20VC: Monday.com: Scaling from $6M to $120M in ARR in 3 Years | How Monday Have Built the Best Performance Marketing Engine in SaaS | Going Upmarket, International and Multi-Product; The Biggest Lessons and Mistakes with Eran Zinman
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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
55 min
2 speakers
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It was still hard for us to raise funds back in the days because people didn't get the idea. We grew from 6 million of ARR to 18 the year after, and then from 18 to 50, and 50 to 120 in three years. What I found about founders is that you try to avoid the hardest things in your business. If something is very painful, that's the right time to get into it and fix it.
The story of Monday.com is insane, turned down by 99% of VCs. The company then scaled from $6 million in ARR to 120 in just three years. Today, the company is public with a market cap of $12 billion. They have an incredible co-CEO structure, which is very strange. And Aaron, the guest today, does not use email. I'm so excited to bring this one to you today. Joining us in the hot seat, we have Monday's co-founder and co-CEO, Aaron Zinman. This is a special one. But before we leave you today, Harvard Management Company is constantly seeking out the next generation of great investors and entrepreneurs. HMC has managed Harvard University's endowment for nearly 50 years and was one of the first institutional investors in venture capital.
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You have now arrived at your destination. Aran, I am so excited for this. I heard so many great things from Avi, from Nino, from Rajiv. I spoke to pretty much the whole cap table. It was a lot of fun. But thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me. I'm excited for this. Oh, so am I. I've wanted to do it for a while. I'm like the biggest Monday nerd. I love that. Many reasons why I'm just perpetually single. But I want to start. I heard you're a really great video game player. And this is a commonality in great founders that I've interviewed. So why are video games correlated to success in founders?
Wow, you've really done your research, huh? Yeah, I told you. Yeah, I actually love video games. I actually play to this day. So it's been an old habit of mine as a kid. When I was young, I used to play a lot of strategy games. One of my favorites ever was, I don't know if you remember, but it was called Command & Conquer Red Alert 2. It's a strategy game. I think if you play the right games, you can learn a lot from them, especially strategy games. On one hand, you need to see the big picture all the time. You need to understand the strategy, you need to understand what's going on, but also handle the tactics, know all the details, act quickly. Kind of similar in business, I guess.
I think it totally is. I remember Toby at Shopify saying to me that he thought that it was more relevant if you'd managed clans in games before and if you'd been to university, I think. And I thought that was rather apt. I agree. It's as hard as doing that in business. Now, dude, Monday is not your first business.
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