So the way we monetize this is we either monetize the landlord mainly and we either charge them to leads. Everyone in Boston, everyone in New York were straight nos and [25:15] didnt get second meetings but then a month later we came to Silicon Valley and we found a much better product market set for the kind of investor who was prepared to come early and invest early and we got a lot of yeses very quickly. So I as British person moving to Silicon Valley in 2012 I have never run a startup before. And were just a little earlier than obviously a public company so our gross is spikier. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah, I think its probably the DNA of your culture is I think a lot of it is built in the tough times. Its hard. Obviously they knew and I think for us it was like telling Axle and the rest of our investors that there are going to be months where we massively beat plans and there will be months where were behind plans. Zumper which is a little bigger in terms of audience now caters more to urban professionals moving within cities. It was kind of [31:51] as early as we did to buy another stock up that was kind of four years in. So I guess without further ado, Anthemos Georgiades from Zumper, welcome aboard. So I learned a lot from a few companies that I loved, a few companies that I thought are doing crazy things I learned so much. So Id say your first month you spend like getting first, second, third meeting. So it was never I want to be an entrepreneur journey. That is where your focus is and even though you kind of missed doing some of the stuff and the weeds and my team continue to tell me to get away from the weed and continue to [36:12] the 50,000 set, you have to let it go and trust your team to do a better job than you were doing. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Anthemos Georgiades: No. Saying that, in the early days you kind of need to bring on all the capital that you can. There could be investors who are fantastic. There could be investors who are fantastic. Fantastic. If you dont have those connections, I think this is where like a lot of these accelerators and incubators, Y Combinator or Techstars or Launch are really good where you can apply. The most important thing is to surround yourself with an amazing support group because it is so much harder to build a company than I thought it was and the emotional resilience you need to get through the dark days and come back to the bright days even now is what [38:54] just get harder like yeah, we have more revenue now but with that there are people [38:58] and like huge revenue targets we have to attain and so the most important thing is surround yourself with a network of family, friends, mentors, peers, your team, your investors, whoever is an emotional crutch for you where you can take from them but also maybe get back to them as well when theyre having a tough time, thats the single most important thing is look after your mental health because it is lonely and it is stressful and if youre able to kind of be resilient you have a great outcome but it is really hard on some days to push through, so build that around just [39:35] and you can be happy while running your company. And investors love that story because its easy to believe that you can continue to do that. Dave Costantino Staff Engineer - Backend. Two sided marketplaces are so difficult. Anthemos Georgiades: So Zumper is the vision for the company is to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. Got it. Thats just part of the game. Retention is something I think about every day. Zumper CEO and co-founder May 2012 Board and Advisor Roles Number of Current Board & Advisor Roles 1 Anthemos Georgiades is the Board Member at Zumper. So when you go in to a fundraising in terms of preparation the most important thing is that your last six months are great and your most important metrics are all growing really nicely so kind of five, six months in a row that is a fantastic story to tell to an investor. You always have more nos that more yeses in fundraising but it was ultimately about just hustling my network as much as possible. And to be fair, some of these 20 did indeed come back later to invest but in Boston and I pitched all of the east coast investors first because I was on the east coast and they were straight nos. And so back to your point, yes, we want investors who are supportive of the fact that we didnt try to monetize the platform for the first three years because it would have created a barrier to entry. Got it. Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | RSS | More. Yeah. They were super lean team of under five people and its been a great deal for Zumper like we have one backend, one sales team and then two consumer platforms. They are brilliant about. So I guess for those listeners that are looking at acquiring other companies to perhaps grow a little bit faster, what kind of advice would you give to them? And were they like obviously now youre opening here the cap table to a different breed and I guess when that happen probably at a strategic level lets say from a board perspective or something you know, maybe you receive some type of recommendations whether it was with this corporation or with other corporations as to what perhaps to look for and what to avoid. Culture is everything and so investing in people making sure I as the CEO spend a lot of time as much as possible with people who dont report to me is absolutely critical and that is ultimately like the fabric on how most companies are run. His passion for relieving the stress for others in . And were