Lessons From Scaling Pilot to a $1.2 Billion Valuation with Co-founder and CEO Waseem Daher
Show notes
Waseem Daher is the Co-founder and CEO of Pilot, the bookkeeping, CFO, and tax provider for startups and fast growing businesses. Prior to Pilot, Waseem and his co-founders Jeff and Jessica sold companies to Oracle and Dropbox. — Waseem, Jeff, and Jessica started Pilot in 2017, and have since raised over $160 million from investors like Index Ventures, Stripe, Sequoia, Whale Rock, Jeff Bezos, and over 40+ angel investors. — Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://bit.ly/3FoYm52 — In this episode, we discuss: • Why Waseem’s building a startup that does your accounting • The reason he first started doing his own bookkeeping, and why he doesn’t recommend it to other founders • When startups should build something themselves and when to outsource • All the mistakes Waseem made building and selling his first two startups to Oracle and Dropbox • How to avoid “fake work” • How to get ROI from conferences • His disastrous first ever meeting with a VC • Why the best fundraising advice is to build a business that doesn’t need to raise money • “Companies are bought, not sold” and his framework for startup M&A • Why it’s a mistake to build your startup just to be acquired • Why consensus startup ideas rarely work, and the best startups need some secret or structural change that no one else has noticed yet • Why tech-enabled service businesses are so hard to scale • How Pilot got its first customers • Pilot’s unique approach to raising its Seed round • The initial scare when raising their Series A • Why its Series B was half of what they could have raised — Where to find Waseem: • Twitter: https://twitter.com/waseem • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wdaher • Newsletter: https://waseem.substack.com/ — Where to find Turner: • Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it • Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak — Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform
Guests
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