The Exchanges

Q Fuckers. Uh, what's your biggest piece of advice to a founder who has a moment like that where you just feel the air come out of the company? How do you inflate the company again after such a damaging blow?

A I don't think the first reaction should be that, like, hey, everything is fine. I think you should, you should, like, be authentic and tell the team what you are feeling. Like, how has this happened? And actually the, the, the go through, like, what have we done wrong? And, and, you know, that, that frustration was clear. I don't think we, I, I, like, I, I think it was valuable for us to talk to, like, we are angry at ourselves. This is wrong. And then as we move from that stage, like, yes, we are angry. What are we actually going to do about this? And, um, and move to that second stage very quickly. Uh, but I think, you know, I, I, I think I've done a mistake sometimes of just going to the second stage, like kind of, it's not a problem. Let's just go through and solve it. I think it's actually super valuable to, to, to, to, to talk through what, what has happened. Uh, but then, you know, you need to, you need to go into the second thing, and then, and then in the long term, that will work out. You know, it's, it's, it's, then you can, the relentless execution will prove itself out and, and, and show it to the world. And the worst if you repeat the mistake, then someone needs to feel the, you know, feel, feel the repercussions. But, If you've learned from that and haven't repeated that mistake, it's fine.

AI assessment note: “be authentic and tell the team what you are feeling”

Q And then it happens and you're like, you're like, three followers. And this was when it was much bigger. And it's like, so I completely agree with you there, the grassroots. The other element kind of tied to that is how do you think about fundraising, and this is advice to founders, fundraising pre or post a launch?

A What does frequently happen if the launch goes well is you will get more interest. And I think you will get interest from investors, from events, from media. To a large extent, this is, like, the time you should really focus on getting the product, and kind of all of that is, like, a distraction to a large extent. Like, you know, the first time we launched, that kind of happened, we started getting so much of that, and I'm sure I did the mistake then of, like, picking up a lot of those and doing more events than, than we should, where, like, the best course of action would have been to, to, to just spend even more time with users, and then, kind of, early enterprises started getting interested, so more of enterprises. But, uh, I think on the, on the investor side, I think you want to keep, you want to line up investors. So you, you, you do, you do want to tell them like, okay, I'm not racing now. I'm going to reconsider whether we need more capital in Q three or Q two, whatever is the time period of time, uh, the time period. So you want to line them up and then, um, and then when they, when that, when, when you actually need the money, um, then is the best time to actually re-engage with them. But I would not like, I think it's a waste of time to, Kind of be in this, like, continuous fundraising mode. Um, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, destructive. You need to have conversa…

AI assessment note: “So you want to line them up and then... when you actually need the money”

Q find more and more with founders is they want to run a roadshow and they want to do a 10 day process meeting investors and then have another week to decide which term sheets they want to take. I'll, I'm willing to give you a term sheet tonight. Save 17 days. But it's more and more common that founders actually want to run roadshows. How do you think about that?

A Yeah, these, these, um, now in a lot of, a lot of great companies get built on 11 Labs, so I get to be in the conversations now more frequently where they would raise money from our investors. Uh, like recently we had a company raise a series A that has built a healthcare voice bot which would effectively help patients calm them through the conversations in an incredible, incredible way. Then there's like another company building for, Uh, healthcare customer support. So quite a few, and now I'm in the conversations of them raising the money, which is an interesting one. And, and, and then usually it's, it's clear that, uh, some of, some of the people don't know fully what they are actually optimizing for. And it's good to, to, to talk about, are they optimizing for devaluation? Are they optimizing for dilution? Are they optimizing for the right brand name to help them out? Is it the network of people that this brand name has? Is it the specific partner? Is it something, something different? And I think it's like pretty distributed. So when I speak usually with founders or our investors ask me to speak with the founders, it's usually that question, like, what is it actually that you, that you care about for the thing? What do you miss? And then it's, then it's pretty quickly whether, you know, they are going after just the roadshow is there to bump it up because they think the v…

AI assessment note: “some of the people don't know fully what they are actually optimizing for”

Q When should a founder no longer be involved in every hire?

