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Transcript of our conversation with Daniel Kivatinos:
Immad Akhund:
- Welcome to the Founders In Arms podcast with me, Immad Akhund, founder and CEO of Mercury.
Raj Suri:
-And I'm Raj Suri, founder of Lima and Tribe.
Immad Akhund:
-Alright, today we have Daniel Kivatinos. He is currently the founder of GetPaid, and before that he founded a company called DrChrono. Welcome to the pod, Daniel.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Yeah, it's great to be on. Thank you guys for having me.
Immad Akhund:
- Give us like a very quick, like ten second description of your new company and where your old company did, and I guess you exited it. Congratulations. I know that was a few years ago, but tell us a little bit about that.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Yeah, no, thank you. Yeah, my new company is GetPaid. Basically we are a way to collect the revenue for any company in the United States using AI and basically allowing people to do it with less people, leveraging all the new AI technology that's out there today. My older company, which was DrChrono was the very first medical record on the iPad and we launched that and it was a huge success. Sold that company a few years ago and it was a really, really fun journey. But it was medical focused startup.
Immad Akhund:
- Is the acquisition price public or is it private?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- If you dig, you can find information, but I generally just keep quiet and then people make their own assumptions about what the price was and you know, I just kind of don't say anything, but you could probably Google some, some stuff.
Immad Akhund:
- I’m sure Daniel said it was one of the highest acquisition prices for any Y Combinator company, so there, we'll keep it, we'll keep it vague like that. Let's see. So there's so much to talk about here, Daniel. I think I kind of want to talk about the acquisition process and you know, I sold my previous company and yeah, I guess Raj went public, so maybe he doesn't have any good acquisition stories, but maybe before we do that, Raj has a fun story about an intern, which is completely unrelated to Daniel. So we were just talking about a second ago, so I want to finish the end of that story.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, we were talking before the show about, you know, crazy intern stories. It sounded like you might have had some, some interns as well that were off the hook, but yeah, it'd be hard to beat my story. So it's at some point, you know, at Presto we had 30 people working out of a house in Palo Alto. You know, it it, we had a ragtag bunch for sure, but it was, you know, we were becoming a professional company selling to big enterprise chains, but you know, I was still at this moment where I was sleeping on the floor of the, you know, the house every day. So that's, that's where I lived actually. It was in that, in that house, you know, but, but we were working there all the time as well. So it was a little bit like the Facebook house, which, you know, which we had back in the day as well. It was only a couple years before us. And so we, we had this intern who was just with us for like, you know, eight weeks or so. He seemed like a very normal person, you know, seemed like a great guy. Very kind living in East Palo Alto and, you know, everything was going great. One day though, I was sleeping, you know, in this house alone at night and someone opened my bedroom door and it's this guy and he comes in and he grabs my wallet off my desk while I'm there and sleeping. And I hear other voices like these with other people and he just walks out and I'm like, what just happened? I'm like, gimme back my wallet. And I just hear like a bunch of people talking and, you know, in this house. And, and then they walk away and, and I'm call and I call him, I'm like, what's going on? He just came into my wallet and he, he's just like laughing maniacally like, like a crazy person. Okay. Like, yeah. And, and I'm like, what's going on? I, I leave the house, I'm like, I'm panicking. I'm like, you know, it is just gonna be like, I didn't feel safe or secure at all. I mean, somebody just walked in and, you know, took my wallet and, and you know, it didn't seem like he was nor in a normal state, you know? Yeah. It seemed like, you know, the beginning of like a superhero movie or something, you know, like, and so it, it, it was, and then, so I was like, I'm driving around Palo Alto trying to figure out what to do, calling all my employees, trying to figure out what's going on with this guy. And they, I got a call from the police and they said, Hey, we, we picked up this guy who is like, you know, on some drugs and, you know, we found your wallet with no cash in it, but, but had your, had your driver's license, so we just called you and you could come pick it up. And we had to take this guy to jail, you know, 'cause he was, he went around Stanford actually like defacing Stanford, like putting graffiti on Oh wow. On like, on all, you know, different buildings of Stanford. And so vandalizing Stanford basically. And so got went to get my wallet, you know, found a different place to stay. I went to stay at a hotel. I didn't wanna stay there. And it turned out he, he had, he had gone with some like, or he had combined with some of East Palo Alto drug people and like, you know, gone in with the wrong crowd. And I guess they had like asked him for money for drugs. So he came in and, you know, grabbed my wallet instead. So I don't know what drugs he was on. I didn't, we didn't have that kind of conversation.
Immad Akhund:
- No, that's a crazy story.
Raj Suri:
- But, but it doesn't end there actually.
Immad Akhund:
- Oh, really?
Raj Suri:
-Yeah. I mean, I obviously fired him the next day, but he kept coming to the office. He kept showing up and, and like, you, you and, and, and you kept keep showing up at the house like at random times. Even when, like after.
Immad Akhund:
- What college was he from? Was he from Stanford?
