I met Russel who [04:01] engineering products through just the personal connections in London. Anthemos Georgiades: Its part of the game. It is ultimately the culture. So I think three months is an efficient round. You shameless have to mine your network and I think all CEOs and entrepreneurs have to find that edge of how did they meet one of these investors, how did they meet someone that knows them. 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. rex harrison audrey hepburn relationship. Anthemos Georgiades: Its just part of the game and it doesnt [24:30]. Alejandro: And talking about hustling the network, was there any because I mean those networks that you have I think the network of Harvard is really fantastic and then you know the BCG as well but is there like any process that you followed to really like leverage the network? Hes raising money now. We envisioned a world in which a renter can find apartments, book in [tour 10:18], turn up the [10:21] and if they want to take the apartment pre-qualify, leave a deposit and book the apartment. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Its so hard to get marketplaces liquidity so correct, the beautiful thing as you know is when you have it, it took us three years to get to that, it just runs and you just grow naturally when you have both sides but its so hard to get to it. She was our original CPO and after the series A, she moved on to roller, another company and we promoted someone internally to CPO. It was not something Ive really ever thought about before. 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. Got it. And so I finally just gave in and thought no one is going to build this. 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. Thats quite motivating for people. Absolutely. The other large investor in this round [20:05] scale so once you have product market set, how do you scale that? 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. And so I didnt really think about it too often because this is kind of 15 years ago but then I moved to another six or seven times into an apartment rentals in London, in Boston, in New York and the process is so bad every time, not just in searching but also in actually like getting the apartment. And then at business school, I think the single biggest thing I learned through the case study method which is how they teach it at Harvard Business School but I think its true. In the early days we love the exposure to Silicon Valley investors. He discovered that the marketplace doesnt work for renters, and the idea for Zumper was born with the goal of evening the playing field and increasing transparency in the marketplace. Alejandro: I love it. Really good strategy to differentiate the demographics and were super happy with how it went down. So I guess without further ado, Anthemos Georgiades from Zumper, welcome aboard. It was like $46 million. Then behind the scenes, Zumper will close the transaction with the landlord and set the renter up with kind of rent payment. She was our original CPO and after the series A, she moved on to roller, another company and we promoted someone internally to CPO. So we solved it to the first two years purely by getting landlords on board through various kind of product strategy and so our growth cuts for the first two years that we raised the [27:41] were purely about landlords and listing. I think at that stage it makes sense. Since 2012, Georgiades has grown Zumper to over 200 employees, 178 million annual visits, and raised $178 million in venture capital for the company. We also actually had a really wonderful fourth cofounder whos no longer with us. 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. So M&A are strategic [33:48]. Got it. For every successful fundraise, every single company have a lot of nos. 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. This pellet stove is a good heating solution for a smaller rather than a . So I saw for example Axle Springer which is you know more kind of like the corporate. Saying that, if you do have multiple term sheets the second point is of course, like before you get to liquidity, revenue is irrelevant and if revenue gets in the way of bringing either the consumer on to your platform or the supply side person on to your platform, you should not be trying to charge. So Ill read it if anyone tweets anything interesting or if I can be helpful in anyway. Russell Middleton Co-Founder. So lets talk about Zumper here. I kind of looked through in Crunchbase which connections I have into which fund. Alejandro: Of course. The one unifying theme in every fundraising Ive run is momentum. Were going to charge you per lead or for the smaller landlords we charge them if theyre [11:15] for the transaction. Back to Meet the San Francisco Business Times' 40 under 40 Class of 2018. Zumper has 7 current employee profiles, including CEO and co-founder Anthemos Georgiades. In the first two or three years you will kill your marketplace if you create any barriers to entry from either side. Anthemos Georgiades: Yes, weve raised $90 million in capital including a series C that we just closed three months ago. You always have more nos that more yeses in fundraising but it was ultimately about just hustling my network as much as possible. Two sided marketplaces are so difficult. Youre exactly right. What are some tips for successfully navigating the rental market from a renter's perspective? So in terms of timeline, you were mentioning that the C round, you guys closed this 46 million a couple of months ago. They take every, some people go and warm theirif you have a brilliant idea, theyd be crazy not to take it and then their entire value is obviously give you a three month program and then at the end expose you to liek 40 investors. I think Id say forget everything you think you know and everything, your education [38:28]. It just really helps to divide and conquer like that while I was meeting new investors again. Were growing very quickly but none of that was true obviously in the first two years. You kind of just all in [06:39] I think where the carving of the rose start to happen for me around 10, 12 people where you no longer just have [06:49]. It was not something Ive really ever thought about before. 