This content was created by GHION.AI . This content was uploaded by GHION.AI . This is a YouTube talk titled "Be Silly and Scrappy — to a Point" (created 2018-03-09). A single speaker recounts early startup experiences: incubating in Greylock’s unused office space, setting up desks in a hallway, moving into a shared Cloudera office via a U-Haul, and the ethos of scrappiness (IKEA panels, photos, etc.). The speaker describes a pitch to Greylock partners where Aneel Bhusri urged them to scale and raise more capital, leading to a $13M Series B led by Ajay Agarwal of Bain Capital Ventures (anecdote includes a metal briefcase of cash). The excerpt mixes practical anecdotes, fundraising context, team mentions (e.g., Sanjay), and advice about preserving cultural moments through photos.
Chapters
And so as we got to work, we prided ourselves in our scrappiness. So the first thing that we did is basically ask Greylock if we could use some of their extra space. And their extra space was in their old office, and it had kind of this hallway that nobody was using with a bunch of empty rooms on it. So we actually just like set up desks in the hallway. So this is Sanjay, who's one of our first employees, sitting in the hallway. And we did that for about 9 months, actually, we incubated. And part of that was because it was really nice to save money. And the other part is we were waiting on an office to open up that was shared, or that was leased by another Greylock company called Cloudera. And so when that opened up, I thought, what could be more scrappy than moving ourselves? So we piled all of our stuff into boxes, rented our own U-Haul, and moved it in, and it was fun. That was kind of like a fun team bonding moment. Although when I look back, if I think about the lost productivity, it was probably the most expensive move in the history of man. And then finally, down here in the lower right corner, you can see a picture of our lobby. And you'll notice that everything that we did in the pictures that you'll see, like, it shows really well. It's beautiful, and yet, Everything that you look at was either left by the previous tenant or purchased from IKEA, including these high-gloss white panels that we actually put up ourselves. And the ethos of scrappiness actually ran deep in our veins, and it was useful up until a point. And then I remember I went in to give an update to the Greylock partnership about 18 months in, and man, everything was going really well. I think we're at a $2 million run rate maybe. And there were only 4 of us. And we hadn't spent very much money. We still had most of the money in the bank. And so I go and I give this— I just nail the presentation, right? I'm like, look at how great things are for the low, low price of like having spent almost none of your money. And aren't we awesome? And I swear, like, you could have heard a pin drop in the Greylock partner meeting. I'm like, well, this is weird. And then one of the partners, Aneel Bhusri, who's a very, very successful venture capitalist and CEO— he's CEO of Workday now— and has started multiple companies while being a venture capitalist, multiple billion-dollar companies while being a venture capitalist. He raises his hand. He's a super nice guy. And I'll paraphrase, but he kind of said something like, What the hell are you doing? And I'm like, what do you mean? Like, this is awesome, isn't it? Isn't this great? And he's like, yeah, it's awesome. Like, clearly you have something here. Like, you have customers paying you millions of dollars for software, and there's only 4 of you, and you have no salespeople? Like, what are you thinking? Like, go, go, go. And the conversation that came out of that is, you guys should raise more money. I'm like, well, that's weird. Like, we still have all the money. And there were two reasons that we actually did raise more money at that point in time. One is because it was unclear whether or not we were going to go into a double-dip recession, because this is right when Greece was looking like it was going to blow up. And the second was because we could. Like, in a very short process, we could go out and add another rock star board member to our board. And put a bunch more money in the bank, and then we could use that to power the business, right? So we could almost like get the capital worries behind us so that we could just really lean into the challenge. So we did, and I took another picture. This is the gentleman second to the right is Ajay Agarwal, and he was our second board member. He's from Bain Capital Ventures, and he led our Series B. It was a $13 million Series B. And that is a metal briefcase full of cash. Not all $13 million. But, you know, I think about two things in the context of these fun moments in a startup's life. One is, I implore you, I give you permission to be a tourist. Like, you feel kind of silly taking all these photos of these, like, otherwise mundane moments in your startup's life. And then you realize like how important those are to the culture that you build and the stories that you get to tell.