Raj Suri:
- No, no, he was from east coast, like technical school.
Immad Akhund:
- Okay.
Raj Suri:
- And he just kept showing up to the house and, and he was kind of harassing me actually after that. So, you know, I, I guess CEO security is a thing now, you know, hopefully after what, after this week. Right. You know, you got a CEO shot. But I felt very insecure, you know, and then I then I started to think like, how do I like protect myself, right? And then, then after, you know, I went to the police and I went to like the court and I asked them like, what do I do here? You have to get a restraining order, but the restraining order doesn't really do anything. Like, it doesn't like, you know, you have to wait till that person is within a certain amount of time and then you can call the police. It's like basically nobody was helpful. Then you start realizing why people buy guns. You know, how it's because they need to protect themselves or you need to hire a security guard, basically. But yeah, that, that continued for a while until finally I think his parents ended up kept coming and taking him away to rehab and like, yeah, he still was, was on trial and stuff like that. So yeah, it, it was a, it was not a good experience. And you know, I would say it's one of the risks of being a, a founder, CEOI think is like you, you become a target.
Immad Akhund:
- Well, I've never had something quite as bad as that. We used to just hire interns after like, literally one coding test, one conversation. I was like, wow, you did the coding test. Yeah, welcome in. It was like such a, such a low bar. And then half the time they were like productive and other half of the time they were like a complete disaster. That's, but that's the way it was. Are you going any crazy intense stories, Daniel?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I mean, I, yeah, I would say I have a couple. I mean, there was one time I had a, I went to Chipotle in Palo Alto actually. And I'm like, this, this kid is so friendly, we should just hire him for our company and have do sales. And then literally I walk up to the kid and I'm like, Hey, you know, thank you for the Chipotle, but we're a startup. And he is like, what's a startup? I have a lot of fun intern stories. And then, and the guy, the kid quit his job like that week and just started trying to sell for our company. And literally I think we changed his life. He works in San Francisco now. He's been in San Francisco like several years.
Immad Akhund:
- Wait, so was he successful, like at your company?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I, I would say, it was his first job. So it was, it was bumpy, but he was getting, he was learning so much so fast about startups. I saw him absorbing so much in that world. I, I would say it changed his life because he just was in cells. The rest of his, I, I haven't spoken to him in like five years, but, you know, wow. He, he's been, you know, he called me five years ago and he is like, Hey, I'm in San Francisco and I'm in cells and doing this thing. And he is like, thank you so much for the, the, the chance and whatnot. So he was, he was pretty, I would say successful. A lot of people just leave sales and just…
Immad Akhund:
- What was the, what was the vibe he had that you were like, I need to bring this person in?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- You know, this is something I realized. It's like, I, I call it like the, the Disney vibe. There's a type of person that just has this like, charm about them, and then they just try to like, make everybody feel good around them. And, and you know, I, I notice it here and there and that's like when I'm in the, like, looking for salespeople, it's like one of these things where I, you know, you, you might find it in somebody, but you know, it's, a lot of people are already professional salespeople. He just was literally working at Chipotle and, you know, you're like, oh, this is, you could recruit here. Go figure. You could recruit anyone. You could recruit.
Raj Suri:
- I've had many of those sort of instances. I, I tried to once recruit like my car dealer sales person, you know, like, you know, because he was, he was actually a pretty, you know, because sales person. But I've recruited, I've, I've recruited waiters, you know, to come work with us. Oh, we were working in restaurant tech, so like, it actually made sense, but I just found like a waiter who's, who seemed really energetic and passionate about, you know, technology. I'm like, okay, come work with us. You know, you have to, you have to look for talent everywhere, right?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Yeah. I remember a guy came to our offices once and he was selling me Zipcar, you know, Zipcar, you guys remember zip car? Yeah. I dunno if it's still around or not, but I'm like, how about you worked for me? And the guy literally was like, oh, I'll do it. So like, when people are trying to sell you stuff.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, yeah.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I literally flip it, the script in my head and I'm like, if this is actually a pretty good salesperson, and I'm like, how do I convince them to work for me? And I've, I've done that a few times successfully. So like, as an entrepreneur, you're so busy in your day, it's like, if someone's gonna try to sell you something and you like the person or actually doing an interview right in front of you, it's like, oh, this is great. But I haven't had horror, I haven't had horror stories like Raj. So I, I, yeah.
Immad Akhund:
- Eventually you'll become jaded, Daniel.
Raj Suri:
-Yeah, I I've had like other crazy stories too, but we can go into, I've had like one like it person who turned out to be like a Nazi, who again seemed like a perfectly normal person while he was working with us, but he worked on a boat. I might have told you the story, Immad, but Yeah, I think he, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then he be, he joined like the Nazi party. And actually, I mean, ran for election in California? He ran for election as a Nazi party member.
Immad Akhund:
-Nazi?
Raj Suri:
-Yeah. Yeah.
