The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:04:50 · Harry Stebbings, Adarsh Hiremath
[00:04:50] S1: That is very, very kind of you, dude. But I did my stalking beforehand, and everyone told me about your mastery of debating, you and your cofounder, Saree. So you were debate champions. How did debate prepare you for founding a company? Let's start there. [00:05:06] S0: One thing about Brendan, Suri, and I is that we actually go quite a ways back. So I actually first met Suri when I was 10 years old. And the reason we got along so well is because we were pretty much the only elementary elementary schoolers who wanted to compete in a high school debate. And then we ended up at the same high school, which is also where I met Brendan. All three of us were on the debate team together. Suriya and I decided to do policy, so we ended up being debate partners together and then going on and competing in all of these international tournaments. But debate is a lot like founding in a lot of ways. Right? Like, I like to think of my debate partnership with Suria as sort of my first startup just because we had fifty fifty equity in each other's success. If one of us were to mess up, it would tank the odds for both of us. There's this constant feedback loop after every debate round about whether you won or lost. Picking the right debate partner is the most important decision you can make in policy debate. And similarly, picking the right founding team is the most important decision you can make while starting a company. So there's that parallel, and then there's just the immense amount of ownership. Right? You know, we both have a stake in each other's success.
00:05:06 · Adarsh Hiremath, Harry Stebbings
[00:05:06] S0: One thing about Brendan, Suri, and I is that we actually go quite a ways back. So I actually first met Suri when I was 10 years old. And the reason we got along so well is because we were pretty much the only elementary elementary schoolers who wanted to compete in a high school debate. And then we ended up at the same high school, which is also where I met Brendan. All three of us were on the debate team together. Suriya and I decided to do policy, so we ended up being debate partners together and then going on and competing in all of these international tournaments. But debate is a lot like founding in a lot of ways. Right? Like, I like to think of my debate partnership with Suria as sort of my first startup just because we had fifty fifty equity in each other's success. If one of us were to mess up, it would tank the odds for both of us. There's this constant feedback loop after every debate round about whether you won or lost. Picking the right debate partner is the most important decision you can make in policy debate. And similarly, picking the right founding team is the most important decision you can make while starting a company. So there's that parallel, and then there's just the immense amount of ownership. Right? You know, we both have a stake in each other's success. [00:06:05] S1: Yeah. At the time, you're, like, 18, 19, and you can correct me if I'm wrong there. But you, Brendan get interested in labor markets. How does that happen?
00:06:05 · Harry Stebbings, Adarsh Hiremath
[00:06:05] S1: Yeah. At the time, you're, like, 18, 19, and you can correct me if I'm wrong there. But you, Brendan get interested in labor markets. How does that happen? [00:06:16] S0: Actually, so Brendan Suri and I started working together without any business ambition. We we just started a a dev shop together. So we were like, cool. You know, let's learn how to build software really, really quickly. Let's go to these start ups. Let's figure out things they want built. Let's build it together. What And we ended up doing is recruiting these really, really exceptional folks from India to help us out with our dev shop. And then very, very quickly, we realized the software was one thing, but we had found some really, really exceptional people. And it was more about the people than the software. So then we were like, okay. We found these people in a completely manual way. Can we automate this? And that's how the automated candidate side of the platform was born. Very quickly, we realized Brendan Sir and I couldn't scale well by doing sales manually, so then we had to automate the other side of the platform too, the the company facing platform. And that's how the marketplace was born. [00:07:06] S1: Okay. So the marketplace is born. We've automated both sides of the platform. How exciting. Except you're at Harvard at the time, I think, and now you have this very vibrant and working platform. Take me to that moment and the decision between whether you drop out or whether you stick to the traditional course.
00:07:06 · Harry Stebbings, Adarsh Hiremath
[00:07:06] S1: Okay. So the marketplace is born. We've automated both sides of the platform. How exciting. Except you're at Harvard at the time, I think, and now you have this very vibrant and working platform. Take me to that moment and the decision between whether you drop out or whether you stick to the traditional course. [00:07:24] S0: Well, it's funny that you say I was at Harvard. I was definitely there physically, not sure about mentally. I was pretty much doing everything I could to avoid going to classes. And I actually have a pretty funny story about this. So Brendan would visit me pretty frequently at Harvard. And my roommate at the time, Artemis, had this, like, really, really weird sleep schedule. He would just, like, go to the Engineering Building and pretty much be nocturnal. So the routine that we would typically follow is Brendan would visit me. He would just crash in Artemis' bed because he'd be in the Engineering Building just working on problem sets. And then he'd come back, wake Brendan up, and then we'd get to work together, and then he would go to sleep during the day. And then, you know, fast forward today, Artemis has joined the the MERCOR team. So it it really was the typical dorm room story. [00:08:07] S1: When you're then deciding, shit. Am I actually gonna leave Harvard? It's one thing to say. It's another thing to do. Can you just take me to that moment?
00:08:07 · Harry Stebbings, Adarsh Hiremath
[00:08:07] S1: When you're then deciding, shit. Am I actually gonna leave Harvard? It's one thing to say. It's another thing to do. Can you just take me to that moment? [00:08:16] S0: At the time, it wasn't obvious at all that we should drop out. And I really, really sympathized with my parents at the time for, not approving because here I was, we hadn't raised our seed round, we hadn't raised the series A, there was no Thiel fellowship, there was one side of the marketplace that had a little bit of revenue, and I was telling them that I wanted to abandon my degree program. So it wasn't an obvious decision at all, but I think, like most of these decisions, you just make them completely emotionally, and I just knew I wanted to work with my best friends. [00:08:44] S1: Can I ask, for a lot of students who are wanting to start a business, who have a business already, how do you advise them on whether to drop out or whether to stick to the traditional path?
00:08:44 · Harry Stebbings, Adarsh Hiremath
[00:08:44] S1: Can I ask, for a lot of students who are wanting to start a business, who have a business already, how do you advise them on whether to drop out or whether to stick to the traditional path? [00:08:54] S0: It's an emotional decision. Like, you can try to rationalize dropping out or starting a company or try to figure out the exact set of prerequisites that you have to do. But for me, for example, the moment I knew that I wanted to drop out was actually back when we had an office in Palo Alto. And the office had exactly three desks, one for Brendan, one for Surya, one for me. I was like, Surya, man, should we should we drop out? And then he just looked at me, he was just like, dude, how hard could this be? Wasn't a logical argument at all, but in that moment, I was just like, let's do this. Let's let's drop out of school. [00:09:32] S1: Where was the business at at this point, just to frame it? [00:09:34] S0: No seed round, a little bit of revenue, no Till fellowship, nothing. We were just three friends working in a small office in Palo Alto with with our amazing team in India. [00:09:45] S1: Take me to the take me to the seed round, dude. How did it go? Do you remember getting the term sheet? Just take me to that. Because you're 18, 19 at the time?