Kuusi Held Personal Veto Power Over Any Wolt Acquisition
Miki Kuusi · Miki Kuusi: How I Scaled Wolt to $8B; Why I Sold to DoorDash | 20VC #953 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Nov 28, 2022 · at 1:04:40
Miki Kuusi, co-founder and CEO of Wolt, discusses governance terms negotiated during fundraising rounds before Wolt was acquired by DoorDash for $8.1 billion.
0:00 / 0:14exact quote · 14.2s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“So I had actually a personal blocking right to any M&A transaction of vault. So vault was not possible to get acquired by another company without, I actually have a placate. This is a placate for Allowing the company to be sold.”
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 →
More from Miki Kuusi
Founders who personally interview their first 1,000 hires show lack of trust
“The methodology of the founder or the, like the, all powerful CEO, it's almost like creating this picture of someone that, you know, like, you know, hires everyone up until a thousand employees, which to me tells that, oh, you don't trust your people to hire p…”
Hire high-potential candidates before they achieve major scaling milestones
“One mistake people make in hiring is that they're looking for the person that has already done you know, what you need. And you're like, we need to hire that person. He's done this before. He's going to do it for us. And it's going to be amazing. But what peop…”
Kees Koolen: A startup's first recruiter is its most important early hire
“One of the things he said to me was that, Miki, the most important hire you're going to make next is that you need a great recruiter. That's the most important hire, your first recruiter.”
Wolt received an acquisition offer at 3x its Series B valuation
“We even had an acquisition offer at three extra valuation that we raised money at.”
Sequoia research shows startup momentum is statistically difficult to lose once achieved
“Out of looking at 400 entrepreneurs, if you have achieved momentum, that momentum is statistically so incredibly difficult to lose.”
Kuusi: Advice from successful founders suffers from extreme survivorship bias
“Every advice you hear from an entrepreneur, Always be mindful about that, because like, you know, first of all, entrepreneurs, they're successful telling advice. It's like a lottery millionaire telling that, you know, keep on betting. You're gonna eventually w…”