Not really actually. 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? Of course. It was just purely hustling my network for six months to find people who are really great cultural fit but also have very different skill sets to the one I have. 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? Great question. Its really built in the dark days of when stuff is really difficult and I think Zumpers culture now is we have a lot of users still remembers and its a testament to those dark days and we never take anything for granted. So Im completely there with you. In the early days we love the exposure to Silicon Valley investors. We want investors who look at $100 million in revenue as table stakes but they wont agree to a billion. Anthemos Georgiades: No. I think if you hire four cofounders like yourself, thats difficult and luckily we didnt have that problem. Got it. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah, sure. There was no book [01:41]. 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. Pat Mapper caters to 25 and under and kind of big college populations. So I think three months is an efficient round. In terms of investors, I guess two comments. In the early days we love the exposure to Silicon Valley investors. So I saw NEA, Kleiner Perkins, Graylog, Andreesen Horrowitz, just to name a few. It just really helps to divide and conquer like that while I was meeting new investors again. Your third month is getting kind of diligence done and getting the wires in to the door. Over-Communication. 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. Got it. Got it and before we actually dive in to the journey here, so consulting and. There was no book [01:41]. So M&A are strategic [33:48]. Every company is completely different and theres no gold standard. 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. Thank you so much. Its a good question. It seemed crazy that the real estate industry wasnt moving towards on demand. Got it. Budget in my opinion perhaps should be allocated to something else. I know entrepreneurs who spend nine months raising their rounds which is a long time but they got great rounds done. Its hard. Yeah. 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. For me, its Zumper, an apartment rental platform. 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. 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. 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? 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. I mean I called it like a cheat [33:33] my team. Alejandro: I love it. Alejandro: Got it. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Thats just part of the game. Yes, weve raised $90 million in capital including a series C that we just closed three months ago. At series A, you got to show product market set in a sub vertical. 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. 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. How flat is the company? Taylor Glass-Moore Co-Founder. Anthemos Georgiades: Yes, weve raised $90 million in capital including a series C that we just closed three months ago. 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. Township Of Ocean Police Department. 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. 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? A lot of it was completely bottom up. So that was great. But was drawn in to it just to solve a problem as I think so many entrepreneurs are. Got it. 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. Got it. At college in the UK, Ive had like multiple [00:58] renting apartments. Anthemos Georgiades. Likewise. Its hard. Pat Mapper caters to 25 and under and kind of big college populations. At series A, you got to show product market set in a sub vertical. Hes raising money now. Thats your job. Got it. All of it is going to be important and it will come out at the right stage. A lot of that is in the bank. 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. 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. 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. How do you take a company with those tractions, 10 million in revenue. Youre exactly right. Thats your job. Its a Greek name, British accent. I really enjoyed it and great stuff. Yeah, sure. So we bought them. Dave Costantino Staff Engineer - Backend. Alejandro: Got it. But theres no right answer in business. So Anthemos, whats the business model here? Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Shalin Amin Chief Experience Officer. They are brilliant about. Zumper which is a little bigger in terms of audience now caters more to urban professionals moving within cities. 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. Saying that to your point, we see the deal was a successful and yet M&A is really hard to integrate. Alejandro Cremades leads the vision and execution for Panthera Advisors as its Co-Founder and. Were incredibly grateful for everything she did and she remains kind of shareholder in the company. I love it. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. The other large investor in this round [20:05] scale so once you have product market set, how do you scale that? 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. Every company is completely different and theres no gold standard. Alejandro: Really, really nice to have you here and excited for the chat that we have ahead here. 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. Had worked at the Boston Consulting Group. So for the business, Anthemos, how much capital have you guys raised today? Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Hes raising money now. For us, I think they fully understand the entrepreneurial journey and were really excited to have them on board. Its a Greek name, British accent. It is not suppose to be easy. Really, really nice to have you here and excited for the chat that we have ahead here. Alejandro: Got it. So paradoxically, I dont think the core DNA of a companys culture is built at ski tracks or offsite. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. I was just talking to a friend of mine about this. 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. Retention is something I think about every day. [06:54] the early days and it worked where there was just all hands to the pump. 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. 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. If you want me to do your fundraising for you, click here. 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. Because I speak with a ton of founders that are perhaps opening up the possibility of bringing on corporations and I think that you need to really do it right. 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. ! Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. A lot of business schools was how to make decisions with imperfect information. I think just up front boundaries before you close the round is super important. You can set the expectations and then see what happens and if its not a good fit upfront, you can go with the different option on the table. So Ill read it if anyone tweets anything interesting or if I can be helpful in anyway. So what is the best way, Anthemos, for people that are listening to reach out and say hi? 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? How does the day to day at Zumper work? So strategically that was a good marriage where they had a great consumer brand and we have really fantastic supply side inventory. 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. 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. Since 2012, Anth has grown Zumper to over 100 employees and raised $90 million in venture capital for the company. We both wanted to be entrepreneurs. Its a good question. Yeah. Anthemos was an undergrad at Oxford when he noticed how problematic renting an apartment . So I as British person moving to Silicon Valley in 2012 I have never run a startup before. 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. 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? Anthemos lives in San Francisco, where Zumper is HQd, with his wife. So that was great. 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? 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. Now my cofounders were phenomenal in bringing them to meetings. Yeah. 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. See How I Can Help You With Your Fundraising Efforts. 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. I kind of looked through in Crunchbase which connections I have into which fund. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. I mean I think at seed round its like an [26:02]. 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. 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. 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. So M&A are strategic [33:48]. He had actually interviewed me for a job at a different consulting firm and we stayed in touch. 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. They are the two ways that Zumper currently monetizes them and there are two folks that [11:35]. 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. 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. 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. He was with HBS 10 years ago. Whats your story and most importantly, how did you get started with the entrepreneurial bug? Weve only been working with Axle Springer for four months now but they are fantastic. . 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. 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. You know its interesting that you mentioned the chicken and the egg. In the early days, youre going to need to take all the capital you can get. I grew up in London. Got it. Never thought Id be an entrepreneur. Alejandro: Got it. 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. I think if you hire four cofounders like yourself, thats difficult and luckily we didnt have that problem. I think if you set these expectations from the very beginning that are super important. Alejandro: Got it. 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. I knew the CEO for a while. 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. So I saw for example Axle Springer which is you know more kind of like the corporate. Two sided marketplaces are so difficult. But I will say the one thing is true is that you always raise on momentum. Got it. Like many of our most successful entrepreneurs, Anthemos Georgiades was drawn into startup life to solve a burning problem. And it is the culture that keeps people here, not the compensation or anything else. Keeping good lines of communication open can solve many landlord/tenant problems. Background Report for Anthemos Paul Georgiades Includes Age, Location, Address History for Anthemos Paul Georgiades Arrest, Criminal, & Driving Records Social Media Profiles Alejandro: So Im completely there with you. 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.
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