I really enjoyed it and great stuff. Not really actually. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. It was kind of [31:51] as early as we did to buy another stock up that was kind of four years in. So lets talk about Zumper here. So that was great. 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. A lot of it was completely bottom up. You just get to this kind of motion of you all feel the same and you kind of pull in the same direction. 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. 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. Your second month you spend getting term sheets and documents signed. He had actually interviewed me for a job at a different consulting firm and we stayed in touch. In the early days we love the exposure to Silicon Valley investors. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah, sure. Had worked at the Boston Consulting Group. 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. I have no experience doing that. Yeah, I think its probably the DNA of your culture is I think a lot of it is built in the tough times. Got it. It was always a man, there is a really tough problem that consumers experience and no one is solving it. Weve only been working with Axle Springer for four months now but they are fantastic. In the early days, youre going to need to take all the capital you can get. Anthemos Georgiades: No. 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? 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. How many listings do we have on the site? The other large investor in this round [20:05] scale so once you have product market set, how do you scale that? It has to be me and thats how I started the company six years ago after business school. And in terms of preparation, Anthemos, how has the preparation like preparing before going to market to start engaging investors, how have you seen with your business, with Zumper, how have you seen that changed over time as the rounds were maturing? 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. Alejandro: Got it. Like many of our most successful entrepreneurs, Anthemos Georgiades was drawn into startup life to solving a burning problem. So I saw for example Axle Springer which is you know more kind of like the corporate. So Zumper is the vision for the company is to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. 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. We saw it would take three to six months to integrate Pat Mapper and their backend that engineering project we worked really hard and quickly just over a year to integrate so we underestimated like how much work was required to integrate them by 3x. You know its interesting that you mentioned the chicken and the egg. I think if you set these expectations from the very beginning that are super important. 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? 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? Over-Communication. Anthemos Georgiades is the CEO of <a href="http://zumperblog.kinsta.cloud">Zumper</a>. Its a Greek name, British accent. I mean if you could give some kind of like tips you know both fronts it would be really fantastic. I mean if you could give some kind of like tips you know both fronts it would be really fantastic. Get Anthemos Georgiades's email address (a*****@zumper.com) and phone number (646398..) at RocketReach. So we tell the small landlords, Hey, dont just advertise in Zumper. Yeah. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. So seed, series A, series B, series C, I was always the point person in the fundraise. 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. I think Id say forget everything you think you know and everything, your education [38:28]. Think Masterclass for Management. 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. At scale you get to do that and have those teams. Got it. 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. So Id say your first month you spend like getting first, second, third meeting. I say like in the first pitch to the day the money wires, theres always been around like a minimum of three months. Terms & Conditions! In terms of investors, I guess two comments. 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. 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. 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. He remains a huge Tottenham Hotspur fan, and wakes up painfully every Saturday morning to tune into the live English soccer games. Were going to charge you per lead or for the smaller landlords we charge them if theyre [11:15] for the transaction. Anthemos Paul Georgiades has been associated with one company, according to public records. 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 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 all good companies have multiple offers on the table. 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. Anthemos Georgiades is CEO/Co-Founder at Zumper Inc. See Anthemos Georgiades's compensation, career history, education, & memberships. What are some tips for successfully navigating the rental market from a renter's perspective? 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. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: So Zumper is the vision for the company is to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. Thats quite motivating for people. So M&A are strategic [33:48]. 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? Yeah. It was not something Ive really ever thought about before. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. So I saw NEA, Kleiner Perkins, Graylog, Andreesen Horrowitz, just to name a few. 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. He was with HBS 10 years ago. 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. Every company is completely different and theres no gold standard. So I think three months is an efficient round. Zumper Board Member Related Hubs 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. 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. For every successful fundraise, every single company have a lot of nos. Its a Greek name, British accent. 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. 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. There could be investors who are fantastic. Got it. 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. 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. Yeah. Alejandro: 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? So it doesnt always work out and I think thats fine. Vishal Makhijani President & COO. How many listings do we have on the site? Were growing very quickly but none of that was true obviously in the first two years. Alejandro: So Im completely there with you. For me, its Zumper, an apartment rental platform. So paradoxically, I dont think the core DNA of a companys culture is built at ski tracks or offsite. Taylor Glass-Moore Co-Founder. 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]. Got it. How much respect is there? Alrightee. 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. 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. It was like $46 million. Look how quickly our revenue are scaling. For every successful fundraise, every single company have a lot of nos. 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. 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. So I guess how did that consulting experience shape up your approach in terms of like tackling problems and the entrepreneurial journey itself? Budget in my opinion perhaps should be allocated to something else. Of course. Alejandro: Of course. So you know I think Axle Springer very used to appraising companies that match their scale. So Im completely there with you. I knew the CEO for a while. So tell me your story a little bit here, Anthemos. Had worked in politics. So tell me your story a little bit here, Anthemos. But oh we must have had like 20 persons or 20 people say not now or later. 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. There could be investors who are fantastic. Absolutely. 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. 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. Try for free at rocketreach.co I met Russel who [04:01] engineering products through just the personal connections in London. And were just a little earlier than obviously a public company so our gross is spikier. 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]. Published by at June 13, 2022. Got it. So Ill read it if anyone tweets anything interesting or if I can be helpful in anyway.