20VC: Raising $60M and Not Touching a Dollar of It; The 3 Decisions That Led to a Cash-Flow Positive Business, Why Not Being Able To Fundraise in the Early Days Can Help Build Your Business & What are the First Things To Break in Scaling Orgs with Sameer
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 5 August 2022
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sameer Shariff is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Cambly, the company that allows you to become fluent faster through one-on-one video chat lessons with native English tutors. To date, Sameer has raised over $60M with Cambly from the best including Jeremy Levine @ Bessemer, Sarah Tavel @ Benchmark, Monashees, YC and more. Prior to founding Cambly, Sameer spent close to 5 years at Google on the Search Quality team and became the Tech Lead of the Search experiments team helping make experimentation a core part of the launch process.
In Today's Episode with Sameer Sharif We Discuss:
1.) Entry into Startups and Co-Founding Cambly:
- How did Sameer make his way into the world of tech with his joining Google straight out of college?
- What were the 1-2 biggest takeaways from his time at Google? How did it shape his mindset?
- What was the a-ha moment for Sameer with Cambly?
2.) The Trials and Tribulations of Leadership:
- What does "high performance" mean to Sameer in business? How has it changed over time?
- What are the first things to break in a scaling company?
- How do the best companies retain speed and agility with scale?
- What are the single biggest hiring mistakes Sameer has made? What did he learn?
3.) The Fundraise that Led to Cash Flow Positive:
- Why does Sameer think it was so hard to fundraise for Cambly in the early days?
- When they failed to raise their Series A, what 3-4 core decisions did they make to get Cambly to cash flow positive as fast as possible?
- How did Sameer communicate their failed fundraising to the team? How did he do this in a way that rallied the troops and did not worry or scare them?
- What was the tipping point for fundraising to become much much easier for the company?
- Given they have not touched any of their Series A or Series B funds, how does Sameer think about the balance of growth vs profitability?
4.) Marketplace Dynamics 101:
- How did Cambly acquire the first 100 customers on the demand side?
- What is the most challenging dynamic of Cambly; demand or supply side?
- Where does Sameer see most marketplace founders make the biggest mistakes?
- What does Sameer know now on the intricacies of marketplace dynamics that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
Items Mentioned In Today's Episode with Sameer Shariff:
Sameer's Favourite Book: The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us about Being Alive
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and stay we tell an incredible story, the story of a company that has killed it. |
| 0:05.8 | But unlike the majority, they've not done it in the spotlight. |
| 0:08.6 | They've raised from the best in the business, but due to their business being so good, they haven't even touched the money that they've raised. |
| 0:14.3 | It's an exceptional story, and I'm so excited to welcome Samir Sharif, found and CEO at Cambly, the company that allows you to become fluent faster |
| 0:21.8 | through one-on-one video chat lessons with native English tutors. To date, Samir has raised over |
| 0:26.9 | $60 million with Cambly from some of the best, including Jeremy Levine at Bessemer, Sarah Tavel at |
| 0:32.1 | Benchmark, the team at Monashies, YC and more. Prior to founding Cambly, Samir spent close to five years at Google on the |
| 0:38.6 | search quality team and became the tech lead of the search experiments team. I'd also want to say |
| 0:43.1 | huge thank you to Sarah Taville, Jeremy Levine, Samir's co-founder Kevin, Eric at Monashies, Gustav at |
| 0:48.8 | YC, Samir's wife, Heber, for some amazing questions suggestions today. Such a team effort there. But before we |
| 0:54.7 | dive into the show today, I want to talk about an incredible tool that I use every single day, |
| 0:59.0 | Notion. Now, I am the worst for having 50 tabs open and constantly hopping between an endless |
| 1:04.2 | array of tools. Do you feel me? Are you with me? Well, then Notion came into my life, |
| 1:08.1 | providing one tool to do it all with everything from seamless |
| 1:11.2 | project management to easily organizing 20 VC's company information, a fascinating stand on |
| 1:16.4 | notion usage, more than 70% of companies who start using Notion, stop using two plus other |
| 1:22.2 | tools. And so Notion can even save you money, given how many other tools it can displace. |
| 1:26.7 | Notion has a worldwide |
| 1:27.7 | network of millions of users, creating templates, tutorials, and new inspiration. The product's |
| 1:33.1 | getting better and better every single day, and you always have the support you need. Learn more and |
| 1:37.5 | get started for free at notion. So, take the first step toward an organized happy team today, again |
| 1:43.1 | at notion. So. And speaking of foundational |
... |
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