Markus Villig is the founder and CEO of Bolt, a global mobility platform originating in Estonia. He explains Bolt's talent acquisition strategy comparing CEE hires to Silicon Valley tech workers.
“In our experience, what has worked significantly better is, is taking people, especially from central Eastern Europe who are really talented, extremely intelligent, hardworking, good, trustworthy people, but they've just never had the chance to compete at the world scale before. And they've always wanted to, but there was never a company in the region that they could join. And those are the people who've really built the company and they're very loyal. They've grown with the company. They know everything. They've been here for years, and I think it's just completely different mentality than hiring people into Silicon Valley, for example, who oftentimes might move on to the next thing two years later.”
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More from Markus Villig
AssertionSupported
Villig: VCs refused to invest in Bolt at $25M ARR
“We probably got to the point of doing about twenty-five million ARR, growing multiple hundred percent a year, and still no VCs wanted to invest.”
Markus VilligNov 13, 2024▶ 0:09Markus Villig, Founder @Bolt: The Most Insane Story in Startups & The Future of Self-Driving| E1225 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Villig: US ride-hailing rivals became bloated due to excess VC capital
“Specifically you look at some of our US competitors who raised thirty billion dollars. I mean, these companies obviously started off with having so much excess cash that they got very bloated. It was never a problem for them that they had to optimize for costs…”
Markus VilligNov 13, 2024▶ 16:53Markus Villig, Founder @Bolt: The Most Insane Story in Startups & The Future of Self-Driving| E1225 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Insight
Villig: Gross bookings is the only North Star metric that matters
“So my view is that it's the only thing that matters. And if you ask me what's our retention, what's our activation rate, what's our CAC, I couldn't tell you really any of those things because I don't think they're real, like they're completely irrelevant. So t…”
Markus VilligNov 13, 2024▶ 32:41Markus Villig, Founder @Bolt: The Most Insane Story in Startups & The Future of Self-Driving| E1225 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Villig: Being number two like Lyft is unsustainable without lean operations
“If I look at some of our competitors like Lyft in the US, I don't think that being a number two is sustainable. But it is a very profitable business if you're able to run a very lean operation.”
Markus VilligNov 13, 2024▶ 37:24Markus Villig, Founder @Bolt: The Most Insane Story in Startups & The Future of Self-Driving| E1225 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Villig: Lyft won't remain independent in five years under current cost structure
“I think that the, their only way out of this is to optimize their costs. I just generally don't see how they're going to be an independent company five years from now with the current cost structure.”
Markus VilligNov 13, 2024▶ 37:40Markus Villig, Founder @Bolt: The Most Insane Story in Startups & The Future of Self-Driving| E1225 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Opinion
Markus Villig: VCs Focused on Narrative Over Numbers and Were Wrong
“I think with VCs, it was their way around. So the numbers were great, but they didn't really focus on numbers. They sort of focused on what they thought was sort of the narrative in the industry. And that turned out to be completely wrong. So all these New Yor…”
Markus VilligNov 13, 2024▶ 51:55Markus Villig, Founder @Bolt: The Most Insane Story in Startups & The Future of Self-Driving| E1225 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
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