A Well, I hope we'll be with Piotr involved through, so we interview everyone, and I hope- You still do now at G-Fifty? Yes, we do. We hope to interview that as, as long as possible, because it's a good signal of who we bring into the company. We get to meet them, but of course we, we, we still think the company is like still shifting in terms of how we are approaching that. One is like, um, now even more we are optimizing for like engineering technical skill set in all parts of the company than we would have Probably like six to 12 months ago. So it's even increasing in some aspects, but I hope we'll interview to like a thousand people. The thing isn't so much hard, you know, when to be involved in the review, it's more how many people you're trying to hire within a specific period of time. So if I try to hire a thousand people in a month, it's impossible because it would be more than the time we have.

AI assessment note: “it's more how many people you're trying to hire within a specific period of time”

Q Do you choose three that you'd like to have that you engage with in between cycles, or do you not even do that? You just say, hey, I'm heads down on building. I'll come to you when I'm ready.

A Today, Les, at the time, at the time we, no, good question in the, in the sense of, We do, we do have a few investors that we think would be valuable that we might not have today in the, in a kind of the, the space. I mean, I'm very happy we are, we are kind of working together. But no, that's the, that's the, the truth is hundred percent you, we, we, through the time we would have few investors that we wouldn't try to proactively reach out, but if they reached out through any of the conversations, we would, we would try to engage. But the engagement there wouldn't be like, Hey, we might be racing. It would be much more of like, Hey, can you help me with introduction to X? Hey, can you help me with this hiring problem? And this has worked tremendously well through, through the, through the work where I find it like the investors are genuinely keen to help. If you, if you find the right person and you have a very clear problem and you don't try to like overuse their time too, like you come up with one, two things that are concrete, useful. And then they know as well that if you are growing as a company, it's good for them to show the help too. So we've done that.

AI assessment note: “we wouldn't try to proactively reach out, but if they reached out”

Q Do you choose three that you'd like to have that you engage with in between cycles, or do you not even do that? You just say, hey, I'm heads down on building. I'll come to you when I'm ready.

A Today, Les, at the time, at the time we, no, good question in the, in the sense of, We do, we do have a few investors that we think would be valuable that we might not have today in the, in a kind of the, the space. I mean, I'm very happy we are, we are kind of working together. But no, that's the, that's the, the truth is hundred percent you, we, we, through the time we would have few investors that we wouldn't try to proactively reach out, but if they reached out through any of the conversations, we would, we would try to engage. But the engagement there wouldn't be like, Hey, we might be racing. It would be much more of like, Hey, can you help me with introduction to X? Hey, can you help me with this hiring problem? And this has worked tremendously well through, through the, through the work where I find it like the investors are genuinely keen to help. If you, if you find the right person and you have a very clear problem and you don't try to like overuse their time too, like you come up with one, two things that are concrete, useful. And then they know as well that if you are growing as a company, it's good for them to show the help too. So we've done that.

AI assessment note: “we wouldn't try to proactively reach out, but if they reached out... we would try to engage”

Q NFDG. Wonderful. Brilliant name. Um, and That was quite a shock, because it wasn't a London fund, it wasn't Index, it wasn't Excel. How did that round come to be?

A Yeah. The NFDG is, is now, now I feel like it's a good name, but I was pitching that on changing that to like a different name for a while. Maybe now it's not possible anymore, but, um, the, the, so it was like the interest started around kind of March, 20, 23. We had a lot of the investors that were in a close conversation in the past, like re-approach us. We effectively would, would, um, Would, would, would, would be a little bit more in the waiting mode. Like, let's see how we, we, we get through, and let's optimize for the partners that we truly want. And what we truly wanted was a combination of making sure that people in globally, NSF, trust and know that we have arrived. Like, we are a company that can be trusted, is building something ambitious. And then, of course, people that we would admire to, to be able to work with that creates something special. And that was definitely in that, in that, in that category. In the latter category, and it was a very fun thing because he approached us. We previously... Does he just DM you?

AI assessment note: “interest started around kind of March, 20, 23... it was a very fun thing because he approached us”

Q You mentioned two 50 there. It's, it's small given the size of company in many ways, but it's also still 250 people. When was the company culture the worst, and what did you learn from that?

A You know, there was, like, moments where, where, where, where I could feel this kind of tension between the go-to-market research engineering, um, and this, like, a specific story where, so, I mean, it's a super lucky position where we develop our models and bring them to the customers, which, which, of course, makes it very special. We frequently will show for the very first time to the world something that was not possible and is possible now. In 2023, late 20 23, so we did the text to speech, we then did voices so we could recreate a voice, then we, um, then we create like a basic way for speech to text internally. So we had all the components that we originally were speaking about to create dubbing, and we, uh, we haven't done dubbing yet publicly, and we gave all the components to some of our customers so they could use text to speech, the voices, and, um, and there was like a lot of, you know, pressure that, like, It's a valuable technology we can give to, to our enterprise clients. And, um, one of the enterprise clients, we told them that we are planning to launch our dubbing solution, combining those components later, later in that, it was, uh, it was, I think September later in that, that month. And, um, and they took the components and released dubbing two weeks before we did. And that was one of like the low moments for me, for my co-founder, for the entire team, bec…

AI assessment note: “that was one of like the low moments for me, for my co-founder”

Q What's been your biggest hiring mistake, and what did you learn from it?

A I think the, you know, this is, uh, this is the probably a, a, a, a traditional one, but, uh, as I think about kind of bringing people in and growing them into the company, I was like the full hiring process. I think you hire a person, you of course have very little time frequently to assess how they are, but then as they are in the company, you have a little bit more of the signal. And then, um, I would have taken some decisions quicker than I would have, uh, with separating with people that usually it's in, if you know, in the first days or in, If you are not unsure in the interview, but let's say you are bringing them, giving them a chance, and you are not sure in the first weeks or months, you should separate straight away, rather than keep giving, giving the chance. I think that's the, the, the, the few times I've, I think I've done that.

AI assessment note: “I would have taken some decisions quicker than I would have, uh, with separating”

Q You mentioned two 50 there. It's, it's small given the size of company in many ways, but it's also still 250 people. When was the company culture the worst, and what did you learn from that?

A You know, there was, like, moments where, where, where, where I could feel this kind of tension between the go-to-market research engineering, um, and this, like, a specific story where, so, I mean, it's a super lucky position where we develop our models and bring them to the customers, which, which, of course, makes it very special. We frequently will show for the very first time to the world something that was not possible and is possible now. In 2023, late 20 23, so we did the text to speech, we then did voices so we could recreate a voice, then we, um, then we create like a basic way for speech to text internally. So we had all the components that we originally were speaking about to create dubbing, and we, uh, we haven't done dubbing yet publicly, and we gave all the components to some of our customers so they could use text to speech, the voices, and, um, and there was like a lot of, you know, pressure that, like, It's a valuable technology we can give to, to our enterprise clients. And, um, one of the enterprise clients, we told them that we are planning to launch our dubbing solution, combining those components later, later in that, it was, uh, it was, I think September later in that, that month. And, um, and they took the components and released dubbing two weeks before we did. And that was one of like the low moments for me, for my co-founder, for the entire team, bec…

AI assessment note: “that was one of like the low moments for me, for my co-founder”

Q find more and more with founders is they want to run a roadshow and they want to do a 10 day process meeting investors and then have another week to decide which term sheets they want to take. I'll, I'm willing to give you a term sheet tonight. Save 17 days. But it's more and more common that founders actually want to run roadshows. How do you think about that?

A Yeah, these, these, um, now in a lot of, a lot of great companies get built on 11 Labs, so I get to be in the conversations now more frequently where they would raise money from our investors. Uh, like recently we had a company raise a series A that has built a healthcare voice bot which would effectively help patients calm them through the conversations in an incredible, incredible way. Then there's like another company building for, Uh, healthcare customer support. So quite a few, and now I'm in the conversations of them raising the money, which is an interesting one. And, and, and then usually it's, it's clear that, uh, some of, some of the people don't know fully what they are actually optimizing for. And it's good to, to, to talk about, are they optimizing for devaluation? Are they optimizing for dilution? Are they optimizing for the right brand name to help them out? Is it the network of people that this brand name has? Is it the specific partner? Is it something, something different? And I think it's like pretty distributed. So when I speak usually with founders or our investors ask me to speak with the founders, it's usually that question, like, what is it actually that you, that you care about for the thing? What do you miss? And then it's, then it's pretty quickly whether, you know, they are going after just the roadshow is there to bump it up because they think the v…

AI assessment note: “whether, you know, they are going after just the roadshow is there to bump it up”

Q And then it happens and you're like, you're like, three followers. And this was when it was much bigger. And it's like, so I completely agree with you there, the grassroots. The other element kind of tied to that is how do you think about fundraising, and this is advice to founders, fundraising pre or post a launch?

A What does frequently happen if the launch goes well is you will get more interest. And I think you will get interest from investors, from events, from media. To a large extent, this is, like, the time you should really focus on getting the product, and kind of all of that is, like, a distraction to a large extent. Like, you know, the first time we launched, that kind of happened, we started getting so much of that, and I'm sure I did the mistake then of, like, picking up a lot of those and doing more events than, than we should, where, like, the best course of action would have been to, to, to just spend even more time with users, and then, kind of, early enterprises started getting interested, so more of enterprises. But, uh, I think on the, on the investor side, I think you want to keep, you want to line up investors. So you, you, you do, you do want to tell them like, okay, I'm not racing now. I'm going to reconsider whether we need more capital in Q three or Q two, whatever is the time period of time, uh, the time period. So you want to line them up and then, um, and then when they, when that, when, when you actually need the money, um, then is the best time to actually re-engage with them. But I would not like, I think it's a waste of time to, Kind of be in this, like, continuous fundraising mode. Um, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know, destructive. You need to have conversa…

AI assessment note: “waste of time to, Kind of be in this, like, continuous fundraising mode.”

Q When should a founder no longer be involved in every hire?

A Well, I hope we'll be with Piotr involved through, so we interview everyone, and I hope- You still do now at G-Fifty? Yes, we do. We hope to interview that as, as long as possible, because it's a good signal of who we bring into the company. We get to meet them, but of course we, we, we still think the company is like still shifting in terms of how we are approaching that. One is like, um, now even more we are optimizing for like engineering technical skill set in all parts of the company than we would have Probably like six to 12 months ago. So it's even increasing in some aspects, but I hope we'll interview to like a thousand people. The thing isn't so much hard, you know, when to be involved in the review, it's more how many people you're trying to hire within a specific period of time. So if I try to hire a thousand people in a month, it's impossible because it would be more than the time we have.

AI assessment note: “it's more how many people you're trying to hire within a specific period of time.”

Q What's been your biggest hiring mistake, and what did you learn from it?

A I think the, you know, this is, uh, this is the probably a, a, a, a traditional one, but, uh, as I think about kind of bringing people in and growing them into the company, I was like the full hiring process. I think you hire a person, you of course have very little time frequently to assess how they are, but then as they are in the company, you have a little bit more of the signal. And then, um, I would have taken some decisions quicker than I would have, uh, with separating with people that usually it's in, if you know, in the first days or in, If you are not unsure in the interview, but let's say you are bringing them, giving them a chance, and you are not sure in the first weeks or months, you should separate straight away, rather than keep giving, giving the chance. I think that's the, the, the, the few times I've, I think I've done that.

AI assessment note: “you should separate straight away, rather than keep giving, giving the chance.”

Q Dude, how should I know as an investor, again I use this show just to get better as an investor, how should I know as an investor whether a problem needs its own model or whether you can just leverage alternative existing models?

A Well, I think the answer will definitely change now to, like, twenty-twenty-two. So that was the year where nobody yet, like, kind of was thinking about AI. This was still, kind of, downfall of metaverse crypto days. So you were, you were still, the attention to, to the models was, was, was, like, none in the public eye. You know, child GPT happened beginning of twenty-twenty-three. That's where it kind of all started spiking across. So at the time, um, at the time you didn't really have a choice. Like, you, you, you could, you, you, Uh, you could kind of, you knew, um, as a user, as an investor, that what existed out in the market just wasn't very good. Um, and then there was more of a question, will this team be able to solve and create something better?

AI assessment note: “you knew, as a user, as an investor, that what existed out in the market”