What are some tips for successfully navigating the rental market from a renter's perspective?
Anthemos Georgiades - Previous President for Zumper, Inc. So we tell the small landlords, Hey, dont just advertise in Zumper. So strategically that was a good marriage where they had a great consumer brand and we have really fantastic supply side inventory. 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. I kind of looked through in Crunchbase which connections I have into which fund. The other large investor in this round [20:05] scale so once you have product market set, how do you scale that? And the biggest change in the series C I just raised versus in the early days is having a CFO. We both had ideas to be entrepreneurs but neither of us have the guts to actually go for it. They are brilliant about. 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? 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. Had worked in politics.
Anthemos Georgiades Email & Phone Number - Zumper | ZoomInfo Alejandro: Alrightee. All photos courtesy of Forbes Councils members. For every successful fundraise, every single company have a lot of nos. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. 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? Im the CEO and Ive always felt that it was my responsibility to do the fundraising. 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. He remains a huge Tottenham Hotspur fan, and wakes up painfully every Saturday morning to tune into the live English soccer games. In terms of the dynamics, I think in the early days, you kind of through osmosis graduate towards like the things that are important. FUNDED EP01: How to tell a story worth $140 million dollars (Zumper) 00:00 51:07 Episode Summary Anthemos Georgiades, founder of Zumper, perfected his pitch the way most founders do: through trial and error. 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 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? 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. Raising money first, marketplace businesses is still really difficult and Ive raised $90 million and Im still saying it is difficult. We both had ideas to be entrepreneurs but neither of us have the guts to actually go for it. How autonomous can people be at the junior levels? 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. I know entrepreneurs who spend nine months raising their rounds which is a long time but they got great rounds done. Just enter your email below. Anthemos Georgiades: Oh wow, good question. Anthemos Georgiades is co-founder & CEO of Zumper, the largest startup in the rental industry. I learned more from you than you learned from me, and then your job as CEO is to do kind of two or three things, that is to continue to advance like the vision and the mission of the company and keep everything strategically aligned. Yeah. Anthemos Georgiades is CEO/Co-Founder at Zumper Inc. See Anthemos Georgiades's compensation, career history, education, & memberships. 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. Your job is to raise capital and your job is to kind of hire and retain the best talents.
Anthemos Georgiades - San Francisco Business Times For us, I think they fully understand the entrepreneurial journey and were really excited to have them on board. How much respect is there? How do you take a company with those tractions, 10 million in revenue. 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. 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. 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. So in the first two years, Zumper is now [07:52] $90 million in capital. Alejandro: Got it. Well, first of all, your point about quashing the egg and shooting the chicken. In terms of the dynamics, I think in the early days, you kind of through osmosis graduate towards like the things that are important. 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? At college in the UK, Ive had like multiple [00:58] renting apartments. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah. 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. So I guess without further ado, Anthemos Georgiades from Zumper, welcome aboard. So I guess like I have one thing to follow up on this.
Anthemos Georgiades, Zumper Inc: Profile and Biography 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. We also actually had a really wonderful fourth cofounder whos no longer with us. Got it. So the series B, weve done story now look at how quickly the renters are growing on the platform. 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. 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? She was our original CPO and after the series A, she moved on to roller, another company and we promoted someone internally to CPO. It was not something Ive really ever thought about before. 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.
Anthemos Georgiades | Multifamily Executive Magazine How many listings do we have on the site? I love it. Alejandro: Got it.
Anthemos Georgiades - Co-Founder & CEO - Zumper | LinkedIn Had worked at the Boston Consulting Group. Keeping good lines of communication open can solve many landlord/tenant problems. There was no book [01:41]. A lot of it was completely bottom up. Great question. So it doesnt always work out and I think thats fine. Saying that, in the early days you kind of need to bring on all the capital that you can. His passion for relieving the stress for others in . At college in the UK, Ive had like multiple [00:58] renting apartments. 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. So how did you meet your cofounders? anthemos georgiades net worth. Thats your job. 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. Background Report for Anthemos Paul Georgiades Includes Age, Location, Address History for Anthemos Paul Georgiades Arrest, Criminal, & Driving Records Social Media Profiles So the majority of that is still in the bank but yeah, we raised money in capital [12:00]. So I guess without further ado, Anthemos Georgiades from Zumper, welcome aboard. In the early days, youre going to need to take all the capital you can get. Over-Communication. 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 say like in the first pitch to the day the money wires, theres always been around like a minimum of three months. 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. 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? 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? It has to be me and thats how I started the company six years ago after business school. I mean youre doing various jobs, head of sales, head of finance, head of fundraising, head of like DZ. Anthemos Georgiades: Yeah.
Zumper - Contacts, Employees, Board Members, Advisors & Alumni - Crunchbase And as you know as and your listeners know, youre going to get a lot of nos on the way. So M&A are strategic [33:48]. It is not suppose to be easy. 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. Had worked in politics. 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. In the early days we love the exposure to Silicon Valley investors. 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?