just a little earlier than obviously a public company so our gross is spikier. So I as British person moving to Silicon Valley in 2012 I have never run a startup before. Now my cofounders were phenomenal in bringing them to meetings. If you guys are Zumper website, you can kind of kind at zumper.com the Contact Us or on Twitter I am just @anthemos, A-N-T-H-E-M-O-S on Twitter and yeah, I respond to people. So M&A are strategic [33:48]. And so just be prepared that however smart, however many smart people have looked the deal and thought about whether it will work, it always take a little bit more time than you think it will to integrate because theres always some gremlin kind of hiding in the works that youre going to find. For us, I think they fully understand the entrepreneurial journey and were really excited to have them on board. So I think three months is an efficient round. And [14:42] in Silicon Valley is married to [graphics 14:43] mostly in terms of great companies just break out and succeed [agnostic 14:48] as to where people went to college or if they came from a wealthy or poor family. Youre right that is wrong advice. It is ultimately the culture. Were very clear with Axle Springer that we have a lot of consumer scale so a lot of people use our platform on a monthly basis but were still building the [21:55]. Culture is everything and so investing in people making sure I as the CEO spend a lot of time as much as possible with people who dont report to me is absolutely critical and that is ultimately like the fabric on how most companies are run. what was the premier league called before; It was always a man, there is a really tough problem that consumers experience and no one is solving it. Well help you prequalify renters and actually get the renter in to a lease, signing the documents, paying the first month deposit but well charge you a percentage of the lease fairly. I was really impressed when because its not hard, its almost impossible to land VC such as Kleiner Perkins on literally your first financing round, the seed round. And we built this website using an outsource development shop in Europe that just tested one assumption of the end game which was can we get users in 2011, 2012 just as mobile was coming online to apply and close apartments from their phone. How do you take a company with those tractions, 10 million in revenue. We love our investors. At the end of the day though, whether its senior people, junior people, interns who we want to bring back is all under pinned by culture. How do you scale like 20 million in revenue to 200 million in revenue and we didnt need the more product set investors because we already have fantastic people at that. He remains a huge Tottenham Hotspur fan, and wakes up painfully every Saturday morning to tune into the live English soccer games. We have like four people at the company for the first year or maybe five for the first year and so theres so much to do and theres so little time and few resources that you actually theres no real intellectual whiteboarding session that you do to carve out rose. Got it. So we have several million users using our platform every month now which is great and next year we wanted tens of millions of users a month and were poised to doing that. Its a Greek name, British accent. Its really built in the dark days of when stuff is really difficult and I think Zumpers culture now is we have a lot of users still remembers and its a testament to those dark days and we never take anything for granted. Please subscribe to unlock this content. Youll get terms sheets and yeses hopefully quicker than that but this process takes a while and as the money increases and a few rounds become more complicated, it can take more than three months as well. So for the business, Anthemos, how much capital have you guys raised today? I mean at the end of the day, building and scaling companies especially when youre at the early stages is all about survival and its all about learning to be with each other behind the trenches and really going to war and having each others backs. Because I speak with a ton of founders that are perhaps opening up the possibility of bringing on corporations and I think that you need to really do it right. What are some tips for successfully navigating the rental market from a renter's perspective? And then as we looked at the C round, Axle Springer are fantastic good example [19:59]. For us, I think they fully understand the entrepreneurial journey and were really excited to have them on board. They were super lean team of under five people and its been a great deal for Zumper like we have one backend, one sales team and then two consumer platforms. Alejandro: So I guess in just to like follow up on that, what in your mind and obviously in what youve seen creates really that magical relationship between cofounders? Originally from London, he has an MBA from Harvard Business School, MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and BA from the University of Oxford. And were they like obviously now youre opening here the cap table to a different breed and I guess when that happen probably at a strategic level lets say from a board perspective or something you know, maybe you receive some type of recommendations whether it was with this corporation or with other corporations as to what perhaps to look for and what to avoid. Never thought Id be an entrepreneur. Read More: Sujal Patel On Selling His First Business For $2.6 Billion And Now Raising $108 Million From Jeff Bezos And Others To Improve Medical Diagnostics. Really good strategy to differentiate the demographics and were super happy with how it went down. