Raise more money than you need, w/Minted's Mariam Naficy
Masters of Scale
WaitWhat
4.6 • 4.4K Ratings
🗓️ 10 May 2017
⏱️ 34 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), and 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 | Hi, it's Bob Safian. You've been hearing me as the host of rapid response in this feed for a few years now, |
| 0:07.8 | with short newsy interviews alongside the deeper dives of Masters of Scale. Well, I'm excited to share that rapid response is expanding into its own feed. |
| 0:17.0 | We'll be putting out shows twice a week, focusing on the urgent issues that business leaders are dealing with in real time. |
| 0:24.7 | So search for rapid response in your podcast player and subscribe to make sure you get all our episodes. |
| 0:31.2 | I'll see you on the other side. |
| 0:33.0 | It's 1998 at the height of the first dot-com boom. |
| 0:37.0 | Silicon Valley is on fire, nothing bad can happen. |
| 0:41.0 | My friend, Merrim Nefeci, is CEO of a startup called Eve and she had to have |
| 0:47.0 | the domain name Eve.com. Only problem, she has to convince the owner to sell it to her and she was facing a negotiation that I do not end it |
| 0:57.7 | Hello who is this is a five-year-old girl |
| 1:01.1 | Eve Rogers who gets on the phone. So I think what on earth am I |
| 1:06.0 | going to say to this five year old so I said hello? Hi. Could I buy your |
| 1:10.2 | domain name and she was just saying to me what I don't really understand |
| 1:14.7 | and I'm sure Eve's mom on the other line was laughing her head off I mean this is a |
| 1:20.5 | great joke to play on this like silly entrepreneur from California |
| 1:23.8 | he's calling a religious I'm just gonna like watch or be tortured by my five year old |
| 1:27.6 | for a while. |
| 1:28.6 | Miriam turns this risky negotiation over to her lead investor the legendary startup whisper Bill Gross. |
| 1:35.0 | So he gets on the phone with her mom and he negotiated the purchase and it was, you know, |
| 1:39.8 | equiting the company a board seat for her daughter, an observer board seat. |
| 1:44.4 | Trips to Idealab to See Bill several times a year. |
| 1:48.0 | You had a five-year-old observer on your board? |
... |
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