SaaStr 569: Classic Episode: Succeeding As a Young Enterprise Founder with Front Co-Founder and CEO Mathilde Collin
To celebrate 10 years of SaaStr, we're revisiting some classic podcast episodes. Up today: a 2016 interview with Harry Stebbings and Front Co-Founder and CEO Mathilde Collin. Just this week, Front announced their Series D at a 1.7 billion dollar valuation that makes Front one of only 11 SaaS Unicorns founded and led by women.
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20VC: Front's Mathilde Collin on Why Discipline Is More Important Than Vision, The Right Way To Approach Investor Updates and Director Reports & How To Effectively Structure 1-1s
Mathilde Collin is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Front, reinventing the email inbox with new workflows and efficient collaboration so people can accomplish more together. To date, Mathilde has raised over $79m in VC funding with Front from some of the best in the business including Bryan Schreier @ Sequoia, Initialized, Uncork Capital, Boldstart and individuals including Andrew Chen, Elad Gil, Ray Tonsing the list goes on. With 4,500+ customers, and 100+ employees, in Paris, San Francisco and Amsterdam, Front is one of the fastest growing companies in SaaS and Mathilde has become a thought leader for the next generation of SaaS CEOs, read more on her blog here.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Mathilde made her way from product manager in Paris to founding one of the hottest and fastest growing companies in the world of SaaS in the form of Front?
2.) What does Mathilde mean when she says, "I would choose discipline over vision any day of the week"? What does discipline really mean to Mathilde? Why is it a priority in the early days? How can a VC stress test and determine the level of discipline a founder has in first meetings? What are the signs or leading indicators?
3.) Communications:
Investor Updates: What is Mathilde's biggest advice to founders when it comes to investor updates? What should they contain? How often should they go out? How should founders ask for help in updates? Where do founders often make mistakes?
Revenue Updates: Why does Mathilde do revenue updates with the team? Is there a danger of being too transparent? What are the benefits of this transparency? What is the structure of the update? Who is privy to it?
Direct Reports: How does Mathilde communicate with her direct reports? Why does Mathilde believe that CEOs should have their calendar public? What is the right cadence for these direct reports?
4.) How does Mathilde approach and think about fundraises with Front today? How can founders know when is the right time to raise? How does Mathilde think about building relationships with investors when she is not raising? How transparent should founders be when they are not raising? What are Mathilde tips for always overshooting her numbers? How does Mathilde conduct DD on potential investors in the company?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Mathilde's Fave Book: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mathilde on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Front’s experiment in radical transparency
In today's episode, Ryan interviews Mathilde Collin, CEO of Front. Front is a shared inbox for your team and the company is used by startups big and small. They raised a whopping $66 million from Sequoia last year.
Mathilde and Ryan met at Y Combinator, when they were in the same batch in Summer 2014. It was at that time that Ryan recognized something special about Mathilde and her team: they build fast and embrace a very transparent culture, which has no doubt led to their success.
In this episode we talk about:
Why it's important as a founder to remain humble.
Why, contrary to reports of its demise, email is *not *dying.
How Mathilde manages company culture at a fast-growing startup with offices in both San Francisco and Paris.
The products she uses to stay sane and productive.
We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Big thanks to FreshBooks, Bubble, Spoka, and Dipsea for their support. 😸
Quotes from This Episode
“There are two types of people: there are people that join the company because it’s most likely going to be successful and there are people that join because they want to make it successful. You should try to understand if the person is joining because they want to be part of the adventure or because they want to build this adventure.” — Mathilde
“People seem to be pretty happy at Front, so I try to understand why. I asked them, 'why are you happy?' The most frequent answer was the fact that they understand how their work relates to the bigger vision that we have.” — Mathilde
“It’s super important to hire people who are confident enough that they won’t care if something doesn’t work because the biggest mistake you can make is not acknowledging something isn’t working and keeping doing it. Self-confidence is something that I’ve been looking for in most hires.” — Mathilde
Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode
Five Minute Journal — The simplest, most effective way to be happier every day.
Front — Efficient email for teams.
Headspace — Learn to meditate and live mindfully.
#068 – Finding Success as a First-Time Founder with Mathilde Collin of Front
When Mathilde Collin (@collinmathilde) started her first company, she knew she wanted to create a great place to work and to improve the lives of her customers. The product was just an implementation detail. Learn how she picked up the skills she needed to succeed, and built a 100-person company with over 3600 happy, paying customers.
Transcript, speaker information, and more: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/068-mathilde-collin-of-front
Saastr 010: Mathilde Collin on The Evolution of Content Marketing and Life As A Young Enterprise Founder
Welcome to Episode 10 of The Official Saastr Podcast. To celebrate this milestone, we have a very special guest: Mathilde Collin. Mathilde is the CEO and Co-Founder of Front, one of the world's most innovative young SaaS startups working in the space of email collaboration and in today's show with Mathilde we discuss:
Mathilde's experience as a young founder and CEO in the enterprise space?
How did Mathilde manage to attract some of the world's top talent and hire effectively?
What were her biggest takeaways from her time at YC?
Why did Mathilde decide to raise US funds rather than European?
How has the evolution of content marketing altered Front's sales strategy?
In a round we call the 60 Second Saastr, we also hear:
Hiring Your First VP of Sales: When and What Questions To Ask?
Mathilde's favourite SaaS resource?
Compare UK to US investor mindsets?
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
Saastr
Mathilde Collin
