Sam Zaid, founder and CEO of Getaround, talks about what makes startups succeed: work ethic, hiring the right people, and owning problems. He describes hitting a fundraising cliff during Series B and learning to persist when things got hard.
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So we're getting close on time here. A couple last questions I wanted to ask you. What do you think is your best attribute, and why do you think you've been so successful to date through all your endeavors?
My best attribute. I don't know. OK, so on the second part, success is relative. But I feel as though I don't really give up on stuff. And I try to just work. If I feel like something's not working, I just work harder at it. I don't know if that's a great attribute.
Working hard.
It's great from a work point of view. Personal life, not as great. So that's one. And I'd say that generally, though, what's made me successful, looking back at it, is times I've been most successful, I've surrounded myself with great people. And times when I have been less successful, less the case. And it's really hard to do. One of the hardest things I found, especially in the Bay Area, is being able to attract really, really good talent. You want to be able to hire those people day 2.
Right.
And most of them won't even talk to you until day 1,500 or something. And so it's hard to find them. And at least for me, when I was in school, I knew who the really smart kids were. And the people who really worked hard. And so I'd be like, OK, I want those persons on my—
My team.
My team, my team, my team. And in the real world, it's way harder to figure that out. And so that's probably been the thing that I think makes a difference in the long run. In the short run, it's just how much you're willing to put in the effort yourself and just dedicate yourself as many hours as you can. That's really when I started Getaround and started other companies. For the most part, I'd probably just work from when I woke up until I was physically exhausted, and then just go back to bed and just do it again, which doesn't sound pleasant in hindsight, but sort of is like— it's definitely the early stage. It's like a job. Because you basically are against a clock, right? You've got a gun to your head. There's time, and you just wanna try and get as many things done as fast as possible. And hopefully, like, 1 of 100 is what makes a difference.
Yeah, I mean, I think work ethic is definitely an attribute, and I think that you need that to be successful. Like, you're not going to be successful if you're only putting half your time into a company or a business or whatever it is you're doing. So, I mean, I would agree with you.
Yeah, I mean, and there's the art of mastery or whatever is— what is it?
10,000 hours.
10,000 hours, 4 hours a day for 10 years, basically. And startup is a very— just running companies or starting companies, A, it's always different, but B, it's something you learn, but you're never taught. And it does take a long time to figure out all of the different things, whether it's financing or engineering or product or marketing or—
Hiring or firing.
And I'm still learning stuff every day, right? And so I do think that that's an important aspect for anybody.
Yeah, absolutely. OK, so lastly, if you could give yourself, maybe your 20-year-old self, one last piece of advice, what would it be? Maybe not a last piece of advice, but—
So I don't turn 21 in this scenario? Then I would be giving different advice.
What would I do differently?
Or what advice would I give myself? I mean, when I was 20 years old, despite the fact that I was doing stuff, I really doubted myself. 'Cause I'd look around and I'd be like, oh, this person really knows what they're doing. It's really hard to calibrate.
Right.
And I guess the advice I'd give myself is that, A, that's normal. And B, you just got to— it is really important to believe in yourself. I'll give another example. When we were raising our Series B for Getaround, Just launched our hardware, just moved the business model to basically instant reservations and instant unlock, and so really making the experience end-to-end instant. And we're getting awesome growth and awesome traction, but it was still pretty early, and we're running out of money. And so I was like, OK, well, we need to raise more money. And I sort of thought we would get—
Equity.
that wouldn't be a problem, and we'd have more people just willing to bridge us. And unfortunately, a lot of stuff had changed. We had changed board members like 6 months prior. Some of our early seed investors, their funds were tapped.
Yep.
There's a lot of things going on. We did get some bridge money, but we had a very clear cliff.
Timeline.
Yeah, timeline. And I called up our counsel, who's great. He's the top guy at Orrick and was the counsel for Facebook in the early years. And so he knows startups really well. And I was talking to him, and he basically said, Sam, look, here's the thing. I'd love to tell you how to solve this problem, but the reality is it's like— I can't help you. You have to figure it out. And I was more like, hey, trying to get someone on my team to help me get this thing done. And he basically said, it's do or die. You're out there by yourself, and you've got to figure it out. And I was like— so that was really jarring, the way he framed it for me that day. I was like, OK, well, I guess it's—
It's on me.
It's on me. I've got to accept that first. And then I've got to figure out what I'm doing about it. There was no one— I was sort of scrapping for somebody to help me.
Yeah.
And no one was going to be there to help, not meaningfully. And anyway, it worked out. I don't actually know where I was taking the story now. It worked out, and part of it was just having— I guess I know what it was. It was just having—
Don't give up.
It was just having belief in yourself that you're going to find a solution, even though there isn't one right in front of you. And that was the first moment where I really got comfortable with the idea that it may not work out, and I don't have an answer. But this is just what it is, and I need to like—
Own it, and it's you.
Yeah, and be OK with it. And as worrisome as it might be, and that's just sort of like— I had to normalize that feeling so that when we were in that situation again, it wouldn't feel foreign. It would be like, OK, yeah, we have a problem. I don't have an answer. Could be catastrophic. Let's figure it out. And that took a long time to learn as a behavior, especially coming from an engineering background where you're risk-averse and you're trying to calculate all these things. That was probably the one thing that I had to learn.
I think that's good advice. And being a mentor for the last 2 years, a lot of things with students is they're always like, we're here to help. But ultimately, it comes down to you guys building out your own businesses. So I think that's great advice. Believe in yourselves. The business is you guys, so. Thank you.
