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Mathilde Collin

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30
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2019-05-24
most recent
2019-05-24
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1
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  1. “So I have crazy ambitions for Frontex. That's one of the things that I think this country brought me when I was in France five years ago, if you had told me I would be here, I would have said, I mean, I wasn't expecting more. And now I just felt like we're a tiny, tiny company. So I expect us to just keep growing as fast as we can while always keeping in mind that the culture needs to be great. And so that's the limit to the growth that we want to see. But I'm excited about the future because from a market standpoint product standpoint, I think the opportunity is huge and there are billions of people using email every day. And I think if you change that for the better than the impact and the reach is amazing. But also I'm super excited just for the people I currently with and the new people that I will bring to the team.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “A super good question because sometimes you don't have a choice but working hard and at the end of the day your company needs to work out and so you need to put the right input in order for the right output. But I think the caveat to that is it's too easy for founders to think that their company is their life because they just do that. And it's not true. Like there are many other things that are important. They just don't come to mind right away because you're not spending time on them. And I don't know if you know and or you've read I've talked about it, but two years ago my co-founder was diagnosed with a cancer and now he's cancer free so everything turned out to be great. But I think it's only during that moment that I realized that life was greater than the company I was running and you shouldn't need things like this to realize it. So that's one of the things that I've changed in the way I did this company is putting a lot of emphasis on making sure that people are first happy and healthy and then they can give their best self to work.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Yes, so I have all of that. I have friends that are founders, I have mentors that are founders, I have a therapist, and I also have my husband who works at Front. I've been able to share a lot with him, and that has been super helpful.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “What I talked about earlier about the fact that it only gets harder and the fact that it's hot for everyone because I think a lot of founders, including myself, spend a lot of time wondering, is it normal that things are so hard? And if you know that they are going to be that hard, then you just save a ton of time not wondering if it's normal or not.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “So, I would say good is the person who's supporting you and you can use the person as a resource. And great is the person is hands-on and actually working for you. So for example, interviewing candidates, leading a search, helping you in this new positioning exercise”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “So, I think diversity are a few different things. I think what I don't like about silicon rays is the fact that everyone is working in tech, and I think that's going to be very hard to change. And then there is diversity within companies. And that's something that you can change by being deliberate about it and just making sure that you all spend the time to evaluate a lot of different people because at the end of the day, if you, let's take, for example, women versus fan, if you spend the time to evaluate a lot of people, you should end up with 50-50. If you don't, then you will probably not end up with that ratio.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “So I call them and I saw the questions that I wanted to ask them. So, same thing as hiring someone, but I did more because hiring you can hire if things don't go well, but your investors, you cannot.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Two things. One, something very personal to me is when I raise money and when I work with industries now that I've worked with a few industries, I realize that what I'm looking for is a combination of someone that's very challenging and demanding and someone that's very caring. And I don't want to have someone that's only caring and trust me and is a cheerleader because there is so much I don't know that I want someone to be able to code me out. But I'm also very tough on myself. And so I don't need someone to keep challenging me if I don't know that they truly care because I will tell them I am already putting a lot of pressure on myself so it's not helpful to have additional pressure. So that's the balance I'm trying to strike. And for example, when I chose Brian, Brian is actually one of the only investors during our series B that I didn't know much before. And so I hadn't built a relationship with him. And so I knew it was very important to understand if we would work well together. So I think I took to probably 90% of the CEOs had been on the board of.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “So the thing is, I would say it's not enough, but I'm not an investor, and so you know better. And it depends at which stage you raise money. But one of the things that I used in my Series B was saying, the difference between me raising a Series B and me raising a Series A is now I feel like the business is far more predictable. So it's almost like mathematics where I need to spend X to generate leads and then I need to spend Y in order to convert these leads and then once a person is a customer then I know that I can expect this growth year over year. Or I need a limited amount of money for that to scale. So that might be one of the reasons why you raise is to scale this thing that's working and you need some money. But if you want to ask for more money then what I found being successful is to be able to say on top of this we can change our trajectory and accelerate our growth by doing XYZ.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “So, I guess there are three criteria I use. The first one, which to me is the most important one, is when you feel like it and it's something that a lot of entrepreneurs forget, but one thing where it's very hard to fake it and or to lie to industries is how confident you are in your business. And the reality is, you know, it's a lot of ups and downs. And so there will never be a moment where you're already confident about the business. But there will be moments where you're far more confident about the business because, for example, you've done three quarters in a row with hitting your goals or because you've just made a higher that you think is going to be very impactful, like whatever reason. And then sometimes, you know, things are great on paper, but you just heard about this customer that's going to churn. You just heard about this employee that's thinking about leaving. And so even if people tell you, but you've been growing 3x last year.