Immad Akhund:
-Wow. Was his work good?
Raj Suri:
- It was okay. It wasn't great,
Immad Akhund:
- Not enough to make up for his [Unclear].
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. It, it was, [His Work] was like nothing great or nothing terrible.
Immad Akhund:
- Just enough not to get fired, I guess.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah. But like, he was with us for like a year or two and none of us would've suspected that.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Wow. That is crazy. How do you even detect for that, how do you even like, look for that? You know? It's like on the interview it's like you get a resume, you talk to them and it's like, how do you find those…
Immad Akhund:
- I mean, also you don't want to discriminate against political views, but obviously this is like beyond the pale. Yeah, but you can't ask them like, what are your political views? Like, tell, tell me about it.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- That's true. That's true.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah.
Raj Suri:
- But, but maybe we're touching something related to that. One thing related to that is like, tweets. Like, like, do you guys like do a check on people's tweets or public statements? 'cause there are sometimes like extreme things that are put out there. You know, for example, if someone tweeted in the past five years, like, oh, I like beating up women or something like that, right? Like, we haven't had that situation, but we did have situation where people had very like, sort of edgy tweets and then actually other employees discovered it and said that made them uncomfortable. Do you guys ever have that situation?
Immad Akhund:
- I feel like people have got better about their social media presence. I think that's like a five, eight years ago situation. I can imagine it happening. And I think it has happened. But yeah, recently nothing like that. Like as Mercury has scaled, I feel like everyone's like very aware of like their public persona.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Hmm. I mean, I, I look, of course I look, you know, and you get a sense of somebody when you're looking at their social media. I mean whatever, whatever they put out there, they put out there, they don't realize it, but you just are looking and you're like, okay, this is, they're doing this, they're doing that, and whatever, you know, it's, it's just part of someone's life. So I don't, I don't, I try not to judge too much, but if there's like a red flag, if they're holding like, I don't know, something like, like a Nazi flag, I'd be like, all right,
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- That's, that's a no go for us. That's not good.
Immad Akhund:
- But, you know, every now and then I say something and I, and I mean to say it in a very like, you know, oh, I'm just being useful or just saying something and then people misconstrue it like so extremely. So like, yeah, like sometimes an innocent thing can be like very much misconstrued. So I would worry about like just looking at someone's like social media and not giving them a chance to explain.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Yeah, I mean that's really true. True. Yeah. You have to give them a chance.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah. Yeah.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I think if someone's holding like a beer bottle or whatever they're even, it's, even if it's political views, I really don't look at that. I'm looking for like red flags, like extreme red flags.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah, of course.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Someone holding a knife to someone's throat or something. Like, oh, what's happening there that doesn't look safe?
Immad Akhund:
- What do we think about this? Kinda, sorry to kind of turn the topic on something a bit negative. Yeah, the United Healthcare CEO was shot down in Manhattan. I dunno if you've seen the video clip. It was kind of a crazy, crazy clip. And I guess the most disturbing thing was so many people on the internet saying, wow, that's a good thing because you know, these health insurance companies are evil. Or something like that. I guess like two things, like, you know, is this gonna change the way people think about security? I mean, I feel like America's generally a high trust society where, you know, you can, you can access billionaires, right? Especially in Silicon Valley, they're like kinda around and just living a normal life. Ah, I guess I'll touch on that first.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- It's a weird case because I think healthcare touches everybody in all these different ways. Like, I don't know the situation. I actually didn't look into it all. I just heard about it from a few friends and, and what's going on in someone's mind when like, I don't know, their mom has cancer and they get denied coverage. Like people get really emotional, right? Yeah. And their mom has like two months to live. It's like people just are not in their right mind at that moment. And it's not good. And healthcare is just one of those areas that people just get emotional. It it just like plain and simple. Like if people are dying, if someone in your family is like, really? And like, I'll give you another example. Like, like, you know, they have these specialty meds that one pill could be like $5,000. You know, if they deny you one pill, like that literally could change your life. And it's really scary and God knows what happened in this situation. It just, healthcare is just a tough topic because it, it's meshed with corporations and you know, profits and all of that. Yeah. So you bring these two together, it's, it's a really stressful environment and you're creating a stressor, which is, you know, unlike other areas like with like people that buy iPhones, it's like, your phone broke, you know, you're gonna be angry, you lost some photos, you know, but you're not, like your family member is not ill. I don't even know what happened in this situation with this, this person. I, I really didn't look into the, the, so I'm just making assumptions in my head.
Immad Akhund:
- I don't think anyone knows yet. But it's new today.
Raj Suri:
- There's new today that like the bullet casings had like, like words on them.