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Well, first of all, your point about quashing the egg and shooting the chicken. So paradoxically, I dont think the core DNA of a companys culture is built at ski tracks or offsite. Anthemos Georgiades is co-founder & CEO of Zumper, the largest startup in the rental industry. When you look your cofounders, your team in the eye and you know theyre ready to go and theyre resilient and they come back in to build and try the next thing and youve kind of worked out together this is part of the game. Absolutely. Alejandro: Really, really nice to have you here and excited for the chat that we have ahead here. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. But I will say the one thing is true is that you always raise on momentum. Alejandro: So I guess like I have one thing to follow up on this. So seed, series A, series B, series C, I was always the point person in the fundraise. And then when I moved out to America, Russel was software engineer at Google and I had no technical background so I basically hit up my network for anyone with a technical background living in the US who might be interested in joining and Russel and I really hit it off and he was the perfect cofounder. Yeah. Anthemos and Russell met in London while working at a consulting company back in 2006, but it was after they moved to the U.S and experienced the pain of finding a place to live that they decided to found Zumper along with Taylor Glass-Moore and Leah Jones. So the majority of that is still in the bank but yeah, we raised money in capital [12:00]. I was also doing, Ive been doing marketplaces for I think like 10 years now and I remember in the last company, I would go and meet with investors and they kept asking me for the chicken and the egg. I mean youre doing various jobs, head of sales, head of finance, head of fundraising, head of like DZ. And we were talking about the $46 million round which was the C round, C as in cat and basically what you were talking about I mean what Ive seen is that you guys have shifted a little bit the strategy. And I mean its quite a few cofounders. I met Russel who [04:01] engineering products through just the personal connections in London. Like what have you seen that really works? For Zumper's Georgiades, many Florida markets, such as Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, have been the big pandemic winners. For me, its Zumper, an apartment rental platform. When you look your cofounders, your team in the eye and you know theyre ready to go and theyre resilient and they come back in to build and try the next thing and youve kind of worked out together this is part of the game. Its a good question. So when you go in to a fundraising in terms of preparation the most important thing is that your last six months are great and your most important metrics are all growing really nicely so kind of five, six months in a row that is a fantastic story to tell to an investor. Your third month is getting kind of diligence done and getting the wires in to the door. Youll get terms sheets and yeses hopefully quicker than that but this process takes a while and as the money increases and a few rounds become more complicated, it can take more than three months as well. And then now your job at five, six years in with a team of a hundred with higher and amazing executive team who are all better at doing their jobs than you would ever be and so your job is almost as a CEO is to like hire yourself out of a job where you hire people, where you look at them and you think, Wow, I cant believe you report to me. So today, we have another founder and another one that is quite successful in their own paths. And so when you think about AB testing frameworks, you think about how many started [03:43] that is a [03:44] grad school taught me. Got it. Look how quickly our revenue are scaling. It was incredibly difficult. Alejandro Cremades leads the vision and execution for Panthera Advisors as its Co-Founder and. Had worked at the Boston Consulting Group. So one is weve always promoted within so whenever we needed a role, we always prefer to promote someone instead of hiring from outside. Alrightee. Shalin Amin Chief Experience Officer. So it doesnt always work out and I think thats fine. Anthemos was an undergrad at Oxford when he noticed how problematic renting an apartment . I think its easy not to set those expectations and get caught in the relationship where neither side is being clear on what they expect. Like what have you seen that really works? I mean if you could give some kind of like tips you know both fronts it would be really fantastic. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. And so back to your point, yes, we want investors who are supportive of the fact that we didnt try to monetize the platform for the first three years because it would have created a barrier to entry. Every fantastic company has had hundreds of nos on the way to kind of huge outcomes and you just cant take it personally. Hello, everyone, to the DealMakers Show. Im so glad I did it. Saying that, I have connections through both business school and previous people that have gone through BCG venture capital and most of your listeners and entrepreneurs will know so much of this is about like getting warm introductions to VCs so I did have a couple of cheats to get in through the network or through the BCG network. . And then my other cofounder Kurt Taylor I met through his mother who was an [04:43] and it was another example of just pure hustle. And so I wouldnt