20VC: From $57M in ARR to $297M in Just 12 Months; Why Speed of Execution is the Most Important Factor to Success, Hiring 2,000 People in 3 Years Remotely & Secondaries; Why, When and How Much To Take Out with Alex Bouaziz, Co-Founder & CEO @ Deel

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2023

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Alex Bouaziz is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Deel, the all-in-one platform made to simplify all things HR, built for global teams near and far. In the last year alone, Alex has scaled Deel from $57M in ARR to $295M, EBITDA positive since Sept 2022, 85%+ gross margins, and over $5BN paid out to 250,000 people. Alex has raised over $679M with Deel, pricing the company at the last round at $12.1BN. Investors in the company include a16z, Spark Capital, Coatue, and many more.

In Today's Episode with Alex Bouaziz We Discuss:

1.) From Student in London to Decacorn Founder:

How Alex made his way into the world of startups and how he came up with the idea for Deel?
Did Alex always know he would be successful when he was growing up?
What does Alex know now that he wishes he had known when he was starting?

2.) The Importance of Execution:

How important does Alex think speed of execution is for startups?
What can startups do to deliberately increase their speed of execution?
How does Alex think about the dilemma of losing quality with speed?
What does Alex think you do need to go slow on to ensure it is perfect?
How does Alex think about focus and prioritisation today with Deel?

3.) Scaling to $295M in ARR in 3 Years:

When did Alex know he had true product-market fit with Deel?
How did Alex use a 50-person Whatsapp group to both determine product market fit and to navigate product direction for the company?
What was the key to Deel's blitz scaling strategy? What worked? What did not work?
How did Alex hire 2,000 people in such a short space of time?
What broke first in the organisation? How could they have prevented it?

4.) Secondaries, Angel Investing and Wealth Management:

How much did Alex take out in secondaries in the last round of funding?
How did Alex determine how much cash to allocate to angel investing?
Why does Alex believe most founders make poor angel investments when they have cash?
What have been Alex's biggest lessons from investing? How has it changed how he operates?
Why should all founders be super transparent in investor updates?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I would hire someone that works really hard over someone that's really smart any day of the week.
0:05.0	When you're building your career and when there's a lot of things to do, you should work freaking hard because nothing is going to be a handout.
0:10.0	This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings and what a company we featured today.
0:14.0	Their growth over the last few years has been unparalleled.
0:17.0	Check this out. From $57 million in ARR to $295 million in ARR in the last 12 months,
0:23.6	EBITDAB positives in September 2022, 82, 85% plus gross margins and over $5 billion paid out
0:30.8	to over 250,000 people. I'm sure that's giving it away, but I'm thrilled to welcome a friend
0:35.9	and phenomenal founder in the form of Alex Bouaziz, co-found and CEO at Deal, the all-in-one platform made to simplify all things HR, built for global teams near and far.
0:46.3	Alex has raised over $679 million with Deal, pricing the company at a last round price of over $12 billion.
0:53.3	Investors in the company include Andresen, Spark, Code 2, and many more.
0:58.1	And the team effort on this schedule was fantastic.
1:00.6	Ryan Hoover, Tarak at Kalshi, Yasmin at Spark, Anishid Andresen, Dan Rosa Kootoo, Janetta
1:06.3	La Familia, and many more.
1:08.0	We really did our work on this one.
1:09.5	I think there were 30 references for this episode in some form or another, so huge thank you for that.
1:14.9	But before we dive into the show today, the single most important element of any team is their
1:19.4	ability to work together in the best and most efficient way.
1:22.9	And Coda is the dog, where teams can work on entire projects from start to finish with everything they need all in one place.
1:29.8	Think about the way your team works today.
1:31.8	If all the work is spread across different documents, spreadsheets, and a stack of workflow tools like they are in all of my teams,
1:38.3	it's tougher to focus on getting things done, let alone getting them done together.
1:42.3	And that's why I realized that I have to have Coda and why you need Coda.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Twenty Minute VC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Twenty Minute VC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.