Every fantastic company has had hundreds of nos on the way to kind of huge outcomes and you just cant take it personally. Georgiades founded Zumper after his own . 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. 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. Yeah. How autonomous can people be at the junior levels? You just cant get spooked. Theyre struggling to kind of grow their audience because they didnt have enough listings whereas Zumper at the getgo we had a lot of unique landlords on the platform that no one else had. They wanted to close apartments like they book a hotel and so took the status of like 35 different apartments we leased using the technology in San Francisco to VCs and said, Hey, were really going to rebuild all of this but heres some data that shows this really can work at scale, and thats how we raised the first million dollars from some of the names that you mentioned. . I grew up in London. Theyre struggling to kind of grow their audience because they didnt have enough listings whereas Zumper at the getgo we had a lot of unique landlords on the platform that no one else had. 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. 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? In terms of the dynamics, I think in the early days, you kind of through osmosis graduate towards like the things that are important. So what is the best way, Anthemos, for people that are listening to reach out and say hi? Youre right that is wrong advice. 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. Anthemos Georgiades is the co-founder and CEO of Zumper. 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? 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. Saying that, in the early days you kind of need to bring on all the capital that you can. 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. The one unifying theme in every fundraising Ive run is momentum. So we want to be the first ever kind of full stack rental platform for long term leases and we monetize that two ways. Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below. Anthemos Georgiades (Zumper) | Startup Grind Rocketreach finds email, phone & social media for 450M+ professionals. So all good companies have multiple offers on the table. 1. How flat is the company? Anthemos Georgiades is CEO/Co-Founder at Zumper Inc. See Anthemos Georgiades's compensation, career history, education, & memberships. You always have more nos that more yeses in fundraising but it was ultimately about just hustling my network as much as possible. And frankly, the process is a pain in the ass. 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. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Had worked in politics. 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. Thank you so much. 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. 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. hendrick motorsports hats; anthemos georgiades net worth I mean to a point network gets you an intro but a lot of intros are 10 minute meetings where the VC immediately decides its not for them which is totally fair. 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. So Anthemos, whats the business model here? Had worked at the Boston Consulting Group. Saying that to your point, we see the deal was a successful and yet M&A is really hard to integrate. And as you know as and your listeners know, youre going to get a lot of nos on the way. After that, it changed to more consumer. Hes raising money now. Got it. Got it. 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. We want investors who look at $100 million in revenue as table stakes but they wont agree to a billion. So the majority of that is still in the bank but yeah, we raised money in capital [12:00]. They are the two ways that Zumper currently monetizes them and there are two folks that [11:35]. 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. Like what have you seen that really works? Your third month is getting kind of diligence done and getting the wires in to the door. Pat Mapper caters to 25 and under and kind of big college populations. I met Russel who [04:01] engineering products through just the personal connections in London. 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. I was just talking to a friend of mine about this. You are going to get a bunch of nos so I wouldnt rule people out too early. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. It seemed crazy that the real estate industry wasnt moving towards on demand. 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. 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 I wouldnt be too picky early. So Anthemos, whats the business model here? 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. Alejandro: Really, really nice to have you here and excited for the chat that we have ahead here. What are some tips for successfully navigating the rental market from a renter's perspective? Yeah. Im the CEO and Ive always felt that it was my responsibility to do the fundraising. We also actually had a really wonderful fourth cofounder whos no longer with us. It was like $46 million. 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? Anthemos Georgiades email address & phone number - RocketReach It was not something Ive really ever thought about before. Zumper has 7 current employee profiles, including CEO and co-founder Anthemos Georgiades. Shalin Amin Chief Experience Officer. 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. 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. Got it. So I guess like I have one thing to follow up on this. So all good companies have multiple offers on the table. Got it. 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? 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. We both had ideas to be entrepreneurs but neither of us have the guts to actually go for it. 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? At scale you get to do that and have those teams. 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. 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. So paradoxically, I dont think the core DNA of a companys culture is built at ski tracks or offsite. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. I grew up in London. And the biggest change in the series C I just raised versus in the early days is having a CFO. Absolutely. I think at that stage it makes sense. 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 you know I think Axle Springer very used to appraising companies that match their scale. 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 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. Alejandro: So I guess like I have one thing to follow up on this. 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. So I saw NEA, Kleiner Perkins, Graylog, Andreesen Horrowitz, just to name a few. Now my cofounders were phenomenal in bringing them to meetings. Alejandro: So Im completely there with you. 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. 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. 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. Im so glad I did it. 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]. Got it. 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. 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. In terms of investors, I guess two comments. Yeah. Yeah. So it was never I want to be an entrepreneur journey. Well, first of all, your point about quashing the egg and shooting the chicken. In terms of the dynamics, I think in the early days, you kind of through osmosis graduate towards like the things that are important. It was kind of [31:51] as early as we did to buy another stock up that was kind of four years in. I really enjoyed it and great stuff. 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. 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. They were [sexy 23:47] company and really fantastic fundraisers but the rounds just take a long time, due diligence take a long time. 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. Its a good question. You know its interesting that you mentioned the chicken and the egg. Got it. @zumper Stories Uncategorized 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. Yeah. 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. Alejandro: And did you diversify this responsibility with the other cofounders or was there one of you guys that has always been leading the chart on the financing side? 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. 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. Got it. So I wouldnt be too picky early. You are going to get a bunch of nos so I wouldnt rule people out too early. So I guess without further ado, Anthemos Georgiades from Zumper, welcome aboard. Like many of our most successful entrepreneurs. 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. We both wanted to be entrepreneurs. Its not about the ski trips and any of that you know. 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. 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. Zumper - Contacts, Employees, Board Members, Advisors & Alumni - Crunchbase Oh yeah, on the seed round back in 2012, we had probably five investors come in to the seed round so we kind of had five yeses who put in small checks. So I as British person moving to Silicon Valley in 2012 I have never run a startup before. 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. Budget in my opinion perhaps should be allocated to something else. Well, Anthemos, it has been a pleasure to have you on the show. Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. I love it. So yes, we have a great cap table. Back to Meet the San Francisco Business Times' 40 under 40 Class of 2018. He has grown the Zumper team to 50 and counting and successfully completed the acquisition of apartment search platform PadMapper. So you acquire not long ago Pat Mapper and how did this come together? I met Russel who [04:01] engineering products through just the personal connections in London. So I guess without further ado, Anthemos Georgiades from Zumper, welcome aboard. And it is the culture that keeps people here, not the compensation or anything else. He was with HBS 10 years ago. You start to build depth and management structures. Your email address is 100% safe from spam! 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. 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. 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. Hello, everyone, to the DealMakers Show. Categories . 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. So today, we have another founder and another one that is quite successful in their own paths. Youre supposed to try six things that dont work. August 4, 2020. Absolutely. One is I wouldnt be too pressured about it too early. 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. 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 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. Over time, its great to be able to bring in your team. The other large investor in this round [20:05] scale so once you have product market set, how do you scale that? 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. Ckg1 Ckp1 - Ckg1a63-100 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.
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