20VC: From $57M in ARR to $297M in Just 12 Months; Why Speed of Execution is the Most Important Factor to Success, Hiring 2,000 People in 3 Years Remotely & Secondaries; Why, When and How Much To Take Out with Alex Bouaziz, Co-Founder & CEO @ Deel
Episode description
Alex Bouaziz is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Deel, the all-in-one platform made to simplify all things HR, built for global teams near and far. In the last year alone, Alex has scaled Deel from $57M in ARR to $295M, EBITDA positive since Sept 2022, 85%+ gross margins, and over $5BN paid out to 250,000 people. Alex has raised over $679M with Deel, pricing the company at the last round at $12.1BN. Investors in the company include a16z, Spark Capital, Coatue, and many more.
In Today's Episode with Alex Bouaziz We Discuss:
1.) From Student in London to Decacorn Founder:
- How Alex made his way into the world of startups and how he came up with the idea for Deel?
- Did Alex always know he would be successful when he was growing up?
- What does Alex know now that he wishes he had known when he was starting?
2.) The Importance of Execution:
- How important does Alex think speed of execution is for startups?
- What can startups do to deliberately increase their speed of execution?
- How does Alex think about the dilemma of losing quality with speed?
- What does Alex think you do need to go slow on to ensure it is perfect?
- How does Alex think about focus and prioritisation today with Deel?
3.) Scaling to $295M in ARR in 3 Years:
- When did Alex know he had true product-market fit with Deel?
- How did Alex use a 50-person Whatsapp group to both determine product market fit and to navigate product direction for the company?
- What was the key to Deel's blitz scaling strategy? What worked? What did not work?
- How did Alex hire 2,000 people in such a short space of time?
- What broke first in the organisation? How could they have prevented it?
4.) Secondaries, Angel Investing and Wealth Management:
- How much did Alex take out in secondaries in the last round of funding?
- How did Alex determine how much cash to allocate to angel investing?
- Why does Alex believe most founders make poor angel investments when they have cash?
- What have been Alex's biggest lessons from investing? How has it changed how he operates?
- Why should all founders be super transparent in investor updates?