The one unifying theme in every fundraising Ive run is momentum. Alejandro: Got it. So tell me your story a little bit here, Anthemos. Every company is completely different and theres no gold standard. There was no book [01:41]. Budget in my opinion perhaps should be allocated to something else. Of course. Retention is something I think about every day. Ckg1 Ckp1 - Ckg1a63-100 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. 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 I saw NEA, Kleiner Perkins, Graylog, Andreesen Horrowitz, just to name a few. 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]. I really enjoyed it and great stuff. Got it. 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? Yeah. Hello, everyone, to the DealMakers Show. So in the first two years, Zumper is now [07:52] $90 million in capital. So I wouldnt be too picky early. Alejandro: Got it. Got it. I mean if you could give some kind of like tips you know both fronts it would be really fantastic. Got it. Your second month you spend getting term sheets and documents signed. I think Id say forget everything you think you know and everything, your education [38:28]. 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. 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. But I guess you were saying then here the shift, kind of like shifted more from like growth of users perhaps retention to more kind of like deep revenue growth. 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. Anthemos Georgiades is CEO/Co-Founder at Zumper Inc. See Anthemos Georgiades's compensation, career history, education, & memberships. 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. It was always a man, there is a really tough problem that consumers experience and no one is solving it. At series A, you got to show product market set in a sub vertical. You know its interesting that you mentioned the chicken and the egg. Got it. Pat Mapper caters to 25 and under and kind of big college populations. 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. Every fantastic company has had hundreds of nos on the way to kind of huge outcomes and you just cant take it personally. So I think three months is an efficient round. Anthemos and Russell met in London while working at a consulting company back in 2006, but it was after they moved to the U.S and experienced the pain of finding a place to live that they decided to found Zumper along with Taylor Glass-Moore and Leah Jones. Zumper which is a little bigger in terms of audience now caters more to urban professionals moving within cities. Yes, weve raised $90 million in capital including a series C that we just closed three months ago. Thats quite motivating for people. 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 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. Its hard. I think the startups end up wasting a lot of cash that could really extend runway but thats a different conversation. Got it. 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. So one is weve always promoted within so whenever we needed a role, we always prefer to promote someone instead of hiring from outside. Had worked at the Boston Consulting Group. So for the business, Anthemos, how much capital have you guys raised today? So we bought them. In terms of the dynamics, I think in the early days, you kind of through osmosis graduate towards like the things that are important. Get Anthemos Georgiades's email address (a*****@zumper.com) and phone number (646398..) at RocketReach. 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. anthemos georgiades net worth Rocketreach finds email, phone & social media for 450M+ professionals. E1031 Zumper CEO Anthemos Georgiades on monetizing - YouTube All of it is going to be important and it will come out at the right stage. 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. How do you scale like 20 million in revenue to 200 million in revenue and we didnt need the more product set investors because we already have fantastic people at that. Dave Costantino Staff Engineer - Backend. Like many of our most successful entrepreneurs, Anthemos Georgiades was drawn into startup life to solving a burning problem. As CEO, Anthemos has raised $39.2 million in venture capital from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Goodwater Capital, Breyer Capital and Foxhaven Asset Management, including a Series B round in Oct. 2016 when many start-ups were struggling. For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered. 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. Yeah. Im the CEO and Ive always felt that it was my responsibility to do the fundraising. In the early days we love the exposure to Silicon Valley investors. 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. [06:54] the early days and it worked where there was just all hands to the pump. Township Of Ocean Police Department. And the biggest change in the series C I just raised versus in the early days is having a CFO. 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. Since 2012, Georgiades has grown Zumper to over 200 employees, 178 million annual visits, and raised $178 million in venture capital for the company. Yeah. 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. Alejandro: Really, really nice to have you here and excited for the chat that we have ahead here. He was with HBS 10 years ago. 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. So you acquire not long ago Pat Mapper and how did this come together? And so as you mature you look for a different kind of investor and that naturally tends to happen. So what is the best way, Anthemos, for people that are listening to reach out and say hi? 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? Yeah, I think its probably the DNA of your culture is I think a lot of it is built in the tough times. I met Russel who [04:01] engineering products through just the personal connections in London. So I saw for example Axle Springer which is you know more kind of like the corporate. It is not suppose to be easy. So we tell the small landlords, Hey, dont just advertise in Zumper. So that was great. So I as British person moving to Silicon Valley in 2012 I have never run a startup before. Like many of our most successful entrepreneurs, Anthemos Georgiades was drawn into startup life to solve a burning problem. So we bought them. I know entrepreneurs who spend nine months raising their rounds which is a long time but they got great rounds done. So I guess like I have one thing to follow up on this. Zumper - Contacts, Employees, Board Members, Advisors & Alumni - Crunchbase I know entrepreneurs who spend nine months raising their rounds which is a long time but they got great rounds done. In the early days, youre going to need to take all the capital you can get. 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. 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. 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]. Really good strategy to differentiate the demographics and were super happy with how it went down. "While many markets cool off during the winter, Miami is still posting month-over-month increases. So Ill read it if anyone tweets anything interesting or if I can be helpful in anyway. I dont think theres a startup I could have launched that taught me more. 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? 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. 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. Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. So in terms of timeline, you were mentioning that the C round, you guys closed this 46 million a couple of months ago. Really good strategy to differentiate the demographics and were super happy with how it went down. And so I wouldnt be too pressured. Hes raising money now. Anthemos Georgiades - Co-Founder & CEO - Zumper | LinkedIn Anthemos Georgiades. Just enter your email below. How flat is the company? Got it. Anthemos Georgiades: Its part of the game. 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. For me, its Zumper, an apartment rental platform. I mean I called it like a cheat [33:33] my team. So all good companies have multiple offers on the table. Anthemos Georgiades On Building A Marketplace That Helps Millions of Over time, its great to be able to bring in your team. I think if you set these expectations from the very beginning that are super important. See How I Can Help You With Your Fundraising Efforts. 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. And then as we looked at the C round, Axle Springer are fantastic good example [19:59]. 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. 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 the majority of that is still in the bank but yeah, we raised money in capital [12:00]. I think Id say forget everything you think you know and everything, your education [38:28]. Had worked in politics. Anthemos Georgiades, Zumper, European Founder, International Founders, Marketplace The process of renting apartments hasn't changed since Craigslist was introduced. So I guess how did that consulting experience shape up your approach in terms of like tackling problems and the entrepreneurial journey itself? So thats how Zumper got started. 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. Yeah. 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. It was not something Ive really ever thought about before. 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]. And as you know as and your listeners know, youre going to get a lot of nos on the way. Whats your story and most importantly, how did you get started with the entrepreneurial bug? How does the day to day at Zumper work? But oh we must have had like 20 persons or 20 people say not now or later. 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. 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. Originally from London, he has an MBA from Harvard Business School, MPhil from the University of Cambridge, and BA from the University of Oxford. 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. ! 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. Youre supposed to try six things that dont work. How does the day to day at Zumper work? Over-Communication. Anthemos lives in San Francisco, where Zumper is HQd, with his wife. 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? Well, Anthemos, it has been a pleasure to have you on the show. All photos courtesy of Forbes Councils members. 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. Budget in my opinion perhaps should be allocated to something else. 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. You just get to this kind of motion of you all feel the same and you kind of pull in the same direction. 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]. 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