The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:00:00 · Harry Stebbings
[00:00:00] S0: This is 20 Growth with me, Harry Stebbings. Now 20 Growth is the monthly show where we sit down with the best growth leaders to discuss growth tips, tactics, and strategies from people who've built the best growth organizations on the planet. Now one of the fastest growing companies today is ElevenLabs, and I'm so excited to sit down with Luke Harries, head of growth at ElevenLabs, where he leads marketing, product, engineering, and developer experience. They've And raised 281,000,000 with their latest round pricing them at $3,300,000,000. Previously, Luke held roles at PostHog and Microsoft, and he's also an incredible angel investor with investments in the likes of Lovable and Runna. Luke's also a dear friend. He's one of the kindest people in this business, and I think he's gonna be one of the best growth minds of the next ten years. This show was exceptional. But before we dive into the show today, Secureframe empowers businesses to build trust with customers by simplifying information security and compliance through AI and automation. Thousands of fast growing businesses, including Nasdaq, AngelList, Doodle, and Coda, Trust Secureframe to expedite their compliance journey for global security and privacy standards, such as SOC two and ISO 27,001, CMMC, NIST standards, and more. Backed by top tier investors and corporations like Google and Kleiner Perkins, the company is among Forbes' list of the top 100 startup employers for 2024, g two's best software awards for higher satisfaction products, and a recipient of the 2024 cybersecurity excellence award, something I definitely never got in school myself. Learn more today at secureframe.com. And speaking of speed, let's talk about something every founder, product leader, and CEO is thinking about, innovation. We all know that innovation is the lifeblood of any company, yet more than 80% of innovation projects stall before they even make it to execution. Why is that? Because once teams move from discovery to development, outdated processes, endless contact switching, and misalignment slow everything down. Don't you hate it when that happens? Well, that's exactly why Miro built the innovation workspace. God, that's a cool name. A faster, smarter way to take ideas to execution.
00:02:14 · Harry Stebbings
Now at Twenty VC, we've worked with countless startup founders who know that speed is everything, and that's where AI powered tools like Miro's come in. From AI sidekicks that act as a designer, analyst, or engineer on demand to instant AI summaries that condense meeting notes, product briefs, and retrospectives in seconds, Miro is built for teams that want to move fast. And one feature I love, the two way sync with Jira and Azure. So when something is updated in Miro, it's automatically reflected in your development tools and vice versa. No more duplication, no more miscommunication, just seamless execution. So whether you're in product, product, UX, engineering, agile, or IT, Miro's innovation workspace helps teams go from idea to outcome faster. Try it today at miro.com. That's miro.com. Now that your team is up and running worldwide, let's switch gears to the future of mobile and how one company is turning your screen into real returns. We spend nearly half our waking hours glued to our phones, upwards of fifty hours every week. Recently, one company transforming this reality stood out so much I personally became a shareholder, Mode Mobile. Mode Mobile created the Earn Phone, the smartphone that pays you for daily activities. Instead of big tech profiting billions from our attention, Mode returns over $325,000,000 directly to users through earnings and savings. Mode's revenues surged an incredible 32481% in three years, recognized by Deloitte as twenty twenty three's fastest growing software company in North America. And here's why I'm excited. Mode's equity offerings have raised over $30,000,000 from 20,000 plus retail investors, one of twenty twenty five standout public raises. And you can now join me as a shareholder with as little as a thousand dollars at invest.modemobile.com/20vc. For a limited time, unlock up to a 100% bonus shares and a free earned phone. Email us for the investor brief at 20vc@modemobile.com or check out invest.modemobile.com/20vc. You have now arrived at your destination. Luke, I am so excited for this dude. Listen, we've been fortunate enough to get to know each other. I so appreciate our relationship by the way first, which is like a heartfelt start, which is unusual for a 20 growth. But thank you so much for joining me, man.
00:04:31 · Luke Harries, Harry Stebbings
[00:04:31] S1: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here. [00:04:33] S0: Now I was just chatting to Matty before this, actually, on my walk around the park. And he said, ask him first, like, how did we first connect in terms of you and Matti, and how did you first get to know about ElevenLabs?
00:04:44 · Luke Harries
[00:04:44] S1: Yeah. So we met when we were 19, and we did a hackathon at Cambridge. We rocked up. It's me, Matti, this guy called Philip, who organized it. He's Polish, and he basically brought together his smartest friends and me, to compete at this hackathon. My top tip for any young people listening is do hackathons with your smartest friends. Because what happened with that hackathon is, one, we end up winning the Microsoft Prize. So we each won an Xbox and immediately put that on eBay. So we got about £300. Two, it landed me my first job at Microsoft. And then I also got to meet Matti. And Matti and I, we stayed in touch pretty much every six months. We catch up with Ref on Startups. And scroll forward about seven years, so this is year and a half ago, Matti's like, hey, Luke. I've just started a new company. Do you wanna go catch up? And I was angel investing then, and we were swimming in the Hampstead Heath Ponds. And when I tell Americans this, they're like, oh, ponds? You mean, like, small dirty puddle of water? I'm like, yeah. But it's actually quite nice. So we're swimming in this ponds, and he taps the degrees. He's like, oh, it's 11 degrees. No way. My company is called ElevenLabs. And he takes me through this grand plan of what he's going to do with ElevenLabs, which is step one, they're gonna build the world's best audio AI models. And step two, they're going to sell it to everyone. So for people listening on their way to work, for creators making audiobooks, voiceovers, they're gonna sell it to developers to make AI voice agents. And I was like, that is a terrible go to market plan. That's absolutely terrible. I was kind of angel investing there, but I was like, this is not something I want to invent. What do mean step one, you're gonna build the world's best AI audio model, something no one else has ever done? Anyway, so I didn't invest.
00:06:25 · Harry Stebbings, Luke Harries
[00:06:25] S0: And Oh, no. This is the moment where you're like, this is a friend shack. You know, the supportive one. I don't believe in it, but I just... I'll give you 10 k or something. [00:06:33] S1: I really should've. I mean, that 10 k would've done very well. Anyway, we stayed in touch, and then he phones me up about six months later being like, Luke, we've just hit a million users. It's going incredibly well. We're looking for someone to lead growth. So that hackathon was a lot of fun. Met Matti. And also Philip, the guy who organized it, he founded Wordware, which is the largest raise from YC ever. I think it's about $40,000,000. So, yeah, that's a a great hackathon to do. [00:06:58] S0: No fucking way. Yeah. I didn't know that was the same Philip. I love Philip. [00:07:02] S1: Oh, yeah. Philip's awesome. And that's still my LinkedIn cover photo is me, Matti, and Philip packing over this computer when we're 19. [00:07:08] S0: I mean, not changing sex. Met Philip recently, and he is fantastic. [00:07:12] S1: You have to have him on the pod.
00:07:12 · Luke Harries, Harry Stebbings
[00:07:12] S1: You have to have him on the pod. [00:07:13] S0: Yeah. It's a very good shout. There's a couple of things I just wanna unpack, which is you very kindly scrolled forward seven years. Most of my American guests don't, and they painfully tell me about their Stanford second year and third year and every class that they did in between. I do just wanna touch on one thing that Matthew also told me to touch on, which is Fellas, which is the company you started before joining ElevenLabs. What are some of the big takeaways from that when you reflect on it and how it shaped how you think about growth and product building?