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20VC: Wolt CEO, Miki Kuusi on Leadership Lessons Scaling to a Reported $8.1BN Exit to Doordash, Building Teams not Families, The Difference Between Trust and Safety Within Companies, How To Use Compensation to Create Culture & Why You Should Not Be Lookin

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Release Date: 11/28/2022

20VC: Is Speed the Most Important Thing from 0-1 | Why Hiring Inexperienced People is Better | The Biggest Lessons Scaling Zip to $1.5BN Valuation with Rujul Zaparde, Co-Founder and CEO @ Zip show art 20VC: Is Speed the Most Important Thing from 0-1 | Why Hiring Inexperienced People is Better | The Biggest Lessons Scaling Zip to $1.5BN Valuation with Rujul Zaparde, Co-Founder and CEO @ Zip

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Rujul Zaparde is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zip, the world’s leading Intake-to-Pay solution, adopted by leading enterprises and startups including Snowflake, Canva, Airtable, Webflow, and others. In 2023, Zip raised $100 million in a Series C round, valuing the company at $1.5 billion. Before founding Zip, Rujul was a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator and a product manager at Airbnb. In Today’s Episode with Rujul Zaparde We Discuss: From Airbnb PM to $1.5BN Founder How did Rujul’s first company fail? What were his lessons? What did Rujul learn from his time at Airbnb? How did...

info_outline 20VC: UiPath: The 10 Year Bootstrapping Journey that Turned into a $10BN Public Company | From a Dollar a Day to Romania's Richest Man | Happiness, Wealth, Risk and more with Daniel Dines, Co-Founder @ UiPath show art 20VC: UiPath: The 10 Year Bootstrapping Journey that Turned into a $10BN Public Company | From a Dollar a Day to Romania's Richest Man | Happiness, Wealth, Risk and more with Daniel Dines, Co-Founder @ UiPath

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Daniel Dines is the Co-Founder @ , one of the most incredible journeys in startups. For 10 years, UiPath was a bootstrapped company that scaled to just $500K in revenue. Then it all changed, product market fit became obvious and the rest is history. The company went on to raise funding from , Accel, Kleiner Perkins and more. Today, the company is worth over $10BN, listed on the NASDAQ and does $1BN+ in revenue. In Today's Episode with Daniel Dines We Discuss: 1. From a Dollar a Day to Romania's Richest Man: How would Daniel's parents and teachers have described the young Daniel? How...

info_outline 20VC: Three Core Lessons Scaling Freshworks to a $5.2BN Market Cap | Biggest Product and Pricing Lessons from Scaling to $597M in ARR | How India Can Compete Globally in Tech and AI with Girish Mathrubootham, Co-Founder @ Freshworks show art 20VC: Three Core Lessons Scaling Freshworks to a $5.2BN Market Cap | Biggest Product and Pricing Lessons from Scaling to $597M in ARR | How India Can Compete Globally in Tech and AI with Girish Mathrubootham, Co-Founder @ Freshworks

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Girish Mathrubootham is the founder and CEO of Freshworks, India’s first SaaS company to list on NASDAQ. Today, Freshworks has over $596M in ARR with a $5.27BN market cap, with investors like Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, and CapitalG. Girish is also a founding member of SaaSBOOMi, Asia’s largest community of founders and product builders, and has invested in over 60 startups. On top of that, Girish is also the Founder of Together Fund, a $150M fund focusing on Indian B2B companies going global from day 1. In Today’s Episode with Girish Mathrubootham We...

info_outline 20Product: Sequoia's Product-Market Fit Framework | Why the Best Product People Actually Build Less Product | Metrics 101, Good vs Great Product Strategy and more with Vickie Peng, Product Partner @ Sequoia Capital show art 20Product: Sequoia's Product-Market Fit Framework | Why the Best Product People Actually Build Less Product | Metrics 101, Good vs Great Product Strategy and more with Vickie Peng, Product Partner @ Sequoia Capital

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Vickie Peng is a Product Partner at Sequoia and the co-creator of Arc, their company-building immersion programme for pre-seed and seed stage founders. Prior to Sequoia, Vickie was a product manager at Polyvore (acquired by Yahoo for $200M) and Instagram, where she grew SMB advertising from $200M to $1BN. In Today’s Episode with Vickie Peng We Discuss: Lessons from 15 Years in Product How did Vickie make her way into the world of product? How did Vickie turn a small side business into a massive revenue machine at TrialPay? How did Vickie scale Instagram SMB ads to $1BN? What were...

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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

is the CEO @ OpenAI, the company on a mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. OpenAI is one of the fastest-scaling companies in history with a valuation of $90BN and $2BN+ in revenue. Prior to OpenAI, Sam was the President and CEO @ Y Combinator and made angel investments in the likes of Airbnb, Stripe, Reddit, Pinterest, Asana and more. is the COO @ OpenAI and the man responsible for the incredible scaling of sales, GTM, partnerships and business to today being over $2BN in revenue. Before OpenAI, Brad was an investor at Y Combinator, where he...

info_outline 20Sales: The Biggest Sales Lessons Scaling Brex to $400M ARR, Why Startups are Doing Outbound Wrong and How to Fix It & Why Demand Gen is the Bottleneck for all Startups and How to Solve it with Sam Blond, Former CRO @ Brex show art 20Sales: The Biggest Sales Lessons Scaling Brex to $400M ARR, Why Startups are Doing Outbound Wrong and How to Fix It & Why Demand Gen is the Bottleneck for all Startups and How to Solve it with Sam Blond, Former CRO @ Brex

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Sam Blond is the former CRO at Brex, where he led the company from near $0-$400M in ARR and a $12.5B valuation. Before Brex, Sam was VP of Sales at Zenefits, where he led the company from $0-$70M ARR in 2 years and a $4.5B valuation. Sam joined Founders Fund as a Partner in 2022 and recently left to focus more on operating. In Today's Episode with Sam Blond We Discuss: 1. Lessons From Scaling Brex to $400M ARR & Zenefits to $70M ARR: What are the secrets that very few people know, that led to the success of Brex and Zenefits? What was the single worst sales investment Brex made?...

