Gordon and Saurabh's journey proves that the right co-founder relationship matters more than the perfect idea, and that persistence through multiple pivots can lead to real traction

Meet Gordon: A Founder Who Embraced the Pivot

Every startup founder knows the feeling of uncertainty, that nagging question of whether you're building the right thing. For Gordon, co-founder of Athaus AI, that uncertainty wasn't something to avoid. It was something to lean into.

Gordon and his co-founder Saurabh have been friends for four years, having first met at another accelerator program. When they decided to build something together two years ago, they had no idea it would take six to eight pivots before finding the right product. But that's exactly what happened.

"Neither Saurabh nor I were married to the idea," Gordon explains. "We were more like co-founders married to each other. No matter what we're working on, we're going to work on something together."

This mindset, prioritizing the co-founder relationship over any single idea — became the foundation of their eventual success. While many founding teams fall apart when their initial concept fails, Gordon and Saurabh treated each pivot as a learning opportunity, testing products across different spaces until they found genuine traction.

The Solution: An AI-Powered CRM for Real Estate Agents

After months of experimentation, Athaus AI landed on a problem worth solving: helping real estate agents start and scale their businesses.

In the beginning, the team was building simple AI agents with singular use cases. But they quickly realized that fragmented tools weren't delivering enough value. Real estate agents needed something more comprehensive — an all-in-one platform that could support the entire sales process.

Today, Athaus AI is building exactly that. Their product starts with a basic CRM and progressively layers in AI agents that automate and enhance key workflows. The goal is to give solo agents and small teams the same operational firepower that larger brokerages enjoy, without the overhead.

"If you're a real estate agent, you're essentially a sales manager in a space with high-ticket sales," Gordon notes. "You need to work with a lot of trust. So the product we deliver needs to actually work and deliver the outcome we promise."

Traction and Milestones: What Athaus Has Achieved So Far

The pivot to PropTech has paid off. Athaus AI now has five pilot customers actively using the platform, with plans to onboard many more. But what's truly accelerated their development is an unconventional setup: one of their pilot customers, a real estate agent named Martin, works in the same office as the founding team.

This arrangement has created an incredibly tight feedback loop. When something doesn't work, Martin simply turns around and tells Saurabh. When the team has questions about real-world workflows, they get answers in real time. It's customer development at its most efficient.

"It allowed us to work with unbelievable speed and deliver a super strong product," Gordon says.

Beyond product development, Athaus AI has also hit a major funding milestone. After completing the soonami accelerator program, the team raised €200,000 to fuel their next phase of growth. They're now in the process of raising another round to bring on additional engineers and accelerate development further.

soonami's Role in Athaus AI's Growth and Funding

Gordon is quick to credit soonami for helping Athaus AI find its footing during a critical phase of development.

"When Saurabh and I were taking part in the soonami accelerator, we found it had exactly the right amount of touchpoints for where we were," he recalls. "We needed to focus on building and speaking to customers. And while we were doing that, we had regular check-ins with the partners and the team — sometimes that's just the little piece of motivation you need to know you're going in the right direction."

The soonami program gave Athaus AI access to experienced mentors who could validate their business model, refine their customer acquisition strategy, and sharpen their pitch. For a team that was still figuring out which problem to solve, this external perspective proved invaluable.

After soonami, Athaus AI joined The Delta, a co-working space run by soonami partner Julian Teicke. There, they've found a different kind of support — daily collaboration with Julian's studio team on technical, design, and operational challenges, plus the energy of being surrounded by other ambitious founders.

"Being around so many founders is a real hack," Gordon says. "We bump into each other at the coffee machine, share feedback, and suddenly you know not just where everyone else is, but where you should be going."

What's Next for Athaus AI

With a working product, paying pilots, and fresh capital, Athaus AI is focused on scaling. The immediate priority is expanding the engineering team to support Saurabh and accelerate feature development. Longer term, the vision remains clear: become the go-to platform for real estate agents who want to grow their business with AI.

For founders still searching for their breakthrough, Gordon offers a simple piece of advice: stop worrying about people stealing your idea.

"I guarantee at least a dozen people already have the same idea. It's just about who actually follows through, and who sticks with it."

You can watch the entire interview here on YouTube.