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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: The Framework to Scale A Team From 20 to 190 in 24 Months, How To Structure The Perfect Investor Updates & How To Create A Culture of Distributed Ownership with Radical Transparency with Jean-Charles Samulian, Co-Founder & CEO @ Alan

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4637 Ratings

🗓️ 3 April 2020

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jean-Charles Samulian is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Alan, the startup revolutionising health insurance with a service centred on people, simplicity and comfort. To date, Jean-Charles has raised over $85M in funding with Alan from some of the best in the business including Jan Hammer @ Index, Shakil Khan, Tom Stafford @ DST, Xavier Niel and Brent Hoberman to name a few. Prior to changing the healthcare insurance system, Jean-Charles founded Expliseat, revolutionising airline seating for economy class, now used by some of the world's leading airlines.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Jean-Charles made his way from re-inventing the airline seating industry to re-inventing the way consumers experience healthcare insurance? How did re-inventing the airline seat prepare and impact Jean-Charles' mindset going into the highly regulated healthcare market with Alan?

2.) How does JC structure his investor updates? What framework does JC believe these investor updates should take? Does he include thank you's at the end? Does he include requests for help? How does he involve the team in the writing of these updates? How does JC insert core strategic thinking into his updates? How much time does JC allocate to writing updates? How does JC think about transparency when coming investor updates?

3.) How has JC created a culture of distributed ownership combined with radical transparency? What are the key elements to achieve this? Where do so many go wrong with culture maintenance and creation? What have been the biggest challenges in scaling from 20 to 190 people in just 2 years? What has worked? What has not worked?

4.) How does JC structure the hiring process at Alan? Why does JC believe in the importance of "shadowing" for people to be excellent at hiring? How does JC define "excellence" in a potential candidate? What questions does JC most like to ask candidates? How does JC think about the right way to optimise new employee onboarding? Where do many go wrong with onboarding? What have been their core lessons at Alan as to what it takes to make it great?

5.) How does JC think about extreme self-organization today? How does JC structure his day and his time? How would JC summarise his relationship to his phone? What does he actively do to reduce his dependence on his phone? What has worked and what has not worked with regards to increasing productivity? How does JC advise others looking to make their first steps in increasing their productivity?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

As always you can follow HarryThe Twenty Minute VC and Jean-Charles and on Twitter here!

Carta simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables, and get valuations. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carta to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carta now offers Fund Administration so you can see real-time data in the Carta platform and work with Carta’s team of experienced fund accountants. Go to carta.com/20vc to get 10% off.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome back. You are listening to the 20 minute VC and Founders Friday with me, Harry Stebbings,

0:04.1

and you can see all things behind the scenes from me on Instagram at H. Stebbings, 1996 with two bees.

0:09.3

But to our episode today, and I've wanted to do this episode for a long time,

0:12.8

having heard just the most incredible things about this founder from everyone I spoke to about him,

0:16.8

and especially on his leadership. And so with that, I'm thrilled to welcome Jean Charles Samulian,

0:21.0

co-founder and CEO at Elan, the startup revolutionising health insurance with a service

0:25.6

centred on people, simplicity and comfort. To date, Jean-Cars has raised over $85 million

0:30.5

in funding with Alan from some of the best in the business, including Yan Hammer at Index,

0:35.1

Shaquille Khan, Tom Stafford at DST, Zavienneiel, and Brent Hoberman,

0:39.4

to name a few. Prior to changing the healthcare insurance system, John Charles founded

0:43.2

explicit at, revolutionising airline seating for economy class, now used by some of the world's

0:48.3

leading airlines. I'd also want to say a huge thank you. This schedule was really a team effort.

0:52.4

Huge thanks to Antoine Martin at Zenley, Shaquille Khan, Yanad at Index and Pierre Valad at Jumbo for some fantastic

0:58.3

questions suggestions today. I really do so appreciate that. But before we move into the show

1:02.9

today, I'm sure you've heard about it, but my word, this is a product I love, Carter. Carter

1:07.4

simplifies how startups and investors manage equity, track cap tables and get valuations.

1:12.7

Go to Carter.com forward slash 20VC to get 10% off. More than 800,000 employees and shareholders use Carter to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity and Carter now offers fund administration.

1:24.8

So you can see real-time data in the Carter platform and work with

1:28.0

Carter's team of experienced fund accountants. Simply go to Carter.com forward slash 20 VC to get 10% off.

1:34.9

And speaking of managing the admin of those employee equity packages, well, do you already have a job?

1:39.9

On Wanted, you can set the salary for which you would consider another job. Wanted is free, and there

1:44.7

are only two steps required. One, you set your salary, two, you submit your LinkedIn profile or

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