Im the CEO and Ive always felt that it was my responsibility to do the fundraising. Alejandro Cremades leads the vision and execution for Panthera Advisors as its Co-Founder and. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. ! 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. 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? And so I finally just gave in and thought no one is going to build this. 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]. 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? I'm so proud of my wife Lucy Georgiades and her cofounder Lindsey Nehls on launching their business Elevate Academy today. So I wouldnt be too picky early. So what is the best way, Anthemos, for people that are listening to reach out and say hi? 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 thats how Zumper got started. And so I finally just gave in and thought no one is going to build this. It looks better for investors and it makes your life easier. Yeah. No. Get a custom action plan and all the help that you need to start raising more capital. 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 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. 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. You know its interesting that you mentioned the chicken and the egg. Meaning hey, we send you a ton of leads this month that close in to leases. So I as British person moving to Silicon Valley in 2012 I have never run a startup before. Since 2012, Anth has grown Zumper to over 100 employees and raised $90 million in venture capital for the company. 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. You just cant get spooked. 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 did you find these investors? 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. So today, we have another founder and another one that is quite successful in their own paths. I mean I called it like a cheat [33:33] my team. 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. And the biggest change in the series C I just raised versus in the early days is having a CFO. We want investors who look at $100 million in revenue as table stakes but they wont agree to a billion. @zumper Stories Uncategorized 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 the way we monetize this is we either monetize the landlord mainly and we either charge them to leads. 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. Shalin Amin Chief Experience Officer. So we bought them. 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. Saying that, in the early days you kind of need to bring on all the capital that you can. How do you take a company with those tractions, 10 million in revenue. So it was never I want to be an entrepreneur journey. A lot of that is in the bank. Anthemos Georgiades is the CEO and co-founder at Zumper. 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. In the first two or three years you will kill your marketplace if you create any barriers to entry from either side. 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. So I think three months is an efficient round. 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? 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. Were incredibly grateful for everything she did and she remains kind of shareholder in the company. Anthemos Georgiades: 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. I dont think theres a startup I could have launched that taught me more. 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. 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, Cap Table: Everything Entrepreneurs Need To Know, He Cofounded A Business Of 4,000 Employees That Just Sold For $2.6 Billion To Delivery Hero, Sacha Michaud On Cofounding A Business Of 4,000 Employees That Just Sold For $2.6 Billion To Delivery Hero, His Previous Business Is Worth $1 Billion And Now Raised $54 Million To Create A Cloud-Native Database Service, Nikita Shamgunov On Building A $1 Billion Business And Now Raising $54 Million To Create A Cloud-Native Database Service, How to leverage your network for introductions, The importance of your metrics leading up to the, Expectations from investors during the different. Anthemos Georgiades: So Zumper is the vision for the company is to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. So how did you meet your cofounders? 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? August 4, 2020. 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 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]. He was with HBS 10 years ago. I met Russel who [04:01] engineering products through just the personal connections in London. 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. So yes, we have a great cap table. Anthemos Georgiades. Great question. Got it. Got it. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Got it. 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 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? Saying that to your point, we see the deal was a successful and yet M&A is really hard to integrate. I think the startups end up wasting a lot of cash that could really extend runway but thats a different conversation. I think if you hire four cofounders like yourself, thats difficult and luckily we didnt have that problem. I mean your job moves from doing jobs in the first few years. 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. 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 Like many of our most successful entrepreneurs. 1.4.1 - Provisions of this Code Declared . 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. Yeah. 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]. Please subscribe to unlock this content. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. 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. It happened but I wouldnt say its like an obvious part. Yes, weve raised $90 million in capital including a series C that we just closed three months ago. 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. Got it. 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. So we tell the small landlords, Hey, dont just advertise in Zumper. It seemed crazy that the real estate industry wasnt moving towards on demand. I think just up front boundaries before you close the round is super important. 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. And investors love that story because its easy to believe that you can continue to do that. 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. hendrick motorsports hats; anthemos georgiades net worth 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? So what was that process like you were talking about, yes, your network of Harvard but can you share with us like what was that process of landing Kleiner on your seed round? Get 5 free searches. You just get to this kind of motion of you all feel the same and you kind of pull in the same direction. They were [sexy 23:47] company and really fantastic fundraisers but the rounds just take a long time, due diligence take a long time. Every fantastic company has had hundreds of nos on the way to kind of huge outcomes and you just cant take it personally. So you know I think Axle Springer very used to appraising companies that match their scale. Thank you so much. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. A lot of it was completely bottom up. Got it. Never thought Id be an entrepreneur. Its a good question. Your third month is getting kind of diligence done and getting the wires in to the door. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Its just part of the game and it doesnt [24:30]. Youre right that is wrong advice. 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. Your job is to raise capital and your job is to kind of hire and retain the best talents. There could be investors who are fantastic. 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? For every successful fundraise, every single company have a lot of nos. Got it. 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. I met Russel who [04:01] engineering products through just the personal connections in London. Alejandro: Of course. 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.