But oh we must have had like 20 persons or 20 people say not now or later. If you want me to help you with your fundraising, just book a call. His passion for relieving the stress for others in . 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. So it doesnt always work out and I think thats fine. 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. And so as you mature you look for a different kind of investor and that naturally tends to happen. Prices can change quickly! Alejandro: Really, really nice to have you here and excited for the chat that we have ahead here. They are brilliant about. So Id say your first month you spend like getting first, second, third meeting. So I think three months is an efficient round. So I guess without further ado, Anthemos Georgiades from Zumper, welcome aboard. So tell me your story a little bit here, Anthemos. 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 we want to be the first ever kind of full stack rental platform for long term leases and we monetize that two ways. 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. Your second month you spend getting term sheets and documents signed. How Zumper founder created software to solve the pain of apartment Since 2012, Anth has grown Zumper to over 100 employees and raised $90 million in venture capital for the company. In terms of the dynamics, I think in the early days, you kind of through osmosis graduate towards like the things that are important. Yeah. Shalin Amin Chief Experience Officer. In many instances, really acquisitions are great to either feel growth on the company itself, either on the product or perhaps by adding a great talent, but unfortunately many M&A transactions fail really on the integration side of things. I dont think theres a startup I could have launched that taught me more. Got it. Now we have supply so the six months curve at the series B was all about users and millions of monthly users and then at the series C it was much more revenue curve. Zumper which is a little bigger in terms of audience now caters more to urban professionals moving within cities. 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 I as British person moving to Silicon Valley in 2012 I have never run a startup before. So for the business, Anthemos, how much capital have you guys raised today? One Lesson Led This Entrepreneur To Raise $90 Million From The - Forbes So paradoxically, I dont think the core DNA of a companys culture is built at ski tracks or offsite. 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. I really enjoyed it and great stuff. This show is about storytelling and all the elements that go into telling the perfect fundraising story. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah, sure. Thats just part of the game. The one unifying theme in every fundraising Ive run is momentum. Got it. Alejandro: Got it. what was the premier league called before; How flat is the company? I mean your job moves from doing jobs in the first few years. He was with HBS 10 years ago. 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. Thats quite motivating for people. A lot of it was completely bottom up. We want investors who look at $100 million in revenue as table stakes but they wont agree to a billion. She was our original CPO and after the series A, she moved on to roller, another company and we promoted someone internally to CPO. 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. I mean I think at seed round its like an [26:02]. Alejandro Cremades leads the vision and execution for Panthera Advisors as its Co-Founder and. 10 Things All Landlords Should Remember To Ensure Good Tenant - Forbes 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. 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. Youre right that is wrong advice. 1. Im the CEO and Ive always felt that it was my responsibility to do the fundraising. So Ill read it if anyone tweets anything interesting or if I can be helpful in anyway. A lot of business schools was how to make decisions with imperfect information. So one is weve always promoted within so whenever we needed a role, we always prefer to promote someone instead of hiring from outside. So the majority of that is still in the bank but yeah, we raised money in capital [12:00]. Like what have you seen that really works? 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. Whats your story and most importantly, how did you get started with the entrepreneurial bug? So I saw for example Axle Springer which is you know more kind of like the corporate. 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. But theres no right answer in business. It just really helps to divide and conquer like that while I was meeting new investors again. Your email address is 100% safe from spam! It is ultimately the culture. You just get to this kind of motion of you all feel the same and you kind of pull in the same direction. 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. It was like $46 million. You are going to get a bunch of nos so I wouldnt rule people out too early. 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. So yes, we have a great cap table. 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. 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. Russell Middleton Co-Founder. Weve only been working with Axle Springer for four months now but they are fantastic. 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. He remains a huge Tottenham Hotspur fan, and wakes up painfully every Saturday morning to tune into the live English soccer games. 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. 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. So paradoxically, I dont think the core DNA of a companys culture is built at ski tracks or offsite. How did you find these investors? 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. Anthemos Georgiades on Twitter: "77% of you were interested in a At series A, you got to show product market set in a sub vertical. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. So Ill read it if anyone tweets anything interesting or if I can be helpful in anyway. . Yeah. