The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:42:42 · Harry Stebbings, Matteo Franceschetti
[00:42:42] S1: Do you worry about income inequality? I know it's kind of a... But we've talked about people just buying 55. You operate in a world where you see extreme wealth. I do as well. Do you [00:42:51] S0: share the concerns? I do. The way I think is, okay, how do I democratize better sleep? If our product was $100 probably by now we would have sold billions, like literally, because people really, really like the benefits of what we do. And so it's our job as a group of, now an engineering group, even if I'm not an engineer, to make sure that we can keep reducing prices so everybody can get better sleep. [00:43:14] S1: You said earlier about your co founder, Alexandra. I hope it's okay. She's also your wife. Yep. How does that work most efficiently? What lessons do you have? What works? What doesn't work?
00:43:14 · Harry Stebbings, Matteo Franceschetti
[00:43:14] S1: You said earlier about your co founder, Alexandra. I hope it's okay. She's also your wife. Yep. How does that work most efficiently? What lessons do you have? What works? What doesn't work? [00:43:26] S0: Yeah. So we have two different channels. So one is Slack for work, and one is WhatsApp for private communication, so our life, and we never mix them. And so I might be screaming on Slack, We have to get this done by the end of the day, and let's review this at nine p. M. And then on WhatsApp, it might be, Oh, what do we have for dinner? I'm craving pizza. I don't eat carbs. We cheat on Friday. Friday night is when we have pizza. But as a joke. So that is one. Second is I could talk about work all the time, like literally 20 fourseven. I love that, and it helps me for her instead. At certain point, really wants to operate like if she was an executive, you wouldn't bother after a certain time in the night, like at ten p. M. Okay, if it's urgent, you can talk about that, but otherwise, if we are on the couch watching TV, don't just keep talking about work, because my brain needs to digest the information from the day, and that is how she performs. But then what I can do, I can slack her. So sometimes we are on the couch watching TV, I start coming up with ideas, and I start slacking her, and her phone might be vibrating next to me, and I know that it's me, and it's completely fine, and we don't talk about that, even if I'm there writing a couple of messages. [00:44:41] S1: And that doesn't irritate you?
00:44:41 · Harry Stebbings, Matteo Franceschetti
[00:44:41] S1: And that doesn't irritate you? [00:44:42] S0: No, because I think the way she framed it was extremely smart. And she says, If I was an executive that was not sitting next to you, would you call them for this thing at 10:15 p. M? Say, No. And she says, So, just treat me how you would treat our VP of Ops, who is in New York. Would you not? I will call people at ten or eleven p. M. Well, it depends on if it's urgent, or it's a random idea, or it's something that we need to remember. If it's urgent, I call you midnight, two a. M, three a. M, trust me, I'm gonna come to your door at five a. M. I'm that type of guy. But if I just have an idea that maybe for the next launch of the next product in the video, we should talk about this, I can just send you a note. [00:45:24] S1: When was the most challenging time? [00:45:26] S0: For the company? [00:45:27] S1: For the scaling of your relationship in the company, because there's always breakpoints, you know? [00:45:32] S0: In the early days, I think. Now, probably, I don't know, four, five years, I think we are really fine tuned, even because I'm extremely demanding. Like, I'm a bit binary on this thing, like, I'm a weirdo, and so I can be a husband on one side, but business wise, like, no mercy. We have to do what we have to do, and I can be the CEO if I deserve to be the CEO, and she can do her job if she deserves that job. [00:45:55] S1: Where were you not demanding enough where you should have been more demanding?
00:45:55 · Harry Stebbings, Matteo Franceschetti
[00:45:55] S1: Where were you not demanding enough where you should have been more demanding? [00:45:59] S0: No, impossible. If anything, do the opposite. I'm way more demanding than what I would do. What I probably had to learn on my side in the early days, when you're so close to a person, you might act or behave in a way where you still pretend the same things, but you're not as professional as you would be with another executive. That is no On [00:46:20] S1: the line [00:46:21] S0: of fear. Yeah. And so that was one of her points where she pushed me in the early days and say, I have no problem in you being extremely demanding and pretending this by this time of the day, but the words that you use and how you say it, it cannot be just like I'm your buddy. You need to treat me professionally like an executive. And that is where I had to step up. [00:46:39] S1: I get in trouble for treating mine like an executive. She's like, I'm not an executive. Don't treat me like one. [00:46:47] S0: No, for us, it's that to the point where I think Dalian and Keith, when they invested, for the first year, they didn't even know we were married. Obviously, you disclose it when you do a round, so it has been disclosed in every round. But because of the interaction in the board meetings, they didn't even realize that. You could ask Delian. My brain works like that. I'm very binary on these things. When I'm working, I'm working.
00:46:47 · Matteo Franceschetti, Harry Stebbings
[00:46:47] S0: No, for us, it's that to the point where I think Dalian and Keith, when they invested, for the first year, they didn't even know we were married. Obviously, you disclose it when you do a round, so it has been disclosed in every round. But because of the interaction in the board meetings, they didn't even realize that. You could ask Delian. My brain works like that. I'm very binary on these things. When I'm working, I'm working. [00:47:11] S1: You know, I had this brilliant statement the other day, and it's vulnerability is sharing something that you're scared to admit in spite of the consequences, in spite of them. What do you think you're kind of scared to admit in spite of the consequences today?
00:47:11 · Harry Stebbings, Matteo Franceschetti
[00:47:11] S1: You know, I had this brilliant statement the other day, and it's vulnerability is sharing something that you're scared to admit in spite of the consequences, in spite of them. What do you think you're kind of scared to admit in spite of the consequences today? [00:47:24] S0: Well, I think for me, a lot of things were also like, I moved to The US, coming from Italy. I graduated in law. I didn't know anything about Silicon Valley. I didn't go to Stanford. I didn't go to Harvard. We are three immigrants founding AIDS Sleep. So in the early days, it was very challenging, right, because I didn't know anything about that work. I didn't know anything about how The US was working. So thinking of creating a product that consumers would buy and they would also love to scale, I had a lot of question marks if I could really do that. And I think it was also in the early days, this fear of, can I really scale the thing? Okay, you can build a product and hundreds of your friends might buy it because they are just nice to you. Or maybe you sell a thousand because it's a crowdfunding campaign, but can you really build a true business that people buy the product because they want that product? [00:48:15] S1: I love it, but what are you scared of today? [00:48:17] S0: Today? Yeah. Do you know the story of when I had to move to China in the early days for manufacturing, or I didn't tell you? [00:48:24] S1: No, I didn't, you told me.