Immad Akhund:
- Etchings on them.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah. Like deny and delay. So I think we gotta kind of get a sense of the motive there.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah, it was definitely motivated by that. Yeah. I find a, you know, I'm from the UK so the US system was like crazy to me. 'cause I'm like, okay, you know, it is a crazy system because you've got these private incentives and then there's so much regulation and like, and socialism like the US spends way more money on healthcare purpose and like the government does than the UK does. I dunno about Canada, but people complain in the UK all the time as well, right? Like, so it's not like necessarily like, hey, if it was government run, it would just be suddenly better. Like people are just continuously, like, there's less extreme stuff. Like if you have cancer, you get treatment. But anything that, like, you're not immediately dying. You can be delayed for years. Like, you know, my mom had an incident, it took like two years to get treated and I was in the US it would've been treated within a month probably, and it was massively reducing her quality of life during that time period. So yeah, I dunno what a better answer is, but the US answer definitely seems like not correct.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, there's two things here, right? So one is, I think security for CEOs and, and key people in, or just executives at companies. I was interested to read about like the stats on how much like meta spends on security, right? And like Elon for example, has a lot of, spends many millions of dollars on his own. Security has his own security company, like it's an LLC that like his companies pay to, to keep Elon secure, which makes sense. This
Immad Akhund:
- Is a $540 billion company. I'm actually surprised he doesn't have like someone tailing him from security.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, yeah, that's right. I mean, at some scale you need to have, I would say at a much smaller scale even, you know, you, you know, probably when you're in the billions you probably want, you know, the founders ceo….
Immad Akhund:
-Especially when you’re in a sensitive industry, right? Like I think there's, if you're doing like, I dunno, B2B software, maybe no one cares. Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's true. No one's coming after Daniel.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I mean, yeah, it's a, it's a lot. I mean it is a controversial, you know, payments and that sort of thing, but it's not like healthcare, which is so, is such, such such a touchy subject that once you're charging somebody a lot of money for services and you know the person is sick and you're going bankrupt, mean the bankruptcy rate in the United States is higher than anything. I dunno if you guys know this, the bankruptcy rate for people, like in, you know, paying for medical care is really drastically high. So you get even, not only is it the family member that's like Ill or you that you know, that, that have these medical issues, but a lot of Americans are going bankrupt in the process. So imagine going bankrupt while you have cancer, right? It's like, it, it's like the most extreme stress that anyone could go through. So if he was he or she, you know, whoever, whoever was involved in this thing, like there might have been way more stress than people realize. I don't, I don't know, I don't, I don't know. I mean a brand
Immad Akhund:
- 62% of, well this is Google ai so I don't dunno if it's correct, but 62 to 66.5% of bankruptcies in the US are medical related. That's crazy. Yeah,
Daniel Kivatinos:
- That's crazy. I mean, you know, one, one, you know, surgery is like, could be a hundred thousand dollars, $200,000, that's someone's whole life savings. So they just get the surgery done, they're struggling, you know, and then on top of that, they have to go visit the hospital multiple times and then they're being charged 20 k, 20 k, 50 k and then instant banker, you know, whatever's life savings they have would be gone. That happens so often.
Immad Akhund:
- Elon Musk spends $2.4 million in 2023 on security. It does seem like a lot. And also like you end up doing other things like changing your life to be more secure. Like, you know, you do private jets and like buy houses that are more secure. So I'm sure the cost is much higher.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, I would propose that like any public company executive team should have some security. If you're a B2C company, you probably need way more security because like you're public figures and like a lot of people are using your services. B2B I think is much less, but B2C, you need a lot of security. I think because you're a public figure, you know, I, I used to feel like that, like I was, you know, somewhat of a target as well, even just going public, like there's, because, you know, people could lose money on the stock price or whatever and, and you know, look, and, and you do get random emails random, like, you know, hey, you know, your stock price went down yesterday. What the f man, like, you get like, you know, there, there's a lot of stuff like that. So people are are looking, you know, to target you. So I, I think there needs to be, I mean we're in a country with a lot of guns, so there's a, you need to be careful here on the healthcare politics. I fully agree with you guys. I actually, I wanna make a prediction that I think that at some point someone's going to win or run and win for president just on healthcare and just on like, making healthcare better in the us. I mean, you can argue that Obama already did it to some degree, but he didn't really run on it. But I think like this Bernie Sanders movement of like healthcare is a human right? Like I think that's gonna happen in the us Someone's gonna run and win on, on this, on this movement. And, and like a little bit like Trump won on immigration, you know, illegal immigration, it's like such a big problem affects so many people. And by the way, it's actually popular to make it better. You know.
Immad Akhund:
- Is it fixable? Like how would you even fix it?
Raj Suri:
- I think a public private option would be the best solution. Like you have a public option basically, and then, or or, or you have private options, but, but there is a like a default public, like, like schools, right? Like you could go to a school, a public school, but you could also pay for a private school.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Yeah, I mean there's a problem with lack of transparency. So like, if you go in, I met, I, I, I read this, read this one article once and it, it made total sense to me. It's like healthcare is like walking into like a, a store and there there's no price tags on any items. Yeah. And you just throw the item in your cart and you pray that it's not like expensive.
