The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
01:00:47 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[01:00:47] S1: Is it almost harder when you become a sexy brand? Because you have so many people who wanna join, it becomes a lot noisier. [01:00:54] S0: Yeah, but also like the expectation is higher, right? We hired about like 0.18% of people that apply, or 0.018. We had about 180,000 applications in the first six months of the year. There is a lot of imbalance. There is a lot of things that you get, but that doesn't mean that that is equivalent to quality, that is equivalent to the type of bill that you'll be hiring. Of course, as you become a hot commodity in there, people want to actually work for you, but they want to work for the wrong reasons. Most of it, people will see that's like a step in their career to actually do something else much bigger later on. We try to filter those ones out. [01:01:29] S1: That's fucking insane. 180,000, [01:01:33] S0: 0.0 It's one insane, like in two Who [01:01:36] S1: goes through that? Yeah. I'm being serious. [01:01:41] S0: Like if have this AI. No. In the first half of the year, we had like, what, like five, six recruiters across the entire organization. Right? They've been doing a fantastic job on that end. Then like... Oh, they're doing [01:01:52] S1: nine ninety six, [01:01:53] S0: aren't they? [01:01:53] S1: Fucking hell. Like, here's a dot room. Here's a 180,000 applications. Give... Go go have fun. [01:01:59] S0: And by the way, like, screen them all and talk to them, and then, like, Google, it's it's tough. It's really tough.
01:01:59 · Carles Reina, Harry Stebbings
[01:01:59] S0: And by the way, like, screen them all and talk to them, and then, like, Google, it's it's tough. It's really tough. [01:02:05] S1: What have you not done when you reflect back on your time in ElevenLabs that with the benefit of hindsight you wish you had done? [01:02:12] S0: Hiring faster. I think I made a mistake of like not hiring fast enough when the company did a lot more people in the organization. And I think we've suffered over the years of like, we I think I strongly believe we could have grown much quicker if we had hired a lot more people. What did you do that you wish you hadn't done? That's a tough one, That's a really tough one. Sometimes some of the iterations that we've done on the ICPs have probably been like wrong in terms of timing or have been like the wrong focus essentially, right? Or even I can tell you, even on the cross sell side, that I had not spent enough time in that specific area, and that meant we end up leaving money at the table, right? So sometimes you actually need to rethink a little bit twice. But I think also, like when you're growing so quickly, it's difficult to actually not miss stuff. So some things that I take, like that is like we've done well, sometimes things like we've not done well in general. [01:03:08] S1: Dude, you've just raised a $15,000,000 fund. Amazing achievement. I also love the name Baobab, and it's because of your love of these trees, right? Yes. Yeah, I read about this. Super sweet. I think Sequoia got that first, did you?
01:03:08 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[01:03:08] S1: Dude, you've just raised a $15,000,000 fund. Amazing achievement. I also love the name Baobab, and it's because of your love of these trees, right? Yes. Yeah, I read about this. Super sweet. I think Sequoia got that first, did you? [01:03:21] S0: It's funny, Baobab trees, they grow up in very warm climate, like in Australia, in Africa, and so on. I actually grow bobbop trees in London, in my flat in London, but also in my flat in Barcelona. And I've been doing for many years, right? And it's like really fragile trees that when the winter comes or like when the cooler weather comes, they lose all of the leaves, you need to stop watering them. It's like really cool plant in general, so it's my favorite one. And I have like, what, I don't know, like 10 or 12 at home these days. [01:03:52] S1: I'd actually be an LP if someone wants to start this in a fund called Cactus Capital. Okay. They only invest in really fucking prickly founders. I think I mean, the fucking funniest thing [01:04:03] S0: I'm It's not a [01:04:04] S1: bad idea, is it, from a branding perspective? [01:04:06] S0: Bet we would. [01:04:08] S1: Prickly founders. I bet you would. Like, they... Obnoxiously prickly. Like, they thrive on the friction. Yes. Yeah. I love it. Does being an investor make you a better sales leader?
01:04:08 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[01:04:08] S1: Prickly founders. I bet you would. Like, they... Obnoxiously prickly. Like, they thrive on the friction. Yes. Yeah. I love it. Does being an investor make you a better sales leader? [01:04:17] S0: No. I think being a good salesperson makes you a better investor. How? Because you are able to qualify better. I think what we do from an investor perspective these days, of course, we do outbounds to actually get into the deals that we want, and we also do inbounds to review all of the leads that we get, right? A good SDR, a good good account execs does exactly the same thing. The only thing that I'm missing is there is a sixth sense that we get specifically on the pre seed stage. It's like, is it a good match with the founders? Are they really smart? Can they iterate with the product and the company? Are they willing to pivot? Are they willing to actually listen to other people? All of those items. But there is a gut feeling attached to all of that that an SDR, a good SDR, also has and knows whether running with that opportunity is going to transform into something, or an account executive is going to transform into something. Or they get the gut feeling like this is going to be like, it's not the right person, just going to stop at some point. I just don't
01:04:17 · Carles Reina, Harry Stebbings
[01:04:17] S0: No. I think being a good salesperson makes you a better investor. How? Because you are able to qualify better. I think what we do from an investor perspective these days, of course, we do outbounds to actually get into the deals that we want, and we also do inbounds to review all of the leads that we get, right? A good SDR, a good good account execs does exactly the same thing. The only thing that I'm missing is there is a sixth sense that we get specifically on the pre seed stage. It's like, is it a good match with the founders? Are they really smart? Can they iterate with the product and the company? Are they willing to pivot? Are they willing to actually listen to other people? All of those items. But there is a gut feeling attached to all of that that an SDR, a good SDR, also has and knows whether running with that opportunity is going to transform into something, or an account executive is going to transform into something. Or they get the gut feeling like this is going to be like, it's not the right person, just going to stop at some point. I just don't [01:05:08] S1: want to run it. From VC, we do exactly the same thing. Dude, if being an investor doesn't make you a better sales leader, why does Matti let you do it? What the fuck? I was expecting you to be like, yes, I teed that one up for you to slam dunk, and you're like, no. I'm like, okay, well, why would he let you do it?
01:05:08 · Harry Stebbings, Carles Reina
[01:05:08] S1: want to run it. From VC, we do exactly the same thing. Dude, if being an investor doesn't make you a better sales leader, why does Matti let you do it? What the fuck? I was expecting you to be like, yes, I teed that one up for you to slam dunk, and you're like, no. I'm like, okay, well, why would he let you do it? [01:05:28] S0: I don't know, I kept asking multiple times, and I think he knows I have a passion for it. Have done, like as an Angel, 74 tickets. So I think at some point when I was annoying enough that he ended up saying, Yes, do it. Top three tickets? Without like looking into the order. [01:05:43] S1: But [01:05:43] S0: Revolut, ElevenLabs, and I don't know, like a company called V Seam, they're doing super well. They're doing like training for robots, physics. [01:05:51] S1: When you look back at that 74 that you've done, Angel, what's your biggest lesson?