20VC: Scaling to $50M ARR in 3 Years, Scaling to $20M ARR with Just $2M Invested; The Story of PhotoRoom, Is This YC's Most Capital Efficient Company with Matthieu Rouif, Co-Founder & CEO @ PhotoRoom
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2023
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Matthieu Rouif is the Co-Founder and CEO @ PhotoRoom, one of the fastest-growing YC companies having scaled to an astonishing $50M in ARR in just 3 years. Their capital efficiency is immense having scaled to $20M in ARR on just $2M of invested capital. Prior to founding PhotoRoom, Matthieu founded several start-ups, including an app for ski resorts, HeyCrowd, and Replay, a video editor which was ultimately acquired by GoPro. Whilst at GoPro, Mattheiu led all image editing products.
In Today's Episode with Matthieu Rouif We Discuss:
- From GoPro to One of YC's Fastest Growing Companies:
- How did Matthieu make the move from GoPro to founding PhotoRoom?
- What are the big mistakes Matthieu made on prior companies that he did differently with PhotoRoom?
- What does Matthieu know now that he wishes he had known when he started PhotoRoom?
2. Scaling to $20M in ARR with $2M of Cash:
- What allowed Matthieu and PhotoRoom to be so capital-efficient in their scaling?
- What are the biggest mistakes founders make when it comes to resource allocation and capital efficiency?
- On reflection, what did Matthieu not spend money on that he wishes they had spent money on?
3. Consumer Subscription + Photo Editing: Is it a Good Business:
- What are the customer acquisition costs by channel for PhotoRoom?
- What are their payback periods on a per-customer basis?
- How can it be a good business when the churn rate annually is 30-40%?
- How does this space play out with Canva, Adobe, Veed, Kapwing? Who wins?
4. The Future of AI:
- Who wins; incumbents or startups?
- What matters more; data size or model size?
- Will UI be more or less important in an AI-first world?
- Why does Matthieu believe that everyone hates command line prompts?
- Will we see $BN revenue companies created with just 10 people?
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | every three, four years, like software efficiency makes it possible for a three X, like smaller |
| 0:05.0 | team to make the same amount of revenue than a bigger team. So I think this will definitely |
| 0:10.4 | happen, like a 10 people team doing a billion dollar in revenue. And we're like pushing for that. |
| 0:15.4 | We actually measure how much revenue per teammate we have at further rooms. Actually, I think YC say, |
| 0:20.1 | like they never saw a company going |
| 0:21.7 | that fast like with this low capital. 50 million in ARR in just three years. They hit 20 million |
| 0:28.0 | in ARIR on just 2 million of invested capital. This is the immense story of Photo Room. Now with over |
| 0:33.9 | 100 million downloads and one of YC's fastest growing and capital efficient companies. |
| 0:39.0 | I'm so thrilled today to be joined by Photo Room CEO and co-founder Mathieu Roif. |
| 0:43.4 | But before we dive into the show with Mathieu today, |
| 0:45.7 | did you know that every 20 VC episode you listen to is recorded with Riverside? |
| 0:50.9 | Riverside is insanely good. |
| 0:52.6 | Like, I would pay $1,000 per month for Riverside. It's |
| 0:56.1 | that good. Why? Well, first off, ease. Your guests do not need an account. One click and they're |
| 1:02.0 | in the recording room with you. It is fantastic, especially for high-profile guests. Second, |
| 1:07.1 | they record your video and audio track separately and in the background, so they're not only higher quality, but the guest does not need to record their end and then send after, which is a total nightmare. |
| 1:17.4 | But for me, honestly, what I love so much is how much thought they put into the product. |
| 1:21.4 | Like, when the internet quality is low, they will disable the video for the cool, but for the recording, it works seamlessly, it records |
| 1:28.3 | perfectly. It's so thoughtfully done and it makes such a difference. Use my coupon code, 20 VC, |
| 1:34.4 | that's 20 VC, and get a 15% discount. It is the tool I could not run my business without. And speaking |
| 1:40.9 | of game changes for businesses, arising ventures as a holding company that |
| 1:45.0 | acquires tech startups that are facing setbacks. They happen to us all, but they can be turned around. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
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.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.