20VC: Checkout.com Founder Guillaume Pousaz on The Transition From Bootstrapped Founder to Raising $830M and a $15Bn Valuation, What It Means To Have "3 Roadmaps For Life" & How Becoming a Parent Changes the Type of Leader You Are
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 8 April 2021
⏱️ 32 minutes
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Summary
Guillaume Pousaz is the Founder and CEO of Checkout.com, one of the world's leading global payments solutions providers and one of Europe's most valuable private companies. Guillaume founded Checkout.com in 2012 and bootstrapped the business until its record-breaking $230M Series A led by Insight and DST in 2019. Since, Guillaume has raised a further $600M for Checkout from the likes of Coatue, Tiger, Blossom, GIC and Greenoaks. As part of this process, Guillaume has scaled the team to over 900 people around the world and Checkout as one of the category leaders in payments with a reported $15Bn valuation.
In Today’s Episode with Guillaume Pousaz You Will Learn:
1.) How Guillaume made his way into the world of payments following a travelling experience? How that experience led to his founding the now $12Bn, Checkout.com?
2.) Why did Guillaume wait 7 years into the running of the business before raising a massive $230M Series A? Why was then the right time? Was it a difficult mental transition to move from lean, capital efficiency to raising $230M? Why have Checkout never spent a single dollar on marketing? Is it true, Checkout has never spent a single dollar you have raised?
3.) What does Guillaume mean when he says he "has 3 roadmaps for life"? How does he structure his planning for the next 2,5 and 10 years? How does Guillaume think on his own identity and how it is tied to Checkout, the company? How does Guillaume advise founders in terms of tying their identity to their company?
4.) Why does Guillaume believe that becoming a father made him a better CEO? How did it impact his operating style? How does Guillaume analogise the role of the CEO to the profession of being a sailor? How does Guillaume think through his relationship to money today? How has it changed over time? How does he think about ensuring it does not impact his children?
5.) In what way does Guillaume structure his decision-making process today? What does Guillaume believe it is about the velocity of decisions that determine the quality of the leader? What topics does Guillaume struggle to make fast decisions on? What advice does Guillaume give to founders in situations when you just do not know what to do?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Guillaume Pousaz
Guillaume’s Favourite Book: Dune by Frank Herbert
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and if you'd like to see the transcripts for 20VC episodes, |
| 0:04.5 | you can now go to 20VC.com and sign up for the newsletter. But to our show today, and what I love |
| 0:09.4 | so much about this guest is for seven years, he built this incredible business out of the spotlight, |
| 0:14.1 | without Twitter profiles, out of tech crunch, and turned it into one of the defining businesses of the last decade, and so I'm thrilled to welcome Guillaume Puzaz, founder and CEO at checkout.com, one of the world's leading global |
| 0:25.4 | payment solutions providers and one of Europe's most valuable private companies. Guillaume founded |
| 0:29.9 | checkout.com in 2012 and bootstrap the business until its record-breaking $230 million series A, |
| 0:36.6 | led by Insight and DST in 2019. |
| 0:39.3 | Since then, Guillem has raised a further $600 million for checkout from the lights of Koot, |
| 0:44.3 | Tiger, Blossom, GIC, and Green Oaks, to name a few. |
| 0:48.3 | As part of this process, Guillem has scaled the team to over 900 people around the world |
| 0:52.3 | and checkout as one of the category leaders in payments |
| 0:54.7 | with a reported $15 billion valuation on their last round. I'd also have to say a huge thank you to |
| 0:59.8 | Carmen Alfonso Rico for the fantastic introduction today and then also to Devinan an insight |
| 1:04.2 | for some brilliant question suggestions. I really do so appreciate that. But before we dive into |
| 1:08.8 | the show state, did you know that more than 80% of |
| 1:11.1 | US public stock is owned by just 10% of Americans? This divide is even greater in the private |
| 1:16.1 | markets. Carter makes it as easy to issue equity to your employees as it is to issue payroll. And |
| 1:21.4 | for employees, as easy to accept it too. More than 16,000 companies issue equity to their |
| 1:26.8 | employees through Carter, whether you're |
| 1:28.4 | just getting started or getting ready to go public, the team at Carter can help. Check them out at |
| 1:32.8 | carter.com. And finally, I've always been a big history fan, and so I want to talk about Cooley, |
| 1:37.7 | the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the very first venture |
... |
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