20VC: Is Speed the Most Important Thing from 0-1 | Why Hiring Inexperienced People is Better | The Biggest Lessons Scaling Zip to $1.5BN Valuation with Rujul Zaparde, Co-Founder and CEO @ Zip
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rujul Zaparde is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zip, the world’s leading Intake-to-Pay solution, adopted by leading enterprises and startups including Snowflake, Canva, Airtable, Webflow, and others. In 2023, Zip raised $100 million in a Series C round, valuing the company at $1.5 billion. Before founding Zip, Rujul was a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator and a product manager at Airbnb.
In Today’s Episode with Rujul Zaparde We Discuss:
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From Airbnb PM to $1.5BN Founder
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How did Rujul’s first company fail? What were his lessons?
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What did Rujul learn from his time at Airbnb?
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How did Rujul come to co-found Zip? What was the aha moment?
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What did Rujul wish he’d known when he started Zip?
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Standing Out in a Hyper-Competitive Market
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Why did Rujul pick such a competitive market? How did they stand out?
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Does Rujul think founders should focus on pain points or platform solutions on day one?
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What is Rujul’s advice to founders who are in the discovery process?
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Does Rujul agree with Trae Stephens @ Founders Fund that serial entrepreneurs doing B2B enterprise SaaS are wasting their talent?
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The Biggest Lessons Scaling Zip to $1.5BN Valuation
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Which key moment caused Zip to accelerate?
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Why does Rujul think speed is the most important element in startups?
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Why does Rujul not believe in design partners?
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Why does Rujul believe repeatability is the most important thing when pitching?
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Does Rujul think AI will destroy outbound sales?
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How to Hire & Manage Teams
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What was Rujul’s “rude awakening” building a sales team?
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What was Rujul’s biggest hiring mistake? What did he learn from it?
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How does Rujul decide where to focus his attention and resources?
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Why does Rujul believe younger managers are more creative?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I would much rather invest in the person that has potential, that maybe hasn't done the job before. I mean, they don't have the experience. They're going to first principle the problem. So they're just generally more likely to have more original ideas. Speed is actually really, really an advantage. You're not going to be right, so you might as well just learn quickly and move on. Welcome back to 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings. Now Zip. Zip is one of the fastest growing companies in B2B. |
| 0:23.2 | They are the world's leading intake to pay solution and they raised $100 million in a |
| 0:28.0 | series C round from some of the best in the business in 2023, valuing the company at $1.5 billion. |
| 0:34.5 | Today we have their co-found and CEO, Rujil Zapade, joining us to discuss |
| 0:38.8 | scaling sales for the first time as a product-led founder, how to do it, the mistakes often |
| 0:44.8 | made, and his biggest lessons from doing so. Before founding Zip, Rujol was a visiting partner |
| 0:49.6 | at Y Combinator, and before that was a product manager at Airbnb. But before we dive in, Cooley, |
| 0:55.2 | the global law firm built around startups and venture capital. Since forming the first |
| 0:59.8 | venture fund in Silicon Valley, Cooley has formed more venture capital funds than any other law |
| 1:04.9 | firm in the world, with 60 plus years working with VCs. They help VCs form and manage funds, |
| 1:12.1 | make investments, and handle the myriad issues that arise through a fund's lifetime. We use them at 20 VC and have |
| 1:17.5 | loved working with their teams in the US, London and Asia over the last few years. So to learn |
| 1:22.5 | more about the number one most active law firm representing VC-backed companies going public, |
| 1:27.5 | head over to coolly.com and also coolly go.com, |
| 1:31.2 | coolie's award-winning free legal resource for entrepreneurs. |
| 1:34.7 | And speaking of providing incredible value to your customers, |
| 1:38.2 | travel and expense are never associated with cost savings, |
| 1:41.3 | but now you can reduce costs up to 30% and actually reward your |
| 1:46.0 | employees. How? Well, Navan rewards your employees with personal travel credit every time they |
| 1:51.6 | save their company money when booking business travel under company policy. Does that sound too good |
| 1:57.0 | to be true? Well, Navan is so confident you'll move to their game-changing all-in-one |
| 2:01.4 | travel corporate card and expense super app that they'll give you $250 in personal travel credit |
... |
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