Why we're building Kobe
Don't let your best work go unnoticed
The three of us were all unobvious hires. Not one of us would have passed a standard CV screen for the roles we ended up excelling in. But as we started hiring ourselves, we realized the system fails from both sides. The only signal that predicts success, whether someone has solved similar challenges before is buried in the tools we use every day, not on a CV.
Three founders. Three times the traditional process failed. Three times actual performance told a completely different story.
Kobe was born in Berlin. We're a small, technical founding team with a shared history of building products and scaling companies together. We've worked side by side for years, sold a company, experienced hiring at scaled and now building the product we wish had existed for us.
With Kobe, hiring finally measures what actually matters.
The minds behind the mission
Kobe was born in Berlin. We're a small, technical founding team with a shared history of building products and scaling companies together. We've worked side by side for years — through a company acquisition, hiring at scale, and now building the system we wish had existed.
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CEO & Co-founder
Nils Co-founded Explo, a travel app that scaled to 150k users before pivoting to B2B and being acquired by HUP GmbH in 2025. Led NeoTaste’s London launch and restructured their growth team after taking over the Head of Marketing role at 25. He came up with the idea & runs Kobe’s strategy, fundraising, and go-to-market.
CPO & Co-founder
Tobi co-founded Explo alongside Nils. After the acquisition he founded MyProtectify an Ai chat that helps victims of domestic violence & convinced Plug & Play Accelerator SF to accept their first non-profit. He then joined Toggl got promoted within one month, eventually leading 3 product teams. Now Tobi runs Kobe’s product and design.
CTO & Co-founder
René worked as a freelance engineer at Explo, then got rejected from Terramate through their standard application. So he went to their public GitHub & started fixing their open bug tickets. 3 months later he booked a call with the CEO & got hired on the spot to work alongside ex-FAANG engineers, without a CS degree. After Terramate he studied computer science at HPI, Germany’s #1 ranked CS university. Now René runs Kobe’s engineering and infrastructure.
CVs are dead.
We're building what comes next.
If this resonates, we'd love to grant you early access.