If you want me to do your fundraising for you, click here. @zumper Stories Uncategorized Your email address is 100% safe from spam! You just cant get spooked. There could be investors who are fantastic. 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. 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. He was with HBS 10 years ago. See How I Can Help You With Your Fundraising Efforts. Saying that to your point, we see the deal was a successful and yet M&A is really hard to integrate. 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. Yeah. For every successful fundraise, every single company have a lot of nos. Got it. Got it. How many listings do we have on the site? A lot of business schools was how to make decisions with imperfect information. Got it. "While many markets cool off during the winter, Miami is still posting month-over-month increases. 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. Hes raising money now. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash. We also actually had a really wonderful fourth cofounder whos no longer with us. 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 think Id say forget everything you think you know and everything, your education [38:28]. Anthemos Georgiades: 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. Everyone filling gaps where they could and it [07:02] fulfilling gaps in to where youre skilled and so I think the most obvious thing to do for that is to hire people with very different skill sets to you that allows you to never really have awkward overlap and egos because everyone is kind of skilled at something very unique. Youre right that is wrong advice. After that, it changed to more consumer. 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. Not really actually. Yeah. Yeah, I think its probably the DNA of your culture is I think a lot of it is built in the tough times. Like many of our most successful entrepreneurs, Anthemos Georgiades was drawn into startup life to solve a burning problem. Its a good question. I think if you hire four cofounders like yourself, thats difficult and luckily we didnt have that problem. Absolutely. I kind of looked through in Crunchbase which connections I have into which fund. So one is weve always promoted within so whenever we needed a role, we always prefer to promote someone instead of hiring from outside. After that, it changed to more consumer. So I think three months is an efficient round. So I as British person moving to Silicon Valley in 2012 I have never run a startup before. Anthemos Georgiades: Yes, weve raised $90 million in capital including a series C that we just closed three months ago. I mean I called it like a cheat [33:33] my team. I really enjoyed it and great stuff. Alejandro: Got it. I mean if you could give some kind of like tips you know both fronts it would be really fantastic. 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 the biggest change in the series C I just raised versus in the early days is having a CFO. I was just talking to a friend of mine about this. 1. Got it. Yeah. Your second month you spend getting term sheets and documents signed. And it is the culture that keeps people here, not the compensation or anything else. How did you find these investors? 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. Got it. I think Id say forget everything you think you know and everything, your education [38:28]. So Anthemos, whats the business model here? Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. 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. A lot of business schools was how to make decisions with imperfect information. 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. You know its interesting that you mentioned the chicken and the egg. It looks better for investors and it makes your life easier. Meaning hey, we send you a ton of leads this month that close in to leases. Yeah. Had worked at the Boston Consulting Group. Get Anthemos Georgiades's email address (a*****@zumper.com) and phone number (646398..) at RocketReach. It is ultimately the culture. Anthemos Georgiades. Alejandro: 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? 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 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. 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. Got it. At series A, you got to show product market set in a sub vertical. Alejandro: So I guess like I have one thing to follow up on this. So strategically that was a good marriage where they had a great consumer brand and we have really fantastic supply side inventory. 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 was incredibly difficult. Prior to his work at Zumper, Georgiades worked at the Boston . Stay informed using all the free online rental data out there (like Zumper's national rent report). Budget in my opinion perhaps should be allocated to something else. Got it. And so I wouldnt be too pressured. So I guess lets say we had the opportunity to put you in front of your younger self, Anthemos, in 2012 before you were to close that seed round, what would be that piece of advice that you would give to your younger self with everything that youve learned having this journey ahead of you? I think if you set these expectations from the very beginning that are super important. anthemos georgiades net worth. If you want me to help you with your fundraising, just book a call. 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. 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. How does the day to day at Zumper work? But theres no right answer in business. Background Report for Anthemos Paul Georgiades Includes Age, Location, Address History for Anthemos Paul Georgiades Arrest, Criminal, & Driving Records Social Media Profiles 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. 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. 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. One is I wouldnt be too pressured about it too early. 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 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. anthemos georgiades net worth; wedding max minghella wife; private beach airbnb california; antique english double barrel shotguns; tuscany faucet cartridge removal; primeweld cut 60 machine torch. Every company is completely different and theres no gold standard. So I saw for example Axle Springer which is you know more kind of like the corporate. You always have more nos that more yeses in fundraising but it was ultimately about just hustling my network as much as possible. Its not about the ski trips and any of that you know. Well, today's guest noticed that experience and wanted to improve it. So lets talk about Zumper here. Of course. Alejandro Cremades leads the vision and execution for Panthera Advisors as its Co-Founder and. In terms of investors, I guess two comments. It was like $46 million. Well, first of all, your point about quashing the egg and shooting the chicken. 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. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. 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. 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. He was with HBS 10 years ago. They were super lean team of under five people and its been a great deal for Zumper like we have one backend, one sales team and then two consumer platforms. 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. So Anthemos, whats the business model here? How flat is the company? You are going to get a bunch of nos so I wouldnt rule people out too early. How do you take a company with those tractions, 10 million in revenue. 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 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. Fantastic. I think the startups end up wasting a lot of cash that could really extend runway but thats a different conversation. In the early days we love the exposure to Silicon Valley investors. In terms of investors, I guess two comments. 