The Realities of Managing Extremely Rapid Growth

Today’s show is all about GROWTH. Specifically, I want to dig into the personal and professional realities of running a high growth company that often aren't terribly visible from the outside looking in. Today, I talk to Anthemos Georgiades (or Anth, for short), who is the founder and CEO of Zumper, an apartment rental platform based out of San Francisco.  If anybody knows about running a rapidly growing company, it’s Anth. Consider this: Despite being founded less than 10 years ago in 2012, Zumper now boasts over 250 employees and 75 million active users, making it the biggest residential rental platform in North America. Since founding Zumper, Anth has raised over $150M in Venture Capital funds from a roster of VCs that would likely make many of his Silicon Valley CEO peers envious, including Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, and Blackstone, among others.  Since its founding, Zumper has regularly grown at triple-digit growth rates, which of course has presented Anth with both problems and opportunities that some CEOs simply haven’t had to deal with. Among other things, in our discussion today we talk about the tradeoff between raising growth capital and dilution of his personal ownership stake, how he thinks about how much money to raise at any given time, his views on organic versus inorganic growth (and his experience managing both), the systems and processes that often break in the face of high growth, how growth has impacted his hiring and retention strategies, and lastly how managing an ultra-high growth company has impacted Anth personally.  If you run a company that is growing at any pace, I hope and trust that you’ll leave with at least a few nuggets of wisdom that will help you along your own journey.