20VC: Brex Founder Henrique Dubugras on Why Being Mission Driven Is Not The Only Way To Build A Massive Business, Why You Should Not Associate Fundraising with The Cash Needs of Your Business & Why You Don't Have To Follow Startup Theory When It Comes To
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 15 February 2019
⏱️ 27 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Henrique Dubugas is the Founder & CEO @ Brex, the first corporate card for startups offering instant online application, no personal liability, and tailored rewards. In a staggering 2 years, Henrique has grown Brex to a $1.1Bn valuation having raised over $180m in funding from some of the best in the business including Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Elad Gil, DST, Y Combinator and IVP just to name a few. As for Henrique, prior to founding Brex he founded Pagar.me, a payments solution that he sold in Sept 2016, a year that the platform processed over $1.5 billion in GMV.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Henrique made his way from learning to code games in Brazil to starting a leading payment processor to founding one of the world's fastest growing B2B companies in Brex?
2.) How does Henrique think about hiring the very best people? How has that strategy shifted and changed over time? What is the best advice Henrique has been given on hiring? What interview questions does Henrique think are crucial to ask? What are leading indicators that an individual has the ability to scale with the company?
3.) Why does Henrique think it is wrong to down people for being "compensation motivated"? How does Henrique think about compensation structures? Should candidates have to take pay cuts to join startups? What have been some of Henrique's biggest learnings and challenges here?
4.) How does Henrique approach the current sentiment to fundraising in the valley today? Why does Henrique disagree with founders who have periods of not speaking to VCs? What does Henrique believe is the right way to build VC relationships? How does Henrique think about the right time to raise? What advice does Henrique have for founders when it comes to investor selection?
5.) How does Henrique think about his own personal development? Where would he personally like to improve and strengthen? What is he doing to make this happen? How has Henrique seen himself as CEO change over the last 2 years with Brex? What have been some of the challenges of scaling himself as CEO?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Henrique’s Fave Book: 7 Powers: The Foundations of Business Strategy
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Henrique on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and it'd be great to welcome you behind the scenes here on Instagram at H. |
| 0:05.3 | Stebbing's 1996 with two Bs. However, to our episode today, and my word, what a guest we have in store. |
| 0:11.0 | With that in mind, I want to dive straight in today and so pleased to welcome Henry K Dubragas, founder and CEO at Brex. |
| 0:17.4 | The first corporate card for startups, offering instant online application, no personal |
| 0:22.0 | liability, and tailored rewards. In a staggering two years, Henrique has grown Brex to a $1.1 billion |
| 0:28.0 | valuation, having raised over $180 million in funding from some of the very best in the business, |
| 0:33.2 | including Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Elad Gill, DST, Y Combinator and IVP, just to name a few. |
| 0:39.6 | As for Henrique, prior to founding Brex, he founded Pagarmie, a payment solution that he sold in 2016, |
| 0:45.5 | a year that the platform processed over $1.5 billion in GMV. And I'd also want to say a huge thank |
| 0:50.7 | you to Mickey at Ribbitt, to Elag Gill and to Ray Tonzing for the fantastic |
| 0:54.3 | questions suggestions today. I really do so appreciate that. And speaking of special, did you know |
| 0:59.4 | that there are five job openings for every one developer in the US? No wonder hiring great |
| 1:03.9 | engineers is impossible, and that's where my friends at Terminal come in. Terminal is your dedicated |
| 1:08.2 | partner in quickly building skilled remote engineering teams. |
| 1:11.4 | How do they deliver both speed and quality? Well, Terminal does this by focusing on everything |
| 1:15.4 | necessary to successfully source, set up and support these teams. From little things like |
| 1:20.1 | managing office logistics to big things like benefits, legal and community. And they've developed |
| 1:24.8 | this proprietary and comprehensive remote teams solution based on decades of experience building remote teams across multiple continents, so they really |
| 1:32.1 | know what works. But don't take my word for it. Take the words of Eventbright, former 20 VC guest |
| 1:37.2 | hymns, dial pad, and more, all customers and lovers of Terminal. And you can find out more today at |
| 1:42.3 | terminal.com. And finally, I've always been a |
| 1:44.7 | big history man, and so I want to talk about Cooley, the global law firm built around startups and |
... |
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