be too pressured. Never thought Id be an entrepreneur. But was drawn in to it just to solve a problem as I think so many entrepreneurs are. Unluckily weve made some phenomenal early hires so the company that have all scaled to leadership roles, thats fantastic for retention because those people know that we could have hired from outside but we bet on them and it worked and so Zumper is a place to build theyre career not somewhere else. So we have several million users using our platform every month now which is great and next year we wanted tens of millions of users a month and were poised to doing that. After that, it changed to more consumer. There was no book [01:41]. So thats how Zumper got started. You just get to this kind of motion of you all feel the same and you kind of pull in the same direction. I kind of looked through in Crunchbase which connections I have into which fund. Alejandro: Got it and before we actually dive in to the journey here, so consulting and business school, this is a few things that I typically hear so from some of our other guests. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Obviously they knew and I think for us it was like telling Axle and the rest of our investors that there are going to be months where we massively beat plans and there will be months where were behind plans. So we tell the small landlords, Hey, dont just advertise in Zumper. It has to be me and thats how I started the company six years ago after business school. Youre right that is wrong advice. Meaning hey, we send you a ton of leads this month that close in to leases. So for Zumper our vision as I mentioned was to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel and so instead of going in with just an idea, I built like a really crappy version of the end game that I wanted to build. And it was just [22:11] during the process that its a startup, were at growth stage but not to expect to be able to predict our courses like that public company again. So that was great. One is I wouldnt be too pressured about it too early. So in terms of timeline, you were mentioning that the C round, you guys closed this 46 million a couple of months ago. At scale you get to do that and have those teams. It looks better for investors and it makes your life easier. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. So Zumper is the vision for the company is to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. I dont think theres a startup I could have launched that taught me more. And at one point I just told one I just feel like I want to step on the egg and shoot the chicken because it was so repetitive. So Anthemos, theres always a first time and you know I guess this is the first time in the history of the DealMakers Show that Im able to interview someone that has been involve on the M&A but more on the buy side. At Zumper, based in San Francisco, he leads the company in its mission to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. Alejandro: Got it. Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below. Alejandro: Got it. Thats your job. I mean if you could give some kind of like tips you know both fronts it would be really fantastic. So I learned a lot from a few companies that I loved, a few companies that I thought are doing crazy things I learned so much. Got it. Likewise. Zumper Board Member Related Hubs Since 2012, Georgiades has grown Zumper to over 200 employees, 178 million annual visits, and raised $178 million in venture capital for the company. And even though that sounds so obvious six years later, people just werent doing this in 2011, 2012 and we created a bunch of data that overwhelming shows the renters wanted to be applying for apartments from their phone. You rarely have enough data to make the absolutely correct decision and I think a lot of businesses fail especially start ups when they dont make decisions fast enough and in business schools, the case study methods taught me how to feel confident in making decisions without perfect information and how to use data to kind of then review once youve launched, whether it was right or wrong. We didnt go that route because I have the network but if I didnt have the network and some people have the network and still do it, they are really good cheap in to getting scaled quickly. The second one is have a vision and a mission that people agree with and we all wanted to [37:13] this vision make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. And your cap table I mean as I was reviewing I just felt as I was looking at the Oscars of Silicon Valley, the red carpet. The reality is often in the early stages, youre going to want to take all the capital thats given to you and you may not have multiple term sheets. We didnt go that route because I have the network but if I didnt have the network and some people have the network and still do it, they are really good cheap in to getting scaled quickly. