You always have more nos that more yeses in fundraising but it was ultimately about just hustling my network as much as possible. Were growing very quickly but none of that was true obviously in the first two years. It was kind of [31:51] as early as we did to buy another stock up that was kind of four years in. Got it. 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? 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 Ill read it if anyone tweets anything interesting or if I can be helpful in anyway. Thank you so much. I know entrepreneurs who spend nine months raising their rounds which is a long time but they got great rounds done. So lets talk about Zumper here. Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. He runs all the background of operation and he came from the real estate industry, two completely different background and neither of them was an obvious pick when I started the company at grad school. I mean if you could give some kind of like tips you know both fronts it would be really fantastic. I think if you hire four cofounders like yourself, thats difficult and luckily we didnt have that problem. 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. Back to Meet the San Francisco Business Times' 40 under 40 Class of 2018. It just really helps to divide and conquer like that while I was meeting new investors again. So we bought them. At college in the UK, Ive had like multiple [00:58] renting apartments. So Anthemos, theres always a first time and you know I guess this is the first time in the history of the DealMakers Show that Im able to interview someone that has been involve on the M&A but more on the buy side. Pat Mapper caters to 25 and under and kind of big college populations. Thats just part of the game. How flat is the company? She was our original CPO and after the series A, she moved on to roller, another company and we promoted someone internally to CPO. Anthemos Georgiades is the CEO of <a href="http://zumperblog.kinsta.cloud">Zumper</a>. Got it. 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. 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. In terms of investors, I guess two comments.
Anthemos Georgiades, Author at The Zumper Blog Like many of our most successful entrepreneurs, Anthemos Georgiades was drawn into startup life to solving a burning problem. How does the day to day at Zumper work? Got it. He runs all the background of operation and he came from the real estate industry, two completely different background and neither of them was an obvious pick when I started the company at grad school. He was with HBS 10 years ago. So I guess like I have one thing to follow up on this. So in the first two years, Zumper is now [07:52] $90 million in capital. Im the CEO and Ive always felt that it was my responsibility to do the fundraising. 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. 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. In the early days we love the exposure to Silicon Valley investors. Like many of our most successful entrepreneurs, Anthemos Georgiades was drawn into startup life to solve a burning problem. The one unifying theme in every fundraising Ive run is momentum. So how did you meet your cofounders? Hes raising money now. It has to be me and thats how I started the company six years ago after business school. 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. 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.
How Zumper founder created software to solve the pain of apartment 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.
city of phoenix setback requirements Had worked in politics. Now my cofounders were phenomenal in bringing them to meetings. 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. 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. Read More: 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. So Im completely there with you. And the biggest change in the series C I just raised versus in the early days is having a CFO. 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. 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? I mean I called it like a cheat [33:33] my team.
Anthemos Georgiades on Twitter: "77% of you were interested in a Got it. One is I wouldnt be too pressured about it too early. 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. 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. Alejandro: Got it. 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. 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. Saying that, in the early days you kind of need to bring on all the capital that you can. Its a Greek name, British accent. 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. So seed, series A, series B, series C, I was always the point person in the fundraise. 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. Im the CEO and Ive always felt that it was my responsibility to do the fundraising. 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. Had worked at the Boston Consulting Group. Anthemos Georgiades is the co-founder and CEO of Zumper, the largest startup in the rental industry, used by more than 26 million renters last year alone. Then behind the scenes, Zumper will close the transaction with the landlord and set the renter up with kind of rent payment. I think at that stage it makes sense. Over-Communication.
Anthemos Georgiades | Multifamily Executive Magazine Alejandro: Got it. 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. 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 in the first two years, Zumper is now [07:52] $90 million in capital.
Anthemos Georgiades: One Lesson That Led To Raise $90 Million From The I grew up in London. 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. 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.