Immad Akhund:
- Well, and also the person selling it to you says you're gonna die if you don't take this option. It's like even worse than no price tags.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's like, it's, it's hard.
Immad Akhund:
- Know what, I think I, I have like two changes that I think don't need aren't that extreme and almost everyone would agree on, but that would like massively change healthcare. I think number one, no group health insurance. I think all health insurance should be paid for by you. And, and I mean you have to have like price transparency around it and you know, we can make it so it's tax, tax free to pay for it. But I think it's insane. Like if you lose your job, you lose your health. Like that's just like, how can we even live like that? So I think that's one and I, that would, because right now there is literally no price discovery in this like health insurance process. And this would for force people to actually make a choice and have some data around that. And then the second thing is don't allow any advertising for like pharma. I just think that's, there's no upside from like these advertising and there's tons of like downside in my opinion. Do you have any other quick tweaks?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- It's a tough one. I mean, one thing that they did do, the government did do, and I was involved in this, is they had a data exchange essentially. So it was a lot of data hostage in the past, which, you know, you put medical data into a facility and you never let it leave. So like, you know, if you need it, you'd have to pay and that's what you know, was happening in the past. So I think the government was really trying to impose APIs, go figure APIs. It's super modern, it makes sense. They were forcing healthcare companies to like open up APIs to pull some of the data. So like probably way more data exchange in the future. Like if there's an emergency and you need to take your data wherever, say I'm traveling to England, you know, it's like I should be able to bring like instantly, like have my data available for me whenever I want. But the government is like really pushing for that way more. It's gotten way better than it has in the past. Everything was through fax in the past or paper. But it is a different world. I think, you know, there, there are so many things you can do in healthcare to like make it better. But I I really like what you said, Ahad like that, I dunno, those are two, if they made just those two changes, that would be great. Like
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah. And you don't need to change the system that much. It just feels like it would suddenly improve things.
Raj Suri:
- But don't you think you need like a, a public option or like a public, like, like public schools, everyone has a right to education?
Immad Akhund:
- I just worry about like the way America does these public private things is like, it becomes like this bastardization of like the worst of both things. I mean the, the US has a public-private thing. It's just like literally the worst of both. It's like, you know, when you get old or you're poor enough, you get medicine, but like it's crazy expensive for everyone else that's like, you know, not in this kind of 5% extremes. Like I just, I don't feel like the US will do a good job of providing it, but eh, if someone has like a very clear mind and a plan for it, maybe.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, I just think like education, like, I mean, you know, every kid can go to school in the US there's a, there's a public option. I think everyone should be able to go to the hospital and and get treatment and you know, that's gonna have some costs as a society. But we have to all bear that cost. But there is like a lot of optional treatments. I mean I think the Canadian system for all its, you know, issues, they probably could have more private options, but in general it's pretty good.
Immad Akhund:
- Lots of people also complain about that though.
Raj Suri:
- Of course people complain about everything. You know, I, I was actually looking at an interesting stat, you know, like yesterday I was looking at the approval ratings of the entire G seven, G eight. Every single one of the, the, the presidents and prime ministers have like, are significantly in the red. Like not a single one has like a positive approval rating. Like we're all dissatisfied with what we have that is the state of, you know, people. And so like there's, there's, there's never a good option. But I think you're, you're always picking like a slightly better version of where you are.
Immad Akhund:
- Alright, let's, let's talk about something that's maybe more, more interesting to founders in general.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah.
Immad Akhund:
- You know, one thing, when I sold my company in 2016, I thought that was like a general dearth of advice around M&A and acquisitions. We, we, there's a lot of advice around fundraising. A less people go through M&A, but b it's like tends to be fairly private and people don't wanna show off that they like made money. And I think it just creates this element of like, you know, I really didn't feel like I, I knew what I was doing or had good kinda advice out there. So Daniel, what would you say are like, I know your top three learnings through your process and maybe some mistakes that you felt that you made?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I think one thing is just learn the process. Like for founders, like learn what has to happen for to, for you to sell a company. And at the end of the day a company is a product. Like I know people don't realize that, but it's a product if you wanna sell it, it's there to be sold. So you have to really like, take care of it and make sure all the documents are signed and make sure everything is like appropriate and prepared. And you know, a lot, a lot of founders are like focused on the product and the revenue at the end of the day, that's the most important thing. But you are building a product so it's like you're either gonna bring that product public, you're gonna like keep it private or you're gonna sell it to somebody. And those are like the real three options. This is the thing about like, like building a company and like, you know, going through your process there's no real like perfect formula. And there's like some guide rails, like just get all your signed documents from your employees, put them in one place. Like as, as silly as that sounds like those are the things that just help 'cause it, imagine if that derails itself, like that sucks. Like you have to like take care of like the basic stuff. And you know…
Immad Akhund:
- I think the, the thing that I found really tricky and I dunno maybe you had a different experience, but I've talked to a lot of founders that also had this, is it just takes a really long time. Like, you know, fundraising, you can, if it goes well, you can get it done in a month. If it goes badly, it takes like three months. I mean obviously you might never get it done, but acquisition processes take like a year from like first conversation to acquiring. And it's very hard when it takes that long because you're trying to run your company and make progress while you have this whole process going on. And you have to have enough money to last that long and you know, at any one, one point this thing can fall apart and you have this, all this like emotional investment and it, I was definitely not prepared for the amount of time it took. And I think there's ways that like people can accelerate that. One piece of advice I wish I had got was to really do a ton of the negotiation before signing the term sheet. As soon as you sign that term sheet, you know, especially if you're selling to a PE type person. Everything Yeah. Everything is kind of slowed down. You, you've lost leverage. It can take a really long time and we, you know, I think it took us like four months after we signed the term sheet to actually close the deal with like tons of negotiations after the term sheet signing, which was like probably the worst aspect of the whole process.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah. Immad have you acquired companies yet on, at Mercury?
