kitchen table, after work, with a beer and a firm resolve not to prettify a single sentence. It was about a miscalculation that once nearly cost me a company. I was afraid of making a fool of myself. The opposite happened. That very piece drew the first real reactions, messages from other founders who wrote: thank you for saying that out loud. In that moment I understood that vulnerability is not a weakness but the shortest connection between two people.
Why the real thing worked
The response came quickly and was not what we expected. It was not the polished success stories that were read the most, but the honest pieces about failure, about money, about self-doubt. People recognized themselves in them. That taught me a lesson for everything that followed: trust is the hardest currency in business, and why that is so is something I explored in depth in Trust as a Business Model.
One concrete example has stayed with me to this day. We once published a post about a failed product launch, with all the numbers, all the mistakes, no excuses. I braced for ridicule. Instead a reader got in touch who, months later, became the co-founder of a shared project. He said he had trusted us because we were willing to lay ourselves bare. That is how the best partnerships form: not on the stage, but in the honest fine print.
The lessons from ten years
Three things have proven true over the years, no matter how the conditions turned.
Consistency beats genius. The most important factor was never the one brilliant idea, but staying with it when the numbers in the analytics tool stayed flat for a week. We kept going when there were barely any readers, and that is exactly what made the difference.
Friends are not a network. The name Gründerfreunde was not marketing, it was a program. A network asks what it gets. A friend asks what he can give. Almost every good thing in these ten years grew out of a relationship in which no one looked at their own advantage first.
Honesty is a compass, not a costume. You cannot switch it on and off depending on whether someone happens to be watching. That is exactly why it holds up when things get hard.
What has changed in ten years
The tools have changed radically. Where we once wrote every text by hand and spread it around with great effort, today systems take an enormous amount of that work off your plate, and how I use them is described in My Toolkit. What has not changed is the core: one honest text beats ten inflated ones. Technology changes the how, not the why.
The founding climate has changed too. According to the German Startup Association, 2,766 startups were founded in Germany in 2024, up eleven percent on 2023 and the second-strongest year on record (Startupverband, 2025). Times of crisis are apparently times of founding. What pleases me about that is not the number itself, but what stands behind it: more and more people dare to build something of their own. And they need honest companions, not glossy role models.
What I pass on to young founders
Find companions, not spectators. Write and speak honestly about what you do, including the mistakes. And build on a mindset that holds up when things get hard. That mindset, that word-is-word, is what I described in Handshake Mentality, and at the core of Gründerfreunde it is still the same drive today.
To the next ten years
Ten years of Gründerfreunde mean above all one thing to me: the real thing lasts longer than any trend. I am grateful to everyone who read along, wrote along, and built along. And I am sure the next ten years will be even more exciting, and why is something I wrote down for my fortieth in Turning Forty.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Gründerfreunde?
Gründerfreunde is a project started ten years ago that began as an honest blog about the founder's daily life, unvarnished and drawn from real life. Out of that approach, a community around honest entrepreneurship has grown over the years.
Why do honest founder stories work better than success stories?
Because people recognize themselves in doubts, mistakes, and real challenges, not in smoothed-over success tales. Honesty creates trust, and trust is the hardest currency in business.
What are the most important lessons from ten years of Gründerfreunde?
Consistency beats genius, real friendship beats networking, and honesty is a compass, not a costume. Those who stay the course, give honestly, and do not change their stance the moment it gets uncomfortable build something that lasts.
How has the founding climate in Germany developed?
According to the German Startup Association, 2,766 startups were founded in 2024, eleven percent more than in 2023 and the second-strongest year on record. Despite difficult conditions, more people are daring to build something of their own.
Warm regards,
Dennis Weidner
