Two sided marketplaces are so difficult. Absolutely. Anthemos Georgiades, Zumper, European Founder, International Founders, Marketplace The process of renting apartments hasn't changed since Craigslist was introduced. 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. 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. 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 it doesnt always work out and I think thats fine. I mean youre doing various jobs, head of sales, head of finance, head of fundraising, head of like DZ. They are the two ways that Zumper currently monetizes them and there are two folks that [11:35]. Well, first of all, your point about quashing the egg and shooting the chicken. It was kind of [31:51] as early as we did to buy another stock up that was kind of four years in. Retention is something I think about every day. Look how quickly our revenue are scaling. Background Report for Anthemos Paul Georgiades Includes Age, Location, Address History for Anthemos Paul Georgiades Arrest, Criminal, & Driving Records Social Media Profiles And so I wouldnt be too pressured. Were growing very quickly but none of that was true obviously in the first two years. Anthemos Georgiades: Oh wow, good question. Stay informed using all the free online rental data out there (like Zumper's national rent report). I mean youre doing various jobs, head of sales, head of finance, head of fundraising, head of like DZ. Anthemos Georgiades: Its part of the game. You just get to this kind of motion of you all feel the same and you kind of pull in the same direction. So what is the best way, Anthemos, for people that are listening to reach out and say hi? So if the story has changed in a way that merits the focus of the company but what is consistent every single time weve raised is that for six months in a row, we had really, really quick growth. Yeah. How much respect is there? We saw it would take three to six months to integrate Pat Mapper and their backend that engineering project we worked really hard and quickly just over a year to integrate so we underestimated like how much work was required to integrate them by 3x. It looks better for investors and it makes your life easier. 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? A lot of that is in the bank. It was kind of [31:51] as early as we did to buy another stock up that was kind of four years in. Alejandro: So Im completely there with you. I say like in the first pitch to the day the money wires, theres always been around like a minimum of three months. Alrightee. So it was never I want to be an entrepreneur journey. He remains a huge Tottenham Hotspur fan, and wakes up painfully every Saturday morning to tune into the live English soccer games. Yeah, I mean BCG I think you get access to the 23 year olds CEOs who had been working for 40 years and kind of crazy in consulting you take the shortcut in your careers to being in the board room. You know marketplaces and liquidity is king like you were pointing to finding what you need in the shortest period of time because otherwise theyre going to go elsewhere. See How I Can Help You With Your Fundraising Efforts. Got it. 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. 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. Two sided marketplaces are so difficult. Zumper which is a little bigger in terms of audience now caters more to urban professionals moving within cities. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. 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. Youre supposed to try six things that dont work. I love 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. 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. what was the premier league called before; Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. So I guess what was the timeline of this C round compared to perhaps your seed round of 2012? So I think three months is an efficient round. Alejandro: Of course and I agree with you there, Anthemos. It just really helps to divide and conquer like that while I was meeting new investors again. 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? 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. How do you take a company with those tractions, 10 million in revenue. It is your job not just to do the day to day but once or twice a year you should be doing stuff that has a completely linear outcome where one day youre doing you know 3 million users a month and the next day youre doing 5 million users a month. So paradoxically, I dont think the core DNA of a companys culture is built at ski tracks or offsite. Got it. Yeah. Theres never like an exact number you need like when Uber raised money or you know Zillow raised money, theres never like a number they have to be at. But theres no right answer in business. 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. 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. So I guess in your guys case, how do you deal with the egos and then more importantly how did you define the responsibilities early on so that you kind of have that healthy culture going on? I think the startups end up wasting a lot of cash that could really extend runway but thats a different conversation. Hes raising money now. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Based in San Francisco, Anth leads the company in its mission to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. He had actually interviewed me for a job at a different consulting firm and we stayed in touch. Every company is completely different and theres no gold standard. So we tell the small landlords, Hey, dont just advertise in Zumper. 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 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. Prices can change quickly! It is not suppose to be easy. Great question. It was at the time Pat Mapper example almost the same size on consumer but now Zumper is much bigger but we called it like a cheat and your job as the founder is to identify like vertical cheats where overnight you become bigger than your competitors. Im so glad I did it. Its hard. Over time, its great to be able to bring in your team. And were just a little earlier than obviously a public company so our gross is spikier. The one unifying theme in every fundraising Ive run is momentum. 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. Alejandro: Fantastic. How autonomous can people be at the junior levels? So in terms of timeline, you were mentioning that the C round, you guys closed this 46 million a couple of months ago. I didnt think that either of them originally. I was just talking to a friend of mine about this. So Zumper is the vision for the company is to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. Zumper which is a little bigger in terms of audience now caters more to urban professionals moving within cities. So cofounders are difficult especially if youre not technical as really hard to find a good technical cofounder but the great thing is once you do and it takes a long time, they are able to attract the next generation of talent in to the company and thats how you kind of build your engineering team out. 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. I think just up front boundaries before you close the round is super important. 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? They are the two ways that Zumper currently monetizes them and there are two folks that [11:35]. Hes raising money now. For me, its Zumper, an apartment rental platform. So the way we monetize this is we either monetize the landlord mainly and we either charge them to leads. 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. So tell me your story a little bit here, Anthemos. It has to be me and thats how I started the company six years ago after business school. Yeah. And I mean its quite a few cofounders. Got it. 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? It is ultimately the culture. I mean if you could give some kind of like tips you know both fronts it would be really fantastic. So for the business, Anthemos, how much capital have you guys raised today? So I saw NEA, Kleiner Perkins, Graylog, Andreesen Horrowitz, just to name a few. 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. Rear mounted 3" standard exhaust port, and 2" standard air intake Exterior dimensions of unit are 24" wide, 26" deep, and 40" high with mounted controller. Originally from London, he has an MBA from Harvard Business School, MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and BA from the University of Oxford. Pat Mapper caters to 25 and under and kind of big college populations. 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. Oh wow, good question. 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. And were just a little earlier than obviously a public company so our gross is spikier. Youre exactly right. ! Your job as the CEO and the founder is to convince your investors of the reason to do this. Got it. He had actually interviewed me for a job at a different consulting firm and we stayed in touch. 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. Likewise. And as you know as and your listeners know, youre going to get a lot of nos on the way. I kind of looked through in Crunchbase which connections I have into which fund. Rocketreach finds email, phone & social media for 450M+ professionals. 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. 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? So tell me your story a little bit here, Anthemos. Like what have you seen that really works? 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. We also actually had a really wonderful fourth cofounder whos no longer with us. Alejandro: Just out of curiosity, Anthemos, like how many nos did you get for example on your seed round if you have to count it? Thank you so much. But oh we must have had like 20 persons or 20 people say not now or later. They are brilliant about. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. So we tell the small landlords, Hey, dont just advertise in Zumper. Saying that, in the early days you kind of need to bring on all the capital that you can.
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