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah, we just acquired a company called Teal three months ago. So it was kinda, it was interesting seeing it from the other side and yeah, I was, I was like, this is how we are not gonna treat this company. Like yeah. And we, we, we ran a very different process to the one I faced as a, as a acquire.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah. I, I felt like I, I did acquire companies in my, my last role and like, I, I, you know, one thing I I grew empathy for is just like the, you know, because I'm a founder myself, talking to other founders, you, you, you understand what they're going through and, and it probably helps I guess if you're selling company to sell to another founder and have that relationship directly. If, if it's a founder led company, if it's a PE firm, I think it's a very different experience, probably, right? Like you're talking to finance people, there's gonna be a lot of, you know, other, you know, just, just be prepared for a very different journey, you know, depending on who.
Immad Akhund:
- I've heard lots of horror stories even from people selling to other founders. So really it can go both ways. Yeah. I, I won't disclose who, but pretty well known founder and a pretty well known company kind of, you know, screwed over.
Raj Suri:
- What's the horror story though? Like what, what happened there?
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah, normally it's around like any payment that happens after the close. Like there's normally like an earnout, you know, at that point. Like you are an employee, right? Like when you're selling your company, you are a company and then like, you know, you have lawyers, you have like a process, but afterwards you work at this company and you're an employee and you know, you can't, it's very hard as an employee to actually like, have a pay for a lawyer or like even come up, you know, have the time and, you know, ability to come up with a defense against like being screwed over. So any amount of money that you're gonna get after that point, especially if it's contingent on some objectives, right? If there's like any sort of performance contingency is like completely at risk. Like I would, I would put the probability of getting that extra money out like below 50%, even if you feel like you're definitely gonna hit all the objectives. 'cause you just dunno. I mean, and it might not even be malicious in some situations, but yeah, the objectives, the, the company's objective in some ways is to pay less, right? Like, it's just like you flip the, like they already have the asset. They already, like in a, in a position of power, the incentives are just not great for the employee at that point, or the founder.
Raj Suri:
- I feel like this is like a central point of tension in any acquisition discussion, right? Like, it's like the, the people selling want as much money upfront, the people buying want as much money, you know, on the come, right? So I felt this was a very difficult point to resolve. But it depends on kind of all the, the leverages everyone has around the table. Have you figured out a good solution to that? Like a, a fair way to, to deal with that? Because from my perspective as an acquiring company, I always felt like people should be paid fairly for like the value they add. But like I I, I was working with other people who didn't feel that, who were like, let's squeeze them, let's like, you know, let's find ways to pay them less.
Immad Akhund:
- I think this is actually good for the acquiree and the acquirer is to not have performance based goals on the acquisition. So don't say like, Hey, after we acquire you, you have to get like, you know, 10 million in sales to get your next 5 million earnout. I actually think it's really bad for both sides because like as soon as you acquire a company, you don't want them to feel like they're another, right? You want them to feel like, hey, we are part of the same culture. But, but when you give them like this like hard objective and obviously you, you're not gonna make it easy when you give them a difficult objective with lots of money attached, they're feeling like, Hey, I'm not part of this company, I have my own objectives and like I only care about those objectives. And then I guess from the acquire re side, like if you're selling your company as soon as you have these performance objectives, like you don't know what you're walking into, so you have no idea, like, is this gonna be a place where I can even hit those performance objectives, right? Maybe the objectives change, like the company's objectives change, but like, I'm still stuck in a contract that has to hit like 10 million in sales. I just think that's so messy. I would say for both sides I would completely avoid performance based acquisition objectives.
Raj Suri:
- Or you just handle it with equity. Like how do you align incentives after the acquisition?
Immad Akhund:
- I think it's fine to have time-based retention. I think that's pretty reasonable. It's very, you know, it's very hard for the company to take that away from you. Like, it's very easy to sue on if they really do it and you know, it's, it's very clean. It's like, hey, you work here for four years, this is what you get every year. It's actually very fairly similar as a, as an employee would get, but obviously instead it's, it's maybe a little more and it's maybe more equity.
