Building Channels for Success: A Tech Startup Journey with Souk

Partnerships are often talked about as a nice to have channel, something to explore once sales and marketing are already working. In this episode of Tech Startup Stories, that idea is turned on its head.

Natalie Binns sits down with Sofia Hamilton, Co-founder and COO of Souk, to unpack what happens when partnerships are treated as core infrastructure from day one rather than an afterthought. What follows is an honest, fast moving conversation about early traction, co-founder dynamics, and building a venture backed company at pace without losing clarity or trust.

Listen to the Podcast
Available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

From accelerator to traction, fast

Souk is still a young company, but its progress has been anything but slow. After going through the Antler accelerator, the team moved quickly from testing an early MVP to securing funding, signing customers, and building a scalable product while actively selling it into the market.

Sofia shares what it felt like to incorporate the business, close funding, and accidentally make their first sale earlier than expected, all while still figuring out exactly how big the opportunity could become. Rather than waiting for everything to be perfect, the team leaned into momentum, using early signals as proof that the problem they were solving genuinely mattered.

That urgency comes through clearly in the conversation, along with a strong sense of discipline around what needed to be built properly from the start, particularly when it came to trust, data, and compliance.

Why partnerships deserve better infrastructure

A central theme of the episode is Sofia’s belief that partnerships have long been underserved compared to sales and marketing. While those functions are supported by mature tooling and clear playbooks, partnerships often rely on manual processes, spreadsheets, and fragmented systems.

Souk was created to change that. The platform focuses on helping companies discover the right partners, keep those relationships active, and manage the operational reality that comes with them, from contracts and tracking through to payments and reporting. For Sofia, partnerships are not just a channel but a form of distributed trust, where social capital is shared and credibility is earned through relationships rather than cold outreach.

That perspective shapes how Souk itself goes to market, with the team using their own product to hire, research customers, identify partners, and build pipeline.

Building with people you have only just met

One of the most compelling parts of the episode is Sofia’s openness about co-founding with people she had only known for a short time before starting the company. She walks through how trust was built quickly through shared problem solving, long working sessions, and a willingness to focus on the problem before worrying about titles or equity.

Rather than optimising for speed alone, the founders spent time validating whether they could actually work together under pressure, recognising that startups are not just about execution during office hours but about alignment during the messy, unglamorous moments too.

Sofia reflects on how different personalities within the founding team have become a strength, provided there is constant communication and a genuine willingness to listen, concede, and adjust.

Lessons from going from solo to team

Having previously operated as a solo founder, Sofia describes the shift to building with a team as one of the biggest personal changes of her career. The multiplier effect of working with people who bring different skills, networks, and perspectives has transformed what the business is able to achieve in a short space of time.

She is candid about the trade offs involved, particularly around equity and control, but clear that trying to do everything alone ultimately limits both speed and scale. The episode offers thoughtful advice for early stage founders who are wrestling with when to bring others in and how to choose the right people rather than simply the fastest option.

Advice for founders at the beginning

As the conversation closes, Sofia shares grounded advice for anyone thinking about starting a company. She emphasises the importance of choosing co-founders carefully, validating real problems rather than falling in love with solutions, and being generous with ideas and introductions rather than protective and closed off.

Her perspective is shaped by experience across finance, investing, and startup ecosystems, and it comes through as practical rather than idealistic. Building relationships, asking for introductions, and staying open to unexpected paths are recurring themes that tie back neatly to Souk’s own focus on partnerships.

Listen to the Podcast
Available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.

Connect with Sofia Hamilton, and learn more about Souk.