Anthemos was an undergrad at Oxford when he noticed how problematic renting an apartment . But theres no right answer in business. 1. Your job as the CEO and the founder is to convince your investors of the reason to do this. Anthemos Georgiades is the co-founder and CEO of Zumper. 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. All of it is going to be important and it will come out at the right stage. It was not something Ive really ever thought about before. Got it. I met Russel who [04:01] engineering products through just the personal connections in London. Were growing very quickly but none of that was true obviously in the first two years. 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]. I mean if you could give some kind of like tips you know both fronts it would be really fantastic. 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. And then as we looked at the C round, Axle Springer are fantastic good example [19:59]. At scale you get to do that and have those teams. Got it. Zumper Board Member Related Hubs Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. 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. His passion for relieving the stress for others in . 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. In the first two or three years you will kill your marketplace if you create any barriers to entry from either side. 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. 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. Got it. I mean if you could give some kind of like tips you know both fronts it would be really fantastic. 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. And so back to your point, yes, we want investors who are supportive of the fact that we didnt try to monetize the platform for the first three years because it would have created a barrier to entry. 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 we want to be the first ever kind of full stack rental platform for long term leases and we monetize that two ways. Alejandro: Got it. So it was never I want to be an entrepreneur journey. 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? Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. 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. 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. Got it. Try for free at rocketreach.co 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. So what was that process like you were talking about, yes, your network of Harvard but can you share with us like what was that process of landing Kleiner on your seed round? 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. 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. If you want me to do your fundraising for you, click here. It happened but I wouldnt say its like an obvious part. And the biggest change in the series C I just raised versus in the early days is having a CFO. Just enter your email below. They are the two ways that Zumper currently monetizes them and there are two folks that [11:35]. 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. And were just a little earlier than obviously a public company so our gross is spikier. 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. At Zumper, based in San Francisco, he leads the company in its mission to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. 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. It is not suppose to be easy. We also actually had a really wonderful fourth cofounder whos no longer with us. But was drawn in to it just to solve a problem as I think so many entrepreneurs are. Additionally, Anthemos Georgiades has had 2 past jobs including Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group. 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? 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. So it doesnt always work out and I think thats fine. I say like in the first pitch to the day the money wires, theres always been around like a minimum of three months. So how did you meet your cofounders? Your job is to raise capital and your job is to kind of hire and retain the best talents. Well, first of all, your point about quashing the egg and shooting the chicken. It just really helps to divide and conquer like that while I was meeting new investors again. 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? Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. 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. Got it. Anthemos Georgiades is the co-founder and CEO of Zumper. Its hard. Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. So our CFO is fantastic and what he was able to bring to the series C was real credibility where I meet the investors, get them excited about our vision and our story and then they spend hours with the CFO on the second or third meeting digesting our historical financial as were talking about where were headed. 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]. One is I wouldnt be too pressured about it too early. Budget in my opinion perhaps should be allocated to something else. So the majority of that is still in the bank but yeah, we raised money in capital [12:00]. One is I wouldnt be too pressured about it too early. Alejandro: Fantastic. True to its reputation, Comfortbilt's HP22 pellet stove comes with a heating capacity of 50,000 BTU. How autonomous can people be at the junior levels? 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. So that was great. 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. Alejandro: Got it. We both had ideas to be entrepreneurs but neither of us have the guts to actually go for it. Get Anthemos Georgiades's email address (a*****@zumper.com) and phone number (646398..) at RocketReach. 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. 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? Anthemos Georgiades, Zumper, European Founder, International Founders, Marketplace The process of renting apartments hasn't changed since Craigslist was introduced. Yeah. Great question. I mean I called it like a cheat [33:33] my team. And investors love that story because its easy to believe that you can continue to do that. Really good strategy to differentiate the demographics and were super happy with how it went down. How autonomous can people be at the junior levels? Pat Mapper caters to 25 and under and kind of big college populations. And were just a little earlier than obviously a public company so our gross is spikier. I really enjoyed it and great stuff. I think at that stage it makes sense. 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. Youre supposed to try six things that dont work. So today, we have another founder and another one that is quite successful in their own paths. 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. 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. Retention is something I think about every day. Alejandro: So I guess like I have one thing to follow up on this. Likewise. I think the startups end up wasting a lot of cash that could really extend runway but thats a different conversation. So Id say your first month you spend like getting first, second, third meeting. The other large investor in this round [20:05] scale so once you have product market set, how do you scale that? 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. So paradoxically, I dont think the core DNA of a companys culture is built at ski tracks or offsite. 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? Alejandro: Alrightee. Alejandro: Of course and I agree with you there, Anthemos. 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. 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. Absolutely. Remember to unlock for free the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below. I say like in the first pitch to the day the money wires, theres always been around like a minimum of three months. So we want to be the first ever kind of full stack rental platform for long term leases and we monetize that two ways. It happened but I wouldnt say its like an obvious part. Your job as the CEO and the founder is to convince your investors of the reason to do this. 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. Alejandro: Got it. Anthemos Georgiades is the CEO and co-founder at Zumper. We both wanted to be entrepreneurs. 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. Well, today's guest noticed that experience and wanted to improve it. 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. Alejandro: Got it. Im the CEO and Ive always felt that it was my responsibility to do the fundraising. Hes raising money now. He discovered that the marketplace doesnt work for renters, and the idea for Zumper was born with the goal of evening the playing field and increasing transparency in the marketplace. You know its interesting that you mentioned the chicken and the egg. Anthemos Georgiades: So Zumper is the vision for the company is to make renting an apartment as easy as booking a hotel. Got it. 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. Alejandro: Of course. Anthemos Georgiades is CEO/Co-Founder at Zumper Inc. See Anthemos Georgiades's compensation, career history, education, & memberships. 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?