Raj Suri:
- Fair enough. Daniel, what do you think?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Well I think getting acquired by Immad sounds great. Like he sounds like a, some, some, yeah. Some of the companies are, you know, rough on you and others are not. I mean, one thing that's really good is just talk to investment bankers don't sign anything, but you, the, the great thing about talking to investment bankers is they'll give you a lot of free time. And I noticed that like over the years, you know, you talk to investment bankers, you create relationships, they're kind of like data brokers. They kind of know a lot what's going on in the industry. They know who's was sold to who they know, you know, what,
Immad Akhund:
- What's the best piece of advice you got from an investment banker?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I mean, honestly for me it was just like the process itself and like, you kind of, it's like interviewing just employees. You just, you kind of see who's like really good at it and who's successful. And then you see who's like kind of not good at it and they just haven't had like, really good exits. So you, you know, it was fun one time, you know, I had the investment banker that sold WhatsApp in my office. It was great. It was just telling me like, just, just a, a lot of stuff about like what you could do. And he's like, you know, laying out these plans and I'm like, this is amazing. He's spending like hours and hours with me just for no reason, just to hang out. And like that's, that's literally what investment bankers do is they try to look for clients all day and they try to look for like they, they're relationship building and you know, I
Immad Akhund:
- Guess WhatsApp is the greatest deal ever struck. Probably did. Did he tell you any, any fun idea from the WhatsApp deal? The, how he made the pull that off?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- He was just super proud. He, it sounded like the deal wasn't that hard, honestly.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, I don't think it was that hard. Like Zuck was tracing them down, right?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- So yeah, it was, it was actually, he's like, you know, but he was proud that he was part of it and he was just talking through it like in such a
Raj Suri:
- Good way. He was 9% cut on that, that would be crazy. You know, 5% on 20 billion, you know,
Immad Akhund:
- 3%, right, of 1 billion?
Raj Suri:
- Yeah.
Immad Akhund:
- The one piece of advice I got from an investment banker that was like very actionable and I really liked is if you get a, and I actually use it for other negotiations as well. It's like if you get a deal that you know is not good, just don't even say I'm gonna think about it, just reject it straight away. And it's like a really powerful move. It's like someone's like sends you a deal and I'm, you're just like, you have to have an idea of what you're willing to like walk away from. We just instantly reject it. You just say, Hey, this is not good enough. Like there's no point in us talking any further and you don't even give like a counter, you just reject it. And that's like that I did that like, or three times and I've done that in other situations, but it's like so powerful. It's like, it's like I'm not even negotiating this space. It's like we're not even talking in the right space.
Raj Suri:
- That's a good, that's a good advice. I've only had fairly negative experiences with investment bankers. Like I've worked with a lot of them, you know, as, you know, when we were public we had four or five different like firms representing us. So it was like,
Immad Akhund:
- Well Daniel's key is to never pay them [laughs] then you can't, you can't complain about the experience.
Raj Suri:
- We paid, we paid millions to investment banker, they made more money than a lot of other people. So it's like, yeah. But, you know, one thing I realized about investment banker is that they actually changed their advice depending on like, you know, who's paying them and like who's putting pressure on them and like, oh, you know, you're doing business with me on this deal, but also another deal. So, you know, we have a bigger business relationship, so I'll change the advice to favor you or, or favor like, you know, your point of view. So it, it's, it's a very interesting industry. They do work hard. They're like lawyers. They work super hard. It's kind of hard to imagine how they have a life, honestly. Sometimes it's like, but you know, I found 'em to be very malleable. It's like, and not really truth, truth tellers. I, I would say so I, I actually, my respect for them declined, you know, after that experience.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I could see kind of like a car salesman or a real estate agent is what you're saying.
Raj Suri:
- Or it's like a financial broker. But like, you know, it's, it's almost a little bit like, you know, a a rent seeker, you know, they're, they're just like seeking rent out of these transactions and like, and the value that they provide is very questionable. I think.
Immad Akhund:
- Daniel, do you just cap off this kinda acquisition conversation? Do you, you know, do you have any regrets? Do you feel good that you kinda sold that company? I mean, you worked on it for a long time, right? 14 years. Like, how's, how's your kind of like outlook now that it's kind of behind you?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I have no regrets. I mean, I, I think that the team there is phenomenal. And I think that honestly like I'm, I'm really happy about everything and you know, I, I don't have any, any, any regrets. I feel like, you know, startups are a hard journey and, and grateful to have just gone through the journey and not have had like failed. 'cause I, you know, I talk to founders all day and they have horror story after horror story. Like, people are running out of cash and they still haven't found product market fit or they've worked on it and they don't have enough revenue and they've worked on it 11 years. And I'm like, oh, there's so many different types of issues out there. So for me, I'm just, I'm, I'm grateful I got through the journey and like had a really great exit and the, the acquirer was really great. They were really great people, honestly. Like, so I feel like I was fortunate in life to be in a good position right place, right time, right team, you know, just honestly like, you know, it's, it's one of these situations where I don't have too many, too many regrets.
