Disclosure certainty 5/5 debate potential 2/5

Harries Passed on Angel Investing in ElevenLabs Over Terrible GTM Plan

Luke Harries · 20VC: ElevenLabs Head of Growth on Why You Do Not Need PMs | The 7-Part Launch Playbook That Gets 700K+ Views Per Product | The Truth About CAC, Payback & Performance Marketing in AI with Luke Harries · May 23, 2025 · at 6:11

Luke Harries, Head of Growth at ElevenLabs, recounts being pitched the early concept for ElevenLabs by co-founder Mati Staniszewski while swimming in the Hampstead Heath ponds.

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“And I was like, That is a terrible go to market plan. That's absolutely terrible. I was kind of angel investing them. I was like, this is not something I want to invest. What do you mean step one? You're going to build the world's best AI audio model, something no one else has ever done. Anyway, so I did an invest.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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