Raise more money than you need, w/Minted's Mariam Naficy
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2019
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
Think you've raised enough money for your startup? Think again. You have to run through a minefield of unexpected expenses as an entrepreneur. And you never know where the big opportunity will come from — or if you'll need to make an unexpected, expensive pivot to stay afloat. So always, always raise more money than you think you need. Mariam Naficy shares her white-knuckle experiences founding startups that survived two financial crashes — the online cosmetic company Eve.com in the dotcom-boom ’90s, and founder and the design marketplace Minted.com today. Cameo appearances: Selina Tobaccowala (Evite, Gixo), Daniel Kahneman (Nobel-winning psychologist), Brian Chesky (Airbnb), Amos Kedmey (Wine and Cheese Place).
Read a transcript of this interview at: https://mastersofscale.com/mariam-naficy-the-money-episode/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Real leaders don't back down when the stakes are high. They innovate. They push forward, |
| 0:07.5 | and then they take the stage at the Masters of Scale Summit. |
| 0:11.6 | Join us in San Francisco, October 7th to 9th to hear from the CEO of the New York Times, |
| 0:17.1 | scientists using cutting-edge technology to find cures, the leader of crypto powerhouse |
| 0:22.0 | coinbase, a retired four-star general, and many, many more. |
| 0:26.7 | Apply now at mastersofscale.com slash apply 25. That's masters of scale.com slash apply 25. |
| 0:36.4 | It's 1998 at the height of the first.com boom. Silicon Valley's on fire. |
| 0:42.5 | Nothing bad can happen. My friend, Merrim Nefisi, is CEO of a startup called Eve, and she had to have the domain |
| 0:50.3 | name Eve.com. Only problem? She has to convince the owner to sell it to her, |
| 0:55.4 | and she was facing a negotiation that I do not envy. |
| 1:00.9 | Hello, who is this? It is a five-year-old girl, Eve, Rogers. This is Eve. Who gets on the |
| 1:06.9 | phone? So I think, what on earth am I going to say to this five-year-old? So I said, hello. |
| 1:27.6 | Hi. Could I buy your domain name? And she was just saying to me, what? I don't really understand. And I'm sure Eve's mom on the other line was laughing her head off. I mean, this is a great joke to play on this, like, silly entrepreneur from California. He's calling over. |
| 1:31.1 | I'm just going to, like, watch her be tortured by my five-year-old for a while. |
| 1:37.5 | Mariam turns this risky negotiation over to her lead investor, the legendary startup whisper, Bill Gross. So he gets on the phone with her mom, and he negotiated the purchase. And it was, you know, |
| 1:42.8 | acquitting the company, a board seat for her daughter, |
| 1:45.9 | an observer board seat. Trips to Idea Lab to see Bill several times a year. You had a five-year-old |
| 1:51.9 | observer on your board? Yes. She didn't actually show up for the board meetings, but she did |
| 1:56.0 | occasionally come by and visit. Disneyland software, educational software. I mean, there was a very large package |
| 2:02.6 | that was negotiated. If you were going to call your younger self, how would you have handled |
| 2:07.1 | this negotiation different? I would probably throw in the Disneyland almost immediately. |
| 2:10.6 | Because now I know what a five-year girl wants. I have a daughter, and I would have said, |
... |
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