Eric Yuan, CEO of Zoom, discusses when startups should transition from purely high-potential hires to bringing in experienced external leadership.
Disclosure
Yuan: Zoom's unpredictable self-serve online segment is its biggest business challenge
“In our case, actually, I can tell you today, the biggest challenge is our online business, right? It's very profitable. However, it's very hard to predict, right? They come today, next two months, we might leave, they cancel the service. This is not a great bu…”
Opinion
Yuan: SaaS companies mistakenly settle for low marketing ROI instead of 4x returns
“Don't believe that. That's the mistake for all the SaaS companies. It's not one dollar and 50 cents back, not three dollars, it should be four dollars, right? It should optimize.”
Disclosure
Yuan: No VCs wanted to invest in Zoom when founded in 2011
“I started a company in 2011. First thing I did, I opened up a Wells Fargo bank account. I started, it's very easy for me to raise capital. That's why I opened up a bank account. Unfortunately, it took me for several months. No visits wanted to invest me.”
Disclosure
Yuan: Zoom raised a Series D round anticipating an economic collapse
“After the research meeting from emergency capital, as, at that time, seriously, we had a new plan, or so ever, to raise another round of capital. And the reason why we still went and moved forward to have a serious digs, because I thought the economy will win,…”
Assertion Partly supported
Yuan: Zoom operated without any marketing team until 2015
“For the first four years, we do not have any marketing team. Only until 2015, we started, you know, building up a marketing team, so.”
Insight
Yuan: Not building a second product years before IPO was Zoom's biggest mistake
“If you wanted to have new service, you cannot have a new service today, right? You need to think about, you know, trying to make a decision two or three years, you know, before that, right? That's, I clearly remember that conversation. You know, that's why, th…”