20VC: UiPath: The 10 Year Bootstrapping Journey that Turned into a $10BN Public Company | From a Dollar a Day to Romania's Richest Man | Happiness, Wealth, Risk and more with Daniel Dines, Co-Founder @ UiPath
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 22 April 2024
⏱️ 85 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Daniel Dines is the Co-Founder @ UiPath, one of the most incredible journeys in startups. For 10 years, UiPath was a bootstrapped company that scaled to just $500K in revenue. Then it all changed, product market fit became obvious and the rest is history. The company went on to raise funding from Sequoia, Accel, Kleiner Perkins and more. Today, the company is worth over $10BN, listed on the NASDAQ and does $1BN+ in revenue.
In Today's Episode with Daniel Dines We Discuss:
1. From a Dollar a Day to Romania's Richest Man:
- How would Daniel's parents and teachers have described the young Daniel?
- How did Daniel first learn to code? Why was his first programming job on $300 per month the best?
- How did Daniel learn English by playing bridge with his friends?
- What was the a-ha moment for Daniel with UiPath?
2. Becoming a Billionaire: The Mental Journey:
- What does Daniel mean when he says everyone is a prisoner of their own mind?
- How does Daniel reflect on his own relationship to money?
- How did having absolutely nothing impact Daniel's relationship to risk?
- Why does Daniel think that he does not really experience or feel happiness?
3. 10 Years to $500K ARR: The Miracle Bootstrapping Journey:
- After 10 years, UiPath had just $500K in ARR, what was the one single moment that changed everything in 2014?
- How did raising the seed round change everything for Daniel? How did it change his approach to operating?
- What was the impact of having Sequoia invest? Does it change the game? Why did Daniel say no to them the first time they tried for the Series B?
4. Journey to a $10BN Public Company: The Crucible Moments:
- How did the company almost go bust when it spent $400M against a plan of $150M in 2021?
- What is the single proudest moment Daniel has of the 19 year journey with UiPath?
- What have been Daniel's biggest management lessons in scaling UiPath to $1BN in ARR?
- Knowing all that Daniel does today, what would he have done differently about the UiPath journey?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I was living on like $30 a month, $1 a day. |
| 0:04.6 | At times, I didn't have money to eat properly. |
| 0:07.8 | So I survived the worst. |
| 0:09.2 | I knew I had to make this decision to find my financial freedom to get this fuck you money. |
| 0:15.3 | I was almost like a prison. |
| 0:17.3 | I behaved like a prisoner, just waiting to get out of the prison. |
| 0:20.7 | Raising the first money was giving me such a freedom of mine. |
| 0:25.6 | Because it was freedom and responsibility in the same time, but it was freedom to go big. |
| 0:31.6 | Welcome to 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and I'm so proud of the episode today. |
| 0:35.6 | It's with a dear friend and one of the great entrepreneurs of our time, and one of the most insane stories in startups. So for 10 years, |
| 0:42.8 | this company bootstrapped, and after those 10 years, they had just $500,000 in revenue. Then it all |
| 0:49.5 | changed. Today, the company has a market cap on the NASDAQ of over $10 billion and revenues of over $1.3 billion. |
| 0:57.4 | This is the story of UiPath, and I could not be more thrilled to welcome my friend, gym buddy, incredible entrepreneur, Daniel Dines to the Hot Seat today. |
| 1:06.4 | But before we dive into the show today, we're all trying to grow our businesses here. |
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