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. 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. Likewise. Never thought Id be an entrepreneur. Im so glad I did it. There could be investors who are fantastic. So we bought them. 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. So I think three months is an efficient round. 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. 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. Zumper which is a little bigger in terms of audience now caters more to urban professionals moving within cities. We both wanted to be entrepreneurs. 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 so I wouldnt be too pressured. We love our investors. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Yeah, I think its probably the DNA of your culture is I think a lot of it is built in the tough times. Its so hard to get marketplaces liquidity so correct, the beautiful thing as you know is when you have it, it took us three years to get to that, it just runs and you just grow naturally when you have both sides but its so hard to get to it. Got it. Originally from London, he has an MBA from Harvard Business School, MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and BA from the University of Oxford. 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. Not really actually. You can set the expectations and then see what happens and if its not a good fit upfront, you can go with the different option on the table. Dave Costantino Staff Engineer - Backend. 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. It is not closely married to [14:55] and thats where its still on [14:58] I think Silicon Valley has a long way to go where when I got my first introductions to VCs to Kleiner, to Andreseen, to Graylock, to NEA, it often came through my graduate school network where someone was like, Hey, this guy is leaving HBS. 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]. Anthemos Georgiades is the CEO and co-founder at Zumper. Of course. Got it. When people ask me what Im most nervous about its how to keep our amazing team together, a couple of tactics and then one thing that really worked. Anthemos Georgiades CEO and co-founder. I mean I think at seed round its like an [26:02]. Ill set the first couple of meetings often alone but its been wonderful as weve grown our executive team to be able to bring like our VP of sales, our head of grow, our CPO in to the meetings afterwards when they want to meet the team. So paradoxically, I dont think the core DNA of a companys culture is built at ski tracks or offsite. 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 Cremades leads the vision and execution for Panthera Advisors as its Co-Founder and. Rental listing startup with more than 26 million users. Whats your story and most importantly, how did you get started with the entrepreneurial bug? But was drawn in to it just to solve a problem as I think so many entrepreneurs are. It is not suppose to be easy. 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. You know its interesting that you mentioned the chicken and the egg. 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. How flat is the company? Really, really nice to have you here and excited for the chat that we have ahead here. Really good strategy to differentiate the demographics and were super happy with how it went down. Yeah. Like what have you seen that really works? Saying that, in the early days you kind of need to bring on all the capital that you can. Got it. 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. How many listings do we have on the site? 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. Alejandro: Got it. Anthemos Georgiades is the co-founder and CEO of Zumper, the largest startup in the rental industry, used by more than 26 million renters last year alone. 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. I mean your job moves from doing jobs in the first few years. Hello, everyone, to the DealMakers Show. Anthemos was an undergrad at Oxford when he noticed how problematic renting an apartment . So seed, series A, series B, series C, I was always the point person in the fundraise. Alejandro: Got it. 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. And so I wouldnt be too pressured. So watching board members from the early investments are [19:38] who now runs Good Water but was originally Kleiner and then Eric [19:42] from Kleiner and theyre both experts at product market set. At college in the UK, Ive had like multiple [00:58] renting apartments. Its hard. Got it. Your third month is getting kind of diligence done and getting the wires in to the door. At series B, you got to show product market set across the board with the revenue and then at series C, you got to show real traction and real revenue and a proper P&L. Alejandro: Got it. 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. Your email address is 100% safe from spam! 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. I knew the CEO for a while. And for you I guess personally and professionally because I think they both come together, so how has your leadership and management skills changed over the time from leading the company of lets say four to ten folks initially to a company of over a hundred employees?
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