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Theyre both incredibly smart as are my executive team who are also like critical to fundraise where Ill go in and sell the vision often alone. They may not understand marketplace as well as you but they may be able to bring a brilliant way of thinking about how to bring the supply on [30:20]. So what I wanted to ask you here is in terms of on boarding lets say this type of, because its a different beast, you know type of investors so how does the approach from evaluating an investor that is a VC, an angel or an angel group shift towards evaluating a potential strategic corporation that is looking to become part of your cap table? To give you odds, at the seed stage and the series A stage of growth cuts, all about supply side where a two sided marketplace chicken an egg, on day zero you have no renters and no landlords, how do you solve that? It just really helps to divide and conquer like that while I was meeting new investors again. So I think as your company matures, you look for investors that have something that you dont have and so for us, were not yet doing $100 million in revenue. rex harrison audrey hepburn relationship. In the early days you as the CEO you are the fundraiser, you are the effective CFO, youre the head of sales and you kind of have to do the whole thing. And so I finally just gave in and thought no one is going to build this. Anthemos Georgiades CEO at Zumper United States 4K followers 500+ connections Join to view profile Zumper Harvard Business School Websites Websites Company Website http://www.zumper.com Company. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. And I mean its quite a few cofounders. So what I wanted to ask you here is in terms of on boarding lets say this type of, because its a different beast, you know type of investors so how does the approach from evaluating an investor that is a VC, an angel or an angel group shift towards evaluating a potential strategic corporation that is looking to become part of your cap table? Budget in my opinion perhaps should be allocated to something else. Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. We want investors who look at $100 million in revenue as table stakes but they wont agree to a billion. At the end of the day though, whether its senior people, junior people, interns who we want to bring back is all under pinned by culture. Try for free at rocketreach.co In terms of investors, I guess two comments. You just cant get spooked. They were [sexy 23:47] company and really fantastic fundraisers but the rounds just take a long time, due diligence take a long time. A lot of that is in the bank. I was really impressed when because its not hard, its almost impossible to land VC such as Kleiner Perkins on literally your first financing round, the seed round. In the early days we love the exposure to Silicon Valley investors. Could you meet him? And so whereas that doesnt guarantee any success we obviously have to have really good numbers and a really good story to tell them. And the biggest change in the series C I just raised versus in the early days is having a CFO. It was like $46 million. glendale, az police activity today; archer lodge middle school calendar. I mean at the end of the day, building and scaling companies especially when youre at the early stages is all about survival and its all about learning to be with each other behind the trenches and really going to war and having each others backs. Alejandro: Alrightee. I think the startups end up wasting a lot of cash that could really extend runway but thats a different conversation. So I guess without further ado, Anthemos Georgiades from Zumper, welcome aboard. I learned more from you than you learned from me, and then your job as CEO is to do kind of two or three things, that is to continue to advance like the vision and the mission of the company and keep everything strategically aligned. Just enter your email below. I guess the question that I would ask you and perhaps some advice for some of those that are listening, that are building a business that is more around the network effects, the marketplaces, should they walk the other way if the investor is asking too much about revenue early on on the financing cycles? Anthemos Georgiades Current Workplace Zumper Location 555 Montgomery St Ste 1300, San Francisco, California, 94111, United States Industry Information Collection & Delivery, Media & Internet Description Discover more about Zumper Anthemos Georgiades Work Experience and Education Work Experience Manager, Summer Investment Atomico 2009-2010 Your email address is 100% safe from spam! Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Alejandro: Got it. Had worked at the Boston Consulting Group. Anthemos Georgiades: Hey, thanks for having me. I have no experience doing that. For every successful fundraise, every single company have a lot of nos. So our CFO is fantastic and what he was able to bring to the series C was real credibility where I meet the investors, get them excited about our vision and our story and then they spend hours with the CFO on the second or third meeting digesting our historical financial as were talking about where were headed. I mean youre doing various jobs, head of sales, head of finance, head of fundraising, head of like DZ. In the early days, youre going to need to take all the capital you can get. Back to Meet the San Francisco Business Times' 40 under 40 Class of 2018. But theres no right answer in business. Pat Mapper caters to 25 and under and kind of big college populations. Got it. So Ill read it if anyone tweets anything interesting or if I can be helpful in anyway. It was always a man, there is a really tough problem that consumers experience and no one is solving it. A lot of business schools was how to make decisions with imperfect information. Because I speak with a ton of founders that are perhaps opening up the possibility of bringing on corporations and I think that you need to really do it right. My friend have had to camp out overnight outside the property management office to get access to the new apartment and this is [01:09] you know things coming online, you can order a cab via phone, you can book a hotel online.
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