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “It's a good question. I can tell you what I've done. I don't know if that's the right thing. So first of all, I've always shared some information. I don't think that if you share nothing, people will be excited to meet with you every six months. Now I've always chosen the metric that was the best, obviously. So for example, we have users with companies using the product, we have MR, whatever you choose. I always talked about the one that was the best. But also, I always said that, so let's say I was at 30 kmr. I would say we're at 20kmR. So I would always give a number that's below so that, you know, if I raise it in two months and for some reason, things are not going well in the next two months because you can never predict and I'm a very paranoid person, then at least I have this buffer to show the person that the company has been growing. That's a trick I've used. I don't know if it's a good one.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Would say this advice doesn't really resonate with me because I think it's contradictory in a sense that let's say you've never met any investor between your rounds and then you're meeting new investors and you have a very compressed timeline. The problem is part of the reason why the fundraising will be successful is because of the presentation you are going to do and the metrics that you are going to show. But part of the reason is also because of the relationship you're building, the potential investor that will join your board. And that's very hard in a compressed timeline to build. happy that I could build meaningful relationships with a few investors before our series B so that then the timeline during the Series B was solely about the business and the metrics because the rest which takes months years had been done before so I'd say that my advice would be slightly different I'm not saying you should meet every month with standing this first but I think you need to invest enough in a few key relationships”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “So I think the most challenging is the fact that it never gets easier and it's the opposite. It just gets harder because, you know, in the early days, you just need one customer every week in order to grow 10% week over week. And then now in order to double, triple every year, the amount of things that need to go right from the people we hire to new strategies we implement because what got us here won't get us there. It's just increasingly difficult because the skill is bigger every single month, every single year. And I think it's the same thing. I think it's a misconception that, you know, I thought like when we raised money, then things will be easier, when I hire executives, then things will be easier, when getting funding from CECLA and this amazing brand sharing is joining our board, then you'll have a lot of answers to a lot of my questions. And that's like the reality is, no, it's just harder every day. And I think that's at the end of the day was the hardest ever this company is I can't think, oh, two years from now, things will be fine.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “The case anymore. So, yes, it needs to evolve, but that's not what I have found to be the most hard about scaling this company.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “So, I don't think it's hard, meaning, again, if you're very disciplined in the way you do it. So, you know, we have these outlets today where there is a weekly email, there is a weekly ON, we have these dashboards in the office. Every month we send all the data from the past month. Every quarter, we have a board meeting, and so we'll send the board deck to everyone. And so I'm not constantly thinking, how am I going to scale this transparency or what additional information can I share? every week, every month, every quarter, these are the things that I'm going to share. Obviously, as the company scale, it needs to evolve. So, for example, before everyone knew pretty much everything that's not the case anymore. So during all hands meeting, we introduced this Q&A that's anonymous that anyone can ask questions ahead of time in the relevant person will answer these questions. And that, I think, didn't really make sense in days because you could just come to my desk and ask me or come to my co-founder's desk and ask him.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “some misconception about engagement being created by the energy of announcing good news versus engagement created by the trust and the transparency and the context that you will give to your employees.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “It's definitely a concern, and I think one of our values at Front is transparency. And I always tell people that it's very easy to say that transparency is one of your values and then it's insanely hard to actually live it 100%. And the reason it's hard is because as a human being, whatever there are bad news, then your temptation is to not share it because what you want instead is making sure your team is always as excited as possible. But what I found is people in the team will be engaged because they trust the company. And that's why they will work hard. They won't work hard if every single week we're telling them everything is amazing. We've hit our goals. This is just not the reality of a business, like a business will go through ups and downs. And, you know, when eight things out of ten are going well, then two things are not going well. And it's super important for the team to know so that they can focus their energy on bringing these things back on track. So I think there is.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yeah, so every week Olehens meeting, I show revenue, so meaning every single week they know exactly how much shurn we've had, how much expansion we've had, and how much new business we've had. And we divide that by the different teams. So, for example, EMEA plus the US plus the channel team. I've always done that, and I found it very important because, you know, it's not that I obsess over revenue. It's just that I think there are just so many things that need to go right in order for revenue to keep increasing consistently at the rate you've decided was a good rate. And I think sometimes it's hard to do them because sometimes you're not hitting your goals. And every single week, you're saying, okay, we've not done our goal again last week. But I think that's the only way for people to work on the exact right things. And so I've just kept doing them and I will keep doing them. And I think also giving context on why we're great.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “To read and then the time to prepare the questions you've asked me to prepare. And what I found is, I think it's really great for me because I learn a lot and I have the peace of mind that every month will be able to talk about how you're feeling at work. But I think for you, then it gives you the opportunity to reflect every single month about what could be different for you to be happier. And that's been a very effective tool to make sure that engagement of employees was super high.