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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Kevin Ryan is one of the leading serial entrepreneurs and investors in New York. Previously he co-founded MongoDB, Business Insider, Gilt Groupe, Zola, Nomad Health, Pearl Health, and was the CEO of DoubleClick (Acquired by Google for $3.1B). Today, Kevin is the founder and CEO of AlleyCorp, a venture capital firm that incubates and invests in transformative companies in healthcare, diversified tech, robotics, and impact. Just yesterday, Alleycorp announced their $250M fund, their first ever external capital.  In Today’s Episode with Kevin Ryan We Discuss: Early Signs of...

info_outline 20VC: Postmates Founder Basti Lehmann on How the Uber Deal Went Down and How a $2.65BN Deal Turned into $5BN, Why Great VCs Add No Value and VC Value Add is BS Marketing & Why The Biggest Companies in History Will be Born Today and Replace Incumbents show art 20VC: Postmates Founder Basti Lehmann on How the Uber Deal Went Down and How a $2.65BN Deal Turned into $5BN, Why Great VCs Add No Value and VC Value Add is BS Marketing & Why The Biggest Companies in History Will be Born Today and Replace Incumbents

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Basti Lehmann is the co-founder and former CEO of Postmates, the on-demand delivery service that raised over $900M from the likes of Tiger Global, Founders Fund, Spark Capital and Andreesen Horowitz. Following Uber’s $2.65BN acquisition in 2020, Basti founded TipTop, a platform for fast tech sales which Marc Andreesen led the $20M seed round for. In Today’s Episode with Basti Lehmann We Discuss: From US Immigrant to Billion Dollar Founder How did Basti start his career hacking AT&T? How did early hardships shape Basti’s work ethic? What were Basti’s biggest challenges...

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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Mario Schlosser is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at . The public company that went public with a market cap of $7.1BN. Following a tumultuous time in the markets, their stock price dropped 94%. Today, the company has rebounded and has a market cap of $3.2BN with an astonishing $5.8BN of revenues. Before co-founding Oscar, Mario also co-founded the largest social gaming company in Latin America. In Today's Episode with Mario Schlosser We Discuss: 1. From German Middle-Class to Public Company Founder: How did Mario make his way into the world of tech and come to co-found...

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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Trae Stephens is a Partner at , one of the world's leading funds where he has worked with some of the best and backed the likes of Palmer Luckey with Oculus and @ Flexport since the very early days. Trae is also Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Anduril Industries, a defense technology company focused on autonomous systems, and Co-founder of Sol, a next-generation wearable e-reader. Previously, Trae was an early employee at Palantir Technologies, where he was also an integral part of the product team, leading the design and strategy for new product offerings. In Today's Episode with...

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Miki Kuusi is the CEO of Wolt and Head of DoorDash International. In 2014 Miki founded Wolt with a mission to turn the smartphone into a remote controller for life, starting with delivering your favorite restaurant food, to you at home. Today Wolt operates in 23 countries, across several different categories, has over 4,000 employees, and last year, Doordash made the move to join forces with Wolt in a deal worth a reported $8.1BN. Previously, Miki was the CEO of Slush, one of the leading tech and investor events in the world attended by more than 25,000 people annually.

In Today's Discussion with Miki Kuusi:

1.) Founding Slush and Wolt: An Entry into Startups:

  • How did Miki come to found Wolt? What was that a-ha moment?
  • Did Wolt have product-market-fit from Day 1? What was the turning point when they did?
  • What does Miki know now that he wishes he had known when he started Wolt on Day 1?

2.) The Makings of a Truly Great Leader:

  • How does Miki define "high performance" today in leadership?
  • How does Miki think about what focus means in leadership? What is the hardest decision Miki has had to make when it comes to focusing the company? What did he learn from Ilkka @ Supercell?
  • What does Miki believe is the KPI of success as the CEO? How does it change?
  • What does Miki believe is the difference between good vs great leadership?
  • What does Miki believe is the biggest sacrifice he has made as the CEO?

3.) Hiring a Team to Compete on a Global Stage:

  • How does Miki use compensation to create a culture of ownership and accountability?
  • Does Miki start from a position of trust and it is there to be lost or no trust and it is there to be gained?
  • What is the difference between a team and a family in company building?
  • What is the core difference between trust and safety in company building? Why does Miki always want to have trust but not want to have safety?
  • What are the single biggest hiring mistakes that Miki has made? How has he learned from them?
  • Why does Miki believe you do not want to hire people that have done it before but hire the people who have seen those people do it before?
  • Why does Miki believe most companies are merely glorified recruiting operations?
  • Does Miki believe that companies need to be as big as they have grown into, headcount-wise?

4.) Miki Kuusi: The Personal Journey

  • What single day was the hardest day of the Wolt journey for Miki? How did it change him?
  • Why does Miki believe that for their Series B, all-bar one VC turned them down?
  • How does Miki assess his own relationship to risk and money today?
  • Why is Miki an advocate for founders taking secondaries along the journey?
  • What can Europe do to become a powerhouse in tech moving forward?
  • Why did Miki decide to sell the company to Doordash? What is he most excited to learn from Tony Xu, Doordash Founder and CEO?

Items Mentioned in Today's Episode:

Miki's Favourite Book: The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers