Villig: Listening to external advice in 2019 slowed Bolt's global expansion
Markus Villig · Markus Villig, Founder @Bolt: The Most Insane Story in Startups & The Future of Self-Driving| E1225 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Nov 13, 2024 · at 1:19:50
Markus Villig, founder and CEO of Bolt, reflects on taking external advice after raising larger funding rounds in 2019, which slowed international expansion and allowed competitors to capture market share.
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“Probably we should have been even more aggressive in our expansion. So if I look back at this period that we had from 2015 to 19, where we launched all of these markets remotely, it was a fantastic time. I think what we did back in 2019 was that we started raising these bigger rounds and we were getting this external advice that Guys, you need to get more professional. You can't keep on launching markets like this, running Facebook ads and hiring people over Skype calls. Like you need to have more rigor, more process around it. And it was one of those rare times where I actually listened to that advice. And then I think we slowed down a bit on expansion and we doubled down on existing markets, which had its merits. But I think what it meant was that in some parts of the world, we left a vacuum for other competitors to fill in and actually take meaningful share. So looking back, I think we missed out on a great opportunity there if we had continued in that startup mindset for a bit longer.”
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