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. Yeah, sure. 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. 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. August 4, 2020. I mean I think at seed round its like an [26:02]. I love it. 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. Thank you so much. At college in the UK, Ive had like multiple [00:58] renting apartments. We both had ideas to be entrepreneurs but neither of us have the guts to actually go for it. Were going to charge you per lead or for the smaller landlords we charge them if theyre [11:15] for the transaction. 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. 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 tell me your story a little bit here, Anthemos. June 12, 2022 . Got it. 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 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 I mean its quite a few cofounders. 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. 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. Everyone filling gaps where they could and it [07:02] fulfilling gaps in to where youre skilled and so I think the most obvious thing to do for that is to hire people with very different skill sets to you that allows you to never really have awkward overlap and egos because everyone is kind of skilled at something very unique. Had worked in politics. Additionally, Anthemos Georgiades has had 2 past jobs including Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. So we bought them. We love our investors. Youre supposed to try six things that dont work. So M&A are strategic [33:48]. Got it. Alejandro: Got it. Well, Anthemos, it has been a pleasure to have you on the show. 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. 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 want investors who look at $100 million in revenue as table stakes but they wont agree to a billion. How flat is the company? Your third month is getting kind of diligence done and getting the wires in to the door. Weve only been working with Axle Springer for four months now but they are fantastic. 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. 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. I mean your job moves from doing jobs in the first few years. So what is the best way, Anthemos, for people that are listening to reach out and say hi? Got it. At college in the UK, Ive had like multiple [00:58] renting apartments. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Never thought Id be an entrepreneur. At scale you get to do that and have those teams. 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. So how did you meet your cofounders? 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 the majority of that is still in the bank but yeah, we raised money in capital [12:00]. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. And investors love that story because its easy to believe that you can continue to do that. Then behind the scenes, Zumper will close the transaction with the landlord and set the renter up with kind of rent payment. 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. 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 lets talk about Zumper here. Zumper which is a little bigger in terms of audience now caters more to urban professionals moving within cities. 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. I kind of looked through in Crunchbase which connections I have into which fund. Saying that, in the early days you kind of need to bring on all the capital that you can. 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. 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. Yes, weve raised $90 million in capital including a series C that we just closed three months ago. You can filter down by city and . 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. Alejandro: Got it. Got it. 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? They were [sexy 23:47] company and really fantastic fundraisers but the rounds just take a long time, due diligence take a long time. Your job is to raise capital and your job is to kind of hire and retain the best talents. Its hard. anthemos georgiades net worth. Absolutely. So I saw NEA, Kleiner Perkins, Graylog, Andreesen Horrowitz, just to name a few. Alrightee. 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. 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? With a diverse background that includes consulting for Boston Consulting Group and serving as Economic Advisor and speechwriter in the 2010 British Election, Anthemos founded Zumper in 2012 after his own terrible rental experience. In terms of the dynamics, I think in the early days, you kind of through osmosis graduate towards like the things that are important. Prices can change quickly! I mean I called it like a cheat [33:33] my team. 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. 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]. It was kind of [31:51] as early as we did to buy another stock up that was kind of four years in. 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. 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. Got it. Based in San Francisco, Anth leads the company in its mission to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. So I guess without further ado, Anthemos Georgiades from Zumper, welcome aboard. So it doesnt always work out and I think thats fine. 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. 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]. . 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. 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. Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah, I think its probably the DNA of your culture is I think a lot of it is built in the tough times. Anthemos Georgiades: No. 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. 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. Anthemos lives in San Francisco, where Zumper is HQd, with his wife. 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? 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? So all good companies have multiple offers on the table. 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. Keeping good lines of communication open can solve many landlord/tenant problems. Thats just part of the game. Got it. So in terms of timeline, you were mentioning that the C round, you guys closed this 46 million a couple of months ago. 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? They are the two ways that Zumper currently monetizes them and there are two folks that [11:35]. He had actually interviewed me for a job at a different consulting firm and we stayed in touch. But I will say the one thing is true is that you always raise on momentum. Over-Communication. 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. Look how quickly our revenue are scaling. 1. How autonomous can people be at the junior levels? Got it and before we actually dive in to the journey here, so consulting and. 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? Your job is to raise capital and your job is to kind of hire and retain the best talents. Really, really nice to have you here and excited for the chat that we have ahead here. I have no experience doing that. Great question. For me, its Zumper, an apartment rental platform. But oh we must have had like 20 persons or 20 people say not now or later. But oh we must have had like 20 persons or 20 people say not now or later. Shalin Amin Chief Experience Officer. what was the premier league called before; 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. I mean youre doing various jobs, head of sales, head of finance, head of fundraising, head of like DZ. I met Russel who [04:01] engineering products through just the personal connections in London. How many listings do we have on the site? It is not suppose to be easy.
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