Laura Bilazarian's guest appearances

Laura Bilazarian

The Official SaaStr Podcast: SaaS | Founders | Investors

Diva Tech Talk Podcast

HR Examiner Podcasts with John Sumser

Keith Rabois

Mike McDerment

Laura Roeder

Ashley Smith

Matt Murphy

Garry Tan

Todd Olson

Ben Uretsky

Liz Wessel

Brad Feld

Kleiner Perkins

John Doerr

Jack Altman

Mathilde Collin

George Anders

OwlTail

HRExaminer Radio Executive Conversations w/ Laura Bilazarian | Oct 5 - 8 AM PDT

Diva Tech Talk interviewed former investment banker and social entrepreneur, Laura Bilazarian, CEO and Founder of Teamable (https://teamable.com), accelerating any company’s ability to hire top talent by “smarter recruiting through social networks.”  A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business (https://www.wharton.upenn.edu/ ), with a degree in economics, Laura wanted to work at Google. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have the guts to go there without affirmation from my classmates.”  Instead, her first job was at Miller Buckfire  (http://www.millerbuckfire.com) an internationally recognized investment bank. “I traveled the world, and ended up doing private equity in Vietnam,” she said. In the early throes of her career, Laura also played professional rugby, on the #1 award-winning national U.S. women’s team, strengthening her ability to work in teams, problem-solve, and stay calm under pressure. She observed that “What stops you from coming in first is your own mental state.”  She quickly moved to the declarative sentence. “Instead of saying we could win a national championship, I started saying we WILL win.” As she got deeper into investment banking, Laura said “at some point, I just felt that the work was meaningless. I read Mother Teresa’s letters to God and I had a period of introspection.  What is another way I can impact the world?”  She traveled to Armenia, and observed that “tech is a place where you can all win together. We could all use data to connect people to the right work.” She conceived the concept, that became Teamable, and launched a Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com ) campaign around it. She continued to pursue investment banking, co-founding a fund devoted to Armenian companies; and Teamable’s development and data science activities also all take place in Armenia. While raising money for her own company, Laura’s investment banking background afforded insight into what investors were looking for. “I think that’s something that every CEO should learn,” she said. “Do something, like financial modeling, to really understand ‘where are the levers’ in your business. Not all levers are created equal.”   Laura’s three co-founders are technical whizzes – Armenian data scientists and crackerjack programmers.  “The hardest math we did on Wall Street, they were doing in 5th grade.” Laura moved operations to San Francisco; met with Silicon Valley denizens including the top analytics team at Google; and continuously began to validate the approach and build the Teamable company and customer base. She pitched her first successful financing round at well-known Greylock Partners (www.greylock.com/), where they found an angel investor willing to take a chance on Teamable. Highly egalitarian, Laura said that it simply became obvious that, when pitching, she should initially take the title of CEO. “I really don’t know when I earned it,” she said. “Maybe it was with the first money raised, or the first customer signed.” (NOTE:  40-person Teamable has raised over $5 million in its A round of investment, and has over 90 customers, to date.  The company has quadrupled in size since February, 2017). Laura stresses that “really being honest” in terms of feedback is crucial in the Teamable culture. “I want it to be radically transparent,” she said. She also prizes a hard work ethic.  “Where you make the margin is work ethic.  It’s discipline. It’s going above and beyond.”  Finally, she is creating an environment focused on hyper-growth. “Never feeling comfortable; continuing to challenge ourselves.”  Laura admits that her past two years were unbalanced and “a little dark.”  But she thinks it is the direct cause of Teamable’s success. “If you maniacally commit to anything, for two years, you will succeed.” Ever an ambitious learner, Laura is spurred by her technology colleagues and her access to Silicon Valley brain trusts. “I took the whole machine-learning course on Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/) at 2x speed, over a weekend.”  Lean Startup is a book that Laura would recommend any would-be startup founder reading. “I can’t stand anything that seems like a problem,” Laura summed herself up and affirmed that “It’s super-scary to leave what you’ve done. But you can do it!” For the full blog write up, make sure to check us out on online at www.divatechtalk.com, on Twitter @divatechtalks, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/divatechtalk. Follow our show and tell us what you like with an online review.

