20VC: Plaid's Zach Perret on Why You Have To Hire For Spikes and What That Really Means, Fintech Predictions From Incumbent Entrants To The Rise of Europe & The 2 Big Questions That CEOs Should Ask Themselves
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 7 June 2019
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Zach Perret is the Founder & CEO @ Plaid, the startup providing the easiest way for users to connect their bank accounts to an app whether it be transactions, identity or authentication. To date, Zach has raised over $300m with Plaid from some of the best in the business including Mary Meeker, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Felicis, Spark and Homebrew, just to name a few. As for Zach, as CEO he has scaled Plaid to today with over 300 employees, 3 international offices and over 10Bn transactions analysed. Prior to founding Plaid, Zach was a consultant @ Bain.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Zach made his way into the world of startups from consulting at Bain and what led to the founding of Plaid and the mission to unlock consumer finance? What advice would Zach give to emerging grads today, questioning whether to join or start a startup?
2.) What does great leadership and CEOship look like to Zach? How has Zach seen himself evolve and develop as a leader over the last few years? How does Zach think about prioritisation? How does Zach determine what to say yes vs what to say no to? What has Zach found the most challenging in scaling as a CEO? What has he done to mitigate this?
3.) How does Zach think about constructing the optimal recruitment process? What have been some of Zach's biggest lessons in what it takes to really recruit world-class talent? What does Zach mean when he says, "you have to hire for spikes"? How does Zach manage the tension of keeping the high-quality bar whilst also sustaining the very steep growth curve?
4.) Plaid recently raised $275m, how does Zach think about capital efficiency with Plaid today? How does Zach determine when is the right time to transition from the mindset of lean and iteration to raising a war chest and going for the home run? What is Zach's biggest advice to founders when it comes to investor selection? Is it possible for the investor and the founder to be "friends"?
5.) When assessing the fintech landscape today, what is Zach most excited to see develop over the next 12-18 months? How are we seeing much larger incumbents like Goldman innovate in the proliferated world of fintech startups? How does the US view the fintech innovation that has occurred in the UK? What does this mean for US fintechs?
Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:
Zach’s Fave Book: Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Zach 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 | We are back and you are listening to the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and I would love to hear what you think we can improve on the show. |
| 0:05.7 | I'm on Instagram at H. Debings, 1996, with two Bs. I respond to all messages and so I could not be more excited to welcome |
| 0:21.3 | Zach Perrae, founder and CEO at Plaid, to the hot seat today. Now Plaid is the startup providing |
| 0:26.2 | the easiest way for users to connect their bank accounts to an app, whether it be transactions, |
| 0:31.1 | identity or authentication. To date, Zach has raised over 300 million with Plaid from some of the |
| 0:36.0 | best in the business, including Mary Meeker, Index Ventures, Andresen Horowitz, Felisys, Spark and Homebrew, just to name a few. |
| 0:43.5 | As for Zach, as CEO, he scaled Plaid to today, with over 300 employees, three international |
| 0:48.7 | offices and over 10 billion transactions analysed. |
| 0:51.7 | And prior to founding Plaid, Zach was a consultant at Bain for his |
| 0:54.7 | sins. And I'd also have to say a huge thank you to Afton at Modern Fertility and Rick at NIA for the |
| 0:59.5 | fantastic questions suggestions today. I really do so appreciate that. But before we dive into |
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