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “So I'm actually going to publish a medium post about this early next week because when I think about the tools we've used to create a great culture, I think one-on-ones is probably the most powerful tool we've used. And so I want to share in this article how we do them. So the way we do them is we have weekly one-on-ones and monthly one-on-ones, weekly one-on-ones about work and monthly one-on-ones are just about happiness. And so monthly one-on-ones, let's say I have a monthly one-on-one with you this week, I will send you an email a few days before on Monday asking you a few questions. And in these questions, you will always find one in the past month, what have you been most happy about, two in the past months, what have you been least happy about? What can I do to make your professional life better? Any feedback questions for me? And then on top of this, I will add some other questions. And I will expect you to think about it and send me your answers at least 24 hours before so that I have the”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Have company OMs. That's what I do company wide now for my direct reports. They do something different, where at the beginning of every week, so 10 a.m. every Monday morning, they receive an email explaining what my priorities for the week are because usually their priorities are somewhat correlated with my priorities. And so for them to receive it will give them more guidance on where they should focus their time on. So I'm doing this. And on top of that, I also have some communication happening when one-on-ones are happening, but that's a different topic. So I will leave it for now.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “There are many ways I communicate internally. And first, company-wide, I do two things. One is I send an email every Monday morning or Sunday night. It used to be Sunday nights, and now I care about work-life balance more than before. And therefore, it's Monday morning. And I explain everything that we've done in the past week, everything that's going to be done next week. And I've been doing that since I started France, and I have only missed sending this email once, which was when Demode was happening, which was really crazy. But otherwise, I've always sended and I've never had any excuse for not sending it. So that's how I do my communication internally, just to make sure everyone is on the same page. On top of that, we have an all hands where not everything can be described in an email. Like if I want a new hire to present themselves, I want to demo something for the product, then OLENS is better. So every Monday morning, 9 a.m. PT, which is 6 p.m. Paris time, we have”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Backend engineer, and do you know any company that would be interested in using Front? Imagine a investor that's super busy in receiving this. It's very hard for them to know, oh, I can think of this company this could use Front, or I know this backend engineer. And instead, if you say, here is a list of companies that we would love to talk to because I think they could be a good front customer, and here is specifically the person we want to talk to. For example, the CEO. So now the question is, do you know the CEO at company XYZ? That's far easier for an investor to say yes or no than saying who do you think could be a front customer?”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “So there are, I think, three advice that I give. The first one is you should choose the metrics that you will track and you should not change them. Too often, I've seen entrepreneurs, for example, track revenue and then maybe revenue is not going as well as expected. So all of a sudden we'll switch to DAUs because DAUs is going better. I think that's the wrong thing to do. So pickometric and make sure it grows and have no excuse for this metric not to grow. And if it doesn't grow, just be very transparent about the fact that it's not growing and just show what you're doing in order for this metric to grow. Every month. I mean, so I recommend every month because I think every week is too much work. And when you're early every quarter is too long. But if you don't want to do it every month, I think that's fine. And advice number three is be very precise in the asks that you have for your investors. So for example, at the end of the day, every founder wants more customers and new hires. But if you're saying, do you know any...”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Right. So I think the thing is discipline for funders will be different from discipline for, like, for example, a salesperson, a product person. And so I don't think there is a sales person.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “So, I guess it's like, of course, you should ask what's the grand vision and why could it be the single biggest company that has been created in the past 20 years? And every investor wants that. And that's fine. But I think it's all about the weight that you'll put in that. And I think you can put a 10% weight. That's important. But 90% should be, okay, now how confident I am that the person can execute on this grand vision because it's super easy to say this is how big my company could be and this is insanely hard to make it happen. So I guess now then the question is how can you test for discipline? And that's a harder question. But I would really encourage you to try to assess that when you meet entrepreneurs.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “So there are a few things. One is I actually think it doesn't matter if you don't have a grand vision from day one because as soon as you know that you're operating in a market that could be huge, then you have all the time you need to figure out what will be step two, step three, and then step 10 of your strategy. So I can tell you very honestly that the vision of Front I fished during our series B18 months ago is very, very different from the vision I had pitched after my seed round or series A round. So that's one. You'll have time to figure out your vision. And then two is I believe that success will happen only if you're consistent. I've not found any other way to be consistent than a ton of discipline. So that's the reason why I think one is more important than the other.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “It's a good question. I think it's as simple as having some rules and following them and having no excuse for no following them. I think bringing a lot of consistency in everything that you're doing.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “So I think it wasn't a hard decision just because we didn't do it at once, meaning we first moved for Y combinator, which was a three-month program. So then I thought after three months, I will have a better idea whether I would enjoy being here and my team would enjoy being here. And then after YC, I decided to move here, but the French team went back to France so that we could figure out the visa situation. So it actually took a year and a half. So it's not like one day I'm telling the team guys were moving to San Francisco. It was a collaborative process and therefore was a pretty easy one.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “I started this company five years ago. Before that, I had only been working for one year in a startup. So, you know, my work experience is limited. I think since I was a kid, I wanted to start a company. And the reason for that is very naive. It is I wanted to create a place where I would be happy to come to work every day and hopefully other people would be happy to come to work every day. And that's really why I started this company. So then I met my co-founder in Paris. I didn't know that I would move to San Francisco. Most of our customers were in San Francisco, so then we moved. And now we're here and we have 130 employees, 5,000 customers. And I'm talking to you for the second time, which probably means that we've done a few things right.”

    2019-05-24 · The Twenty Minute VC · 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 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source