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: No. So thats how Zumper got started. For Zumper's Georgiades, many Florida markets, such as Fort Lauderdale, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, have been the big pandemic winners. I mean if you could give some kind of like tips you know both fronts it would be really fantastic. Your job as the CEO and the founder is to convince your investors of the reason to do this. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. Anthemos Georgiades On Building A Marketplace That Helps Millions of Then behind the scenes, Zumper will close the transaction with the landlord and set the renter up with kind of rent payment. 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. You just cant get spooked. 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. 2023: The Road Ahead for Multifamily Operators We raised like a million dollars in seed money, that was running out so we tried various things that didnt work and I think the fabric of our culture that is still true today when we have a hundred people is built in the dark days and those days where your stuff is not working, your users arent growing, and how you look at your teammates and how you guys turn up on a Monday morning after a really crappy week the week before where maybe someone quit or maybe the metrics went south. In terms of investors, I guess two comments. Yeah. Based in San Francisco, Anth leads the company in its mission to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. 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. Zumper which is a little bigger in terms of audience now caters more to urban professionals moving within cities. Anthemos Georgiades (Zumper) | Startup Grind Alejandro: Fantastic. 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. Got it. 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. 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. It was just purely hustling my network for six months to find people who are really great cultural fit but also have very different skill sets to the one I have. Anthemos Georgiades. Fantastic. Make sure tenants understand why things are . So you acquire not long ago Pat Mapper and how did this come together? 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. I think if you hire four cofounders like yourself, thats difficult and luckily we didnt have that problem. And the biggest change in the series C I just raised versus in the early days is having a CFO. 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. 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. So you kind of just have to [25:29] but just to be clear yeah, we had far more nos than yeses at the seed round. There was no book [01:41]. comfortbilt pellet stove low temp alarm 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 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. Dave Costantino Staff Engineer - Backend. Yeah. Anthemos Georgiades - Previous President for Zumper, Inc. 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. It was like $46 million. Absolutely. But I will say the one thing is true is that you always raise on momentum. 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. Since 2012, Georgiades has grown Zumper to over 200 employees, 178 million annual visits, and raised $178 million in venture capital for the company. Its not about the ski trips and any of that you know. It was always a man, there is a really tough problem that consumers experience and no one is solving it. For every successful fundraise, every single company have a lot of nos. So I guess for a marketplace or lets say for the people that are listening to us like what kind of metrics do you think for the most part if were talking about hyper growth companies, like they should be a little bit more mindful about? Your second month you spend getting term sheets and documents signed. I dont think theres a startup I could have launched that taught me more. And as you know as and your listeners know, youre going to get a lot of nos on the way. Not really actually. So I saw NEA, Kleiner Perkins, Graylog, Andreesen Horrowitz, just to name a few. Likewise. And as you know as and your listeners know, youre going to get a lot of nos on the way. Anthemos Georgiades Email & Phone Number - Zumper | ZoomInfo I think if you set these expectations from the very beginning that are super important. Alejandro: Alrightee. Great question. In the early days, youre going to need to take all the capital you can get. In many instances, really acquisitions are great to either feel growth on the company itself, either on the product or perhaps by adding a great talent, but unfortunately many M&A transactions fail really on the integration side of things. How does the day to day at Zumper work? Now my cofounders were phenomenal in bringing them to meetings. Absolutely. 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. I mean youre doing various jobs, head of sales, head of finance, head of fundraising, head of like DZ. 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. How many landlords did we have on the site? And I mean its quite a few cofounders. Anthemos Georgiades. In the early days we love the exposure to Silicon Valley investors. And so as you mature you look for a different kind of investor and that naturally tends to happen. After that, it changed to more consumer. 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]. You just cant get spooked. Originally from London, he has an MBA from Harvard Business School, MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and BA from the University of Oxford. I think the startups end up wasting a lot of cash that could really extend runway but thats a different conversation. We both wanted to be entrepreneurs. Anthemos Georgiades: Yes, weve raised $90 million in capital including a series C that we just closed three months ago. Were incredibly grateful for everything she did and she remains kind of shareholder in the company. Over-Communication. Member profile: Zumper's founders - Anthemos Georgiades and Russell Two sided marketplaces are so difficult. Taylor Glass-Moore Co-Founder. 