191 - Waseem Daher of Pilot: What I Learned From Selling My First Two Startups

Nick Hughes is joined by Waseem Daher CEO and Cofounder of Pilot, from San Francisco. Waseem is the CEO and co-founder of Pilot, which specializes in bookkeeping, tax, and CFO services for high-growth technology startups. He is a three-time entrepreneur with two successful exits: his first company, Ksplice, was acquired by Oracle in 2011 and his second, Zulip, was acquired by Dropbox in 2014. He has a degree in computer science from MIT.

The episode starts with Nick and Waseem talking about his  journey into startups and entrepreneurship. They touch on his previous acquisitions and what things he learned from those previous startups.  Waseem shares how they situated the startups for an attractive exit and what he learned in the proces. They then discuss how to best work with your cofounding team and as a technical founder, what did he most have to invest in/uplevel to gain success in the position. They then shift to talk about Pilot and illustrate the differences with Pilot from more traditional back office accounting and CFO services. The conversation ends with Waseem mentioning what the biggest mistakes he sees startup founders make and general advice to startups and how should we be navigating this downturn. This is a fun and informative conversation with an very experienced entrepreneur, we hope it helps you today.

https://pilot.com/offer/founderslive