Nicolas Dessaigne is the Founder & CEO @ Algolia, the most reliable platform for building search into your business. Just last week they raised $53m in funding led by Accel with participation from Jason Lemkin @ SaaStr, Point Nine Capital, AppDynamic’s Jyoti Bansal, Intercom’s Des Traynor and InVision’s Clark Valberg and more incredible investors.

 

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Nicolas made his way from Paris to YC to founding one of the hottest SaaS startups of the day in Algolia?

2.) Tom Tunguz has said before that the Series B is the hardest to raise, having just raised his, does Nicolas agree with this? How did this round differ from others? How can founders know what is the right amount to raise? Is 18 months still the desired runway?

3.) Does Nicolas think he made the move to the US at the right time? Too early or too late? What advice would Nicolas give to founders making or thinking about making this move? What areas are Europe and vice versa the US better at hiring for?

4.) Which functional areas do both Europe and the US lead in their respective fields? Why does Nicolas think that it is harder to hire well in the US? Does Europe still have a fundamental lack of experienced sales and marketing professionals?

5.) How did Jason Lemkin train Nicolas to approach the fundraising process? What other than funds can founders gain from the process? How can these conversations be initiated? 

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Nicolas on Twitter here!

Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

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