Markus Villig is the Founder and CEO of Bolt, a global mobility platform with more than 200 million lifetime customers in more than 50 countries and 600 cities. Bolt has raised over €1 billion in funding from investors like Sequoia, D1 and G Squared, making Markus the youngest founder of a billion-dollar company in Europe.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:55) The Story About Founding Bolt
(08:17) Finding a Co-Founder
(12:36) The First Steps After Launching
(15:56) How Did Bolt Run Thousands of Trips on $5,000 While Others Need Millions?
(18:38) Meeting the First Investor
(19:13) Should Startups Go Global vs. Focus Locally First?
(23:29) Key Lessons on Effective Driver Supply
(26:43) A Market That Surprised Most & Market Expansion
(36:22) Entering Markets as a Second or Third Player? Is That a Viable Strategy?
(37:56) What Broke First in Bolt’s Expansion
(39:41) Is Speed the Most Important Thing?
(40:28) Fundraising After Expansion
(44:16) Why VCs Didn’t Support Back Then
(46:56) Raising From $1M to $100M
(48:48) Execution After Raising
(49:57) Bolt’s Growth Profile
(50:49) Moment When Other Investors Couldn’t Ignore Bolt
(52:53) What Bolt Did in Covid Time with 85% Revenue Loss
(58:23) Hiring Mistakes
(01:02:04) Opinion on UK/European Funding Environment
(01:04:24) Do VCs Add Value?
(01:04:57) Expanding to Other Categories of Service
(01:06:43) Why Paris Was the Worst City to Launch Micro-mobility
(01:09:35) How Bolt Was Making Their Own Scooters
(01:12:22) About Self-Driving
(01:15:31) Where Is Uber Better, and Where Does Bolt Lead?
(01:17:16) What Product Line Does the Smallest in Revenue
(01:19:27) Unmade Decisions
(01:20:40) Quick-Fire Round
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In Today’s Episode with Markus Villig:
1. Starting an $8BN Company:
- How did Markus come up with the idea for Bolt before Uber existed?
- How did Markus find his co-founder? Why did 30 people turn down the chance to co-found Bolt? - -- What are Markus’ biggest tips on finding a co-founder?
- How did Markus use a $5K loan from his parents as the pre-seed round?
- How did Markus get the first riders for Bolt? What worked? What did not work?
- How did Markus get the first driver for Bolt? What worked? What did not work?
2. Expanding to be a Global Champion:
- How did Markus expand Bolt to $10M in ARR on just $1M of funding?
- What did the international expansion playbook look like? What worked? What did not work? How has it changed over time?
- What one simple change led to their becoming the leader in Africa?
- What was the best country to launch? What was the worst?
- What is the most profitable country today? What is the least?
3. The $8BN Company that no VC Wanted to Fund:
- Why did every large VC in Europe turn down Bolt early on?
- How did a real estate company in the Baltics save Bolt with lifeline funding?
- When did Sequoia come into the mix? Does Sequoia move the needle for your company when they invest?
- How do New York financially driven investors differ to the traditional VC ecosystem?
- What would Markus most like to change about the world of VC?
4. The Future: Micromobility, Self-Driving Cars, Uber:
- Will the rise of self-driving cars harm or help companies like Bolt and Uber?
- What is the future for micromobility? Does it cannibalise the core business for Bolt and Uber?
- What is Uber better at Bolt doing? What are Uber worse at than Bolt? How will that change moving forward?
- Waymo, buy or short? Why?
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