Diva Tech Talk interviewed former investment banker and social entrepreneur, Laura Bilazarian, CEO and Founder of Teamable (<a href="https://teamable.com/home/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://teamable.com</a>), accelerating any company’s ability to hire top talent by “smarter recruiting through social networks.”  A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business (<a href="https://www.wharton.upenn.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.wharton.upenn.edu/</a> ), with a degree in economics, Laura wanted to work at Google. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have the guts to go there without affirmation from my classmates.”  Instead, her first job was at Miller Buckfire  (<a href="http://www.millerbuckfire.com/?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_company%3B7Hf0Yf7bQB6O8R7F3OxY5Q%3D%3D" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.millerbuckfire.com</a>) an internationally recognized investment bank. “I traveled the world, and ended up doing private equity in Vietnam,” she said. In the early throes of her career, Laura also played professional rugby, on the #1 award-winning national U.S. women’s team, strengthening her ability to work in teams, problem-solve, and stay calm under pressure. She observed that “What stops you from coming in first is your own mental state.”  She quickly moved to the declarative sentence. “Instead of saying we could win a national championship, I started saying we WILL win.” As she got deeper into investment banking, Laura said “at some point, I just felt that the work was meaningless. I read Mother Teresa’s letters to God and I had a period of introspection.  What is another way I can impact the world?”  She traveled to Armenia, and observed that “tech is a place where you can all win together. We could all use data to connect people to the right work.” She conceived the concept, that became Teamable, and launched a Kickstarter (<a href="http://www.kickstarter.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.kickstarter.com</a> ) campaign around it. She continued to pursue investment banking, co-founding a fund devoted to Armenian companies; and Teamable’s development and data science activities also all take place in Armenia. While raising money for her own company, Laura’s investment banking background afforded insight into what investors were looking for. “I think that’s something that every CEO should learn,” she said. “Do something, like financial modeling, to really understand ‘where are the levers’ in your business. Not all levers are created equal.”   Laura’s three co-founders are technical whizzes – Armenian data scientists and crackerjack programmers.  “The hardest math we did on Wall Street, they were doing in 5th grade.” Laura moved operations to San Francisco; met with Silicon Valley denizens including the top analytics team at Google; and continuously began to validate the approach and build the Teamable company and customer base. She pitched her first successful financing round at well-known Greylock Partners (<a href="http://www.greylock.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.greylock.com/</a>), where they found an angel investor willing to take a chance on Teamable. Highly egalitarian, Laura said that it simply became obvious that, when pitching, she should initially take the title of CEO. “I really don’t know when I earned it,” she said. “Maybe it was with the first money raised, or the first customer signed.” (NOTE:  40-person Teamable has raised over $5 million in its A round of investment, and has over 90 customers, to date.  The company has quadrupled in size since February, 2017). Laura stresses that “really being honest” in terms of feedback is crucial in the Teamable culture. “I want it to be radically transparent,” she said. She also prizes a hard work ethic.  “Where you make the margin is work ethic.  It’s discipline. It’s going above and beyond.”  Finally, she is creating an environment focused on hyper-growth. “Never feeling comfortable; continuing to challenge ourselves.”  Laura admits that her past two years were unbalanced and “a little dark.”  But she thinks it is the direct cause of Teamable’s success. “If you maniacally commit to anything, for two years, you will succeed.” Ever an ambitious learner, Laura is spurred by her technology colleagues and her access to Silicon Valley brain trusts. “I took the whole machine-learning course on Coursera (<a href="https://www.coursera.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.coursera.org/</a>) at 2x speed, over a weekend.”  Lean Startup is a book that Laura would recommend any would-be startup founder reading. “I can’t stand anything that seems like a problem,” Laura summed herself up and affirmed that “It’s super-scary to leave what you’ve done. But you can do it!” For the full blog write up, make sure to check us out on online at <a href="http://www.divatechtalk.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.divatechtalk.com</a>, on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/DivaTechTalks" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">@divatechtalks</a>, and on Facebook at <a href="http://four.libsyn.com/h" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.facebook.com/divatechtalk</a>. Follow our show and tell us what you like with an online review.

Ep 56: Laura Bilazarian: Not You Can, but You WILL Win

Laura Bilazarian is the Founder &amp; CEO @ Teamable, the startup that allows you to recruit the best talent from your network. They have raised funding from some stellar investors including the likes of True Ventures and SaaStr. As for Laura, she started out her career on Wall St before making forays into the world of Vietnamese hotel building and being a National Rugby Champion. Laura has also spent time with the likes of Fairmount Partners where she worked on dozens of M&amp;A transactions to large public companies. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:  How did Laura make her way from Wall St to rugby captain to founder of SaaS startup, Teamable? Why does Laura believe that “you should always be premium”? What are the benefits to this? How does this affect how Laura views both freemium versions of products and free trials? Why does Laura believe that you have to “create an outbound sales culture as early as possible”? Why is this? Does this change according to the differing customer profiles? How can SaaS businesses aid in the closing of their clients? What can they do to make this process as seamless and easy as possible? What are the requirements for this process? Why does Laura believe there are only ‘2 ways to hire’? What are those 2 ways? What methods of inbound applications must be ignored? How can founders ensure continued quality when hiring at scale?  60 Second SaaStr  What does Laura know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning? What is Laura’s fave SaaS reading materials? Competitive advantages of being a female CEO?  If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Laura Bilazarian

<a href="https://twitter.com/LauraBilazarian" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Laura Bilazarian</a> is the Founder &amp; CEO @ <a href="https://teamable.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Teamable</a>, the startup that allows you to recruit the best talent from your network. They have raised funding from some stellar investors including the likes of True Ventures and SaaStr. As for Laura, she started out her career on Wall St before making forays into the world of Vietnamese hotel building and being a National Rugby Champion. Laura has also spent time with the likes of Fairmount Partners where she worked on dozens of M&amp;A transactions to large public companies. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: <ul> <li>How did Laura make her way from Wall St to rugby captain to founder of SaaS startup, Teamable?</li> <li>Why does Laura believe that “you should always be premium”? What are the benefits to this? How does this affect how Laura views both freemium versions of products and free trials?</li> <li>Why does Laura believe that you have to “create an outbound sales culture as early as possible”? Why is this? Does this change according to the differing customer profiles?</li> <li>How can SaaS businesses aid in the closing of their clients? What can they do to make this process as seamless and easy as possible? What are the requirements for this process?</li> <li>Why does Laura believe there are only ‘2 ways to hire’? What are those 2 ways? What methods of inbound applications must be ignored? How can founders ensure continued quality when hiring at scale?</li> </ul> 60 Second SaaStr <ol> <li>What does Laura know now that she wishes she had known at the beginning?</li> <li>What is Laura’s fave SaaS reading materials?</li> <li>Competitive advantages of being a female CEO?</li> </ol> If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonlk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jason Lemkin</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Harry Stebbings</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/saastr" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">SaaStr</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/LauraBilazarian" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Laura Bilazarian</a>

SaaStr 125: Why You Should Always Be Premium? Why You Have To Create An Outbound Sales Culture As Early As Possible & Why There Are Only 2 Real Ways To Hire with Laura Bilazarian, Founder & CEO @ Teamable