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. So we tell the small landlords, Hey, dont just advertise in Zumper. 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. 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. And the biggest change in the series C I just raised versus in the early days is having a CFO. The other large investor in this round [20:05] scale so once you have product market set, how do you scale that? Got it. You are going to get a bunch of nos so I wouldnt rule people out too early. How many listings do we have on the site? All of it is going to be important and it will come out at the right stage. Likewise. It just really helps to divide and conquer like that while I was meeting new investors again. Just enter your email below. Pat Mapper caters to 25 and under and kind of big college populations. Anthemos Georgiades on LinkedIn: Elevate Academy | Elevate Leadership How to tell a story worth $140 million dollars - Funded Podcast There could be investors who are fantastic. 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. Of course and I agree with you there, Anthemos. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. So how did you meet your cofounders? 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. Got it. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: One Lesson That Led To Raise $90 Million From The Top Venture Capital Firms by Alejandro Cremades Like many of our most successful entrepreneurs, Anthemos Georgiades was drawn into startup life to solving a burning problem. At series A, you got to show product market set in a sub vertical. And so I finally just gave in and thought no one is going to build this. 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. Really good strategy to differentiate the demographics and were super happy with how it went down. Well, first of all, your point about quashing the egg and shooting the chicken. But oh we must have had like 20 persons or 20 people say not now or later. 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. Thats your job. Over time, its great to be able to bring in your team. Thank you so much. [06:54] the early days and it worked where there was just all hands to the pump. It was incredibly difficult. 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? Get 5 free searches. Just out of curiosity, Anthemos, like how many nos did you get for example on your seed round if you have to count it? I met Russel who [04:01] engineering products through just the personal connections in London. 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. It looks better for investors and it makes your life easier. I mean I think at seed round its like an [26:02]. You always have more nos that more yeses in fundraising but it was ultimately about just hustling my network as much as possible. FUNDED EP01: How to tell a story worth $140 million dollars (Zumper) 00:00 51:07 Episode Summary Anthemos Georgiades, founder of Zumper, perfected his pitch the way most founders do: through trial and error. Anthemos Paul Georgiades has been associated with one company, according to public records. August 4, 2020. Now my cofounders were phenomenal in bringing them to meetings. 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. For me, its Zumper, an apartment rental platform. You look at your cofounders and you know that they understand that and that theyre not freaking out, that is where you build real institutional culture and then you try and grow that across the team. So you still have to land it and once youre on the door it doesnt matter where you come from you have to have something good. For us, I think they fully understand the entrepreneurial journey and were really excited to have them on board. Alrightee. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Alejandro: Got it. Yeah. Anthemos Georgiades: 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. But I will say the one thing is true is that you always raise on momentum. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Got it. So what is the best way, Anthemos, for people that are listening to reach out and say hi? Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. 1. 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? For every successful fundraise, every single company have a lot of nos. They were [sexy 23:47] company and really fantastic fundraisers but the rounds just take a long time, due diligence take a long time. Rental listing startup with more than 26 million users. It looks better for investors and it makes your life easier. 1.4.1 - Provisions of this Code Declared . How autonomous can people be at the junior levels? Yeah. What are some tips for successfully navigating the rental market from a renter's perspective? I kind of looked through in Crunchbase which connections I have into which fund. 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 I finally just gave in and thought no one is going to build this. There could be investors who are fantastic. Since 2012, Georgiades has grown Zumper to over 200 employees, 178 million annual visits, and raised $178 million in venture capital for the company. He's raised $39.2 million in venture capital, grown the team to 70+, and completed the acquisition of apartment search platform PadMapper. Get Anthemos Georgiades's email address (a*****@zumper.com) and phone number (646398..) at RocketReach. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Well, Anthemos, it has been a pleasure to have you on the show. Saying that to your point, we see the deal was a successful and yet M&A is really hard to integrate. 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. Keeping good lines of communication open can solve many landlord/tenant problems. Search icon - dusa.perfecttrailer.de A lot of it was completely bottom up. So I wouldnt be too picky early. 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. 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.
How To Make Speed 7 Potions Hypixel Skyblock,
How To Turn Off Pampered Chef Air Fryer,
Articles A