🎙️ New episode. The email that led to a reported $100M acquisition by Meta landed in his spam folder.

Leon Szeli, CDTM alum and founder of Presize (sold to Meta in 2022 after raising ~3 million in total), who is now building Valorian, a community for exited founders, joined Tarak and Hanano to talk about scrappy growth, the exit, and life after it.

Here's what we unpacked:
🚪 CDTM said no three times before he got in, and Meta rejected him before it acquired him. Why he keeps aiming at things he probably won't get.
🛠️ Presize started in CDTM's Managing Product Development (MPD) course. Leon's pitch for it: you can leave a course with slides, or with a product, first customers and revenue. "There is no downside."
🍺 Every AI startup has the same chicken-and-egg problem: you need users to get data and data to get users. One of Presize's first fixes was throwing parties with free beer in exchange for body measurements.
💸 Outcome-based pricing before it was a buzzword. They A/B tested their size recommendations in a brand's shop and only charged a share of the extra revenue after returns.
🧑‍💻 Hiring the people big tech overlooks: coding tests instead of CV filters, visa support, and engineers who used to be lawyers and kindergarten teachers.
📈 How a acquistion like that is actually structured: 50% cash, 50% stock over four years. His summary of the earn-out: "Just don't die and don't quit."

Tune in now: https://lnkd.in/dhtFg6hq

Originally posted on LinkedIn · View the original post