Well, first of all, your point about quashing the egg and shooting the chicken. So how did you meet your cofounders? Never thought Id be an entrepreneur. Got it. 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. 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. Every company is completely different and theres no gold standard. In terms of investors, I guess two comments. Yeah. ! And you know I think hiring is definitely tough but retaining is even more complicated so is there any things that you for example seen yourself that work on that front? Its a Greek name, British accent. Its a good question. I knew the CEO for a while. So today, we have another founder and another one that is quite successful in their own paths. Alejandro: Got it. Your third month is getting kind of diligence done and getting the wires in to the door. Alejandro: Really, really nice to have you here and excited for the chat that we have ahead here. 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? Thank you so much. @zumper Stories Uncategorized Had worked at the Boston Consulting Group. Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below. Got it. The one unifying theme in every fundraising Ive run is momentum. Since 2012, Georgiades has grown Zumper to over 200 employees, 178 million annual visits, and raised $178 million in venture capital for the company. And I mean its quite a few cofounders. Anthemos Georgiades on LinkedIn: Elevate Academy | Elevate Leadership So all good companies have multiple offers on the table. You can filter down by city and . No. 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. Meaning hey, we send you a ton of leads this month that close in to leases. 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. 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. I know entrepreneurs who spend nine months raising their rounds which is a long time but they got great rounds done. Got it. Yeah. It just really helps to divide and conquer like that while I was meeting new investors again. A lot of business schools was how to make decisions with imperfect information. "These markets had a huge net migration from New York and California, and they have held up," he says. I didnt think that either of them originally. Shalin Amin Chief Experience Officer. 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. Zumper which is a little bigger in terms of audience now caters more to urban professionals moving within cities. For me, its Zumper, an apartment rental platform. I mean I think at seed round its like an [26:02]. At series A, you got to show product market set in a sub vertical. We love our investors. I have no experience doing that. Thats quite motivating for people. I mean I think at seed round its like an [26:02]. So you acquire not long ago Pat Mapper and how did this come together? See How I Can Help You With Your Fundraising Efforts. Alejandro: Got it. 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. Were incredibly grateful for everything she did and she remains kind of shareholder in the company. 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. 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. Like many of our most successful entrepreneurs. 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. 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. Got it. 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. Saying that, in the early days you kind of need to bring on all the capital that you can. So Id say your first month you spend like getting first, second, third meeting. I was just talking to a friend of mine about this. The company was incorporated in California, Texas, and Florida ten years ago. But was drawn in to it just to solve a problem as I think so many entrepreneurs are. Pat Mapper caters to 25 and under and kind of big college populations. 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. We both wanted to be entrepreneurs. 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. Over-Communication. 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. 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. 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. Got it. 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? Vishal Makhijani President & COO. Got it. So the majority of that is still in the bank but yeah, we raised money in capital [12:00]. Got it. So I guess what was the timeline of this C round compared to perhaps your seed round of 2012? So one is weve always promoted within so whenever we needed a role, we always prefer to promote someone instead of hiring from outside. 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. There was no book [01:41]. 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? For us, I think they fully understand the entrepreneurial journey and were really excited to have them on board. Think Masterclass for Management. And it is the culture that keeps people here, not the compensation or anything else. Im the CEO and Ive always felt that it was my responsibility to do the fundraising. Really good strategy to differentiate the demographics and were super happy with how it went down. So in terms of timeline, you were mentioning that the C round, you guys closed this 46 million a couple of months ago. So the series B, weve done story now look at how quickly the renters are growing on the platform. There could be investors who are fantastic. Anthemos lives in San Francisco, where Zumper is HQd, with his wife. Georgiades founded Zumper after his own . 1. So the series B, weve done story now look at how quickly the renters are growing on the platform. I really enjoyed it and great stuff. 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. Since 2012, Anth has grown Zumper to over 100 employees and raised $90 million in venture capital for the company. Im so glad I did it. It was not something Ive really ever thought about before. 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. Just enter your email below. It was incredibly difficult. It was not something Ive really ever thought about before. 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. anthemos georgiades net worth So it was never I want to be an entrepreneur journey. I think at that stage it makes sense. Alejandro: Fantastic. 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 incredibly grateful for everything she did and she remains kind of shareholder in the company. Hes raising money now. 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. 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. 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. Hello, everyone, to the DealMakers Show. We both wanted to be entrepreneurs. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. We also actually had a really wonderful fourth cofounder whos no longer with us. So seed, series A, series B, series C, I was always the point person in the fundraise. So I as British person moving to Silicon Valley in 2012 I have never run a startup before. I didnt think that either of them originally. Got it. 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. 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 that was great. 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. Anthemos Georgiades: So Zumper is the vision for the company is to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. It looks better for investors and it makes your life easier. 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. 1. They are the two ways that Zumper currently monetizes them and there are two folks that [11:35]. Not really actually. So that was great. Thats just part of the game. Dave Costantino Staff Engineer - Backend. Get a custom action plan and all the help that you need to start raising more capital. Likewise. 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]. Now my cofounders were phenomenal in bringing them to meetings. 10 Things All Landlords Should Remember To Ensure Good Tenant - Forbes 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, Cap Table: Everything Entrepreneurs Need To Know, He Cofounded A Business Of 4,000 Employees That Just Sold For $2.6 Billion To Delivery Hero, Sacha Michaud On Cofounding A Business Of 4,000 Employees That Just Sold For $2.6 Billion To Delivery Hero, His Previous Business Is Worth $1 Billion And Now Raised $54 Million To Create A Cloud-Native Database Service, Nikita Shamgunov On Building A $1 Billion Business And Now Raising $54 Million To Create A Cloud-Native Database Service, How to leverage your network for introductions, The importance of your metrics leading up to the, Expectations from investors during the different. 2023: The Road Ahead for Multifamily Operators It is ultimately the culture. Budget in my opinion perhaps should be allocated to something else. 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 love our investors. 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. So today, we have another founder and another one that is quite successful in their own paths. Whats your story and most importantly, how did you get started with the entrepreneurial bug? Yeah. Of course. You just cant get spooked. Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. 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. It was kind of [31:51] as early as we did to buy another stock up that was kind of four years in. So the way we monetize this is we either monetize the landlord mainly and we either charge them to leads. 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. 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. comfortbilt pellet stove low temp alarm Please subscribe to unlock this content. So in the first two years, Zumper is now [07:52] $90 million in capital. So yes, we have a great cap table. 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. The other large investor in this round [20:05] scale so once you have product market set, how do you scale that? Got it. Rental listing startup with more than 26 million users. Ckg1 Ckp1 - Ckg1a63-100 It seemed crazy that the real estate industry wasnt moving towards on demand. 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. I think Id say forget everything you think you know and everything, your education [38:28]. Keeping good lines of communication open can solve many landlord/tenant problems. Anthemos Georgiades email address & phone number - RocketReach I dont think theres a startup I could have launched that taught me more. How much respect is there? You just cant get spooked. So Im completely there with you. And were just a little earlier than obviously a public company so our gross is spikier. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. So strategically that was a good marriage where they had a great consumer brand and we have really fantastic supply side inventory. At series A, you got to show product market set in a sub vertical. And so as you mature you look for a different kind of investor and that naturally tends to happen. Its just part of the game and it doesnt [24:30]. True to its reputation, Comfortbilt's HP22 pellet stove comes with a heating capacity of 50,000 BTU. I think if you hire four cofounders like yourself, thats difficult and luckily we didnt have that problem. 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. 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. So M&A are strategic [33:48]. Yeah. I dont think theres a startup I could have launched that taught me more. 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. Look how quickly our revenue are scaling. Like what have you seen that really works? 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. . Anthemos Georgiades CEO at Zumper United States 4K followers 500+ connections Join to view profile Zumper Harvard Business School Websites Websites Company Website http://www.zumper.com Company. 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. Zumper which is a little bigger in terms of audience now caters more to urban professionals moving within cities. anthemos georgiades net worth Every fantastic company has had hundreds of nos on the way to kind of huge outcomes and you just cant take it personally. Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. 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? Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah, sure. 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 had actually interviewed me for a job at a different consulting firm and we stayed in touch. I kind of looked through in Crunchbase which connections I have into which fund. 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. Over time, its great to be able to bring in your team. In the early days we love the exposure to Silicon Valley 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. Its hard. In the early days, youre going to need to take all the capital you can get. Anthemos was an undergrad at Oxford when he noticed how problematic renting an apartment . 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. So I guess in your guys case, how do you deal with the egos and then more importantly how did you define the responsibilities early on so that you kind of have that healthy culture going on? 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. 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.