Raj Suri:
- I think you need more excitement in your life, Daniel. [Laughs] Hopefully your next startup will have a bit more drama.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I mean, they're all, there's always like stress and startups, but that's just the game if, if you're gonna get into it. But I, I flipped the script and I'm like, if I was like working construction and I would wake up at 4:00 AM to start to, you know, mix the concrete. That's a rough life. I'm like, we've got it good. In some ways when you flip the script, I'm like, it could be way harder if you're doing something that you utterly hate. And I'm like, I do like what I do. It's stressful. It sounds like Raj, that one experience was horrible, like with the intern, but like, you know, in some…
Raj Suri:
- I probably have 10 to 20 more stories that were, you know, equally hor, horrific, you know, because we were constantly running outta money. So we, we we had the exact opposite type of experience as you, you know. But yeah, it's, but I'm glad to know, and all the founders should know there is a path like yours Daniel, like, which is like, kind of like, seems like you're floating on clouds, you know, like you're just basically, you know, for for 14 years, you're like, I mean, did you have any existential moments?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Oh, I mean, it, it happens all the time. That's just the, the nature of being a founder. But like, what's on the other side of that? Like if you think about it, do you want go work for Google Watch? Like, do you wanna like go work for, you know what I mean? Like, be employee, you know, 5,000, 20, whatever, how many got, they have thousands and thousands of employees. Like I guess it's like, I always flip the script to make myself realize like, what's on the other side. I do think there's times when being a founder sucks. It's just the nature of the game that it's like, it's a rough grind. There's a lot of problems and it's like, how do you get through those? And you know, I think you went, you, you, you know, you, your company became public, so that's a different beast. I've never like taken a company public. So you're, you're, that's a different level of stress that I don't know, I would say. Which is, you know,
Immad Akhund:
- I think the overall point though Daniel is, is really good. And I think it is like, Hey, I would rather have this grind and stress and like existential issues than like have a really boring existence where I'm just unmotivated to wake up in the morning and do things right. Like, I think that's the, that's the choice you're making as a founder. It's like on one side you have like, you know, and like obviously there are probably meaningful jobs out there that people do get motivated by, but, but yeah, for whatever reasons, founders probably don't find them as much, meaning as much meaning in them. And like, it's either that or like you, you kind of have these kind of stressful things.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- It's like, you know, it's, I think it's like for me, you, you ever play the game risk or like chess, you guys probably played chess. Those games get me like excited and I'm like, how do I win? And my brain starts to like, you know, go into this almost like flow state where like in, in a startup, you, you're always thinking about your startup and it does take over your life, but you're almost in a flow state where you're like, how do I get to the next level? It's like a video game in a sense. Like, how do I keep, keep going? And it it, that, that excites me in like, in, in a really, really good way. Again, like they're, they, they're the things that suck also. I'm not gonna lie, there's stuff that sucks in startups. So
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, even in my worst moment in any startup that I've worked on, I, I've never felt like working at Google would be better. So, you know, I felt that's, you know, like, you know, startups, you know, you're living life. Its to its max, right? I think Immad you put in one of your posts, right? This is like life at hard mode. Yeah. Some people just like life at hard mode. And same with having kids, right? As you said. So like, I've never thought for one moment, you know, I wish I didn't have kids or anything like that. So it's like, you know, even though it's hard at points and you know, I, you, you gotta embrace it and that's kind of the journey you, you embrace when you go on the journey. But that's why also most people should not be founders, right? Because it's, it's a very specific life and if you choose to go on it, you have to really enjoy the chaos.
Immad Akhund:
- Live for the stress and it's in its own way. So Daniel, when you kinda came back to the, I guess like startup world to the ideation world after kind of 14 years of running DrChrono, you know what, like, I guess like what did you think of the fundraising landscape? And obviously your company is kind of AI focused, you know, what kind of drew you to that?
Raj Suri:
- And, and why dev ops like, you know, was healthcare, you just wanna stay away from healthcare? Like, seems like you've developed expertise there as well.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I mean, one thing that's really strange is I kind of like, for the first company, there was not a lot of information. There really wasn't, you know, we started 2008, 2009 timeframe. There was just nothing out there to like start a company. I feel like it was like a black box and you kind of just figure it out, your bump along the way and you're like, oh, I should be a Delaware C Corp. No one told me that. Like, that this one lawyer is like telling me I should be a Delaware C Corp. Like now it's like, it's almost like a factory where you can get all the information on everything in doing startups and at least at the early stages, like just to get that going. And, you know, who knew like what an investor was like back then, I had no idea. Like 2008, 2000, you know, seven, there was nothing. There was like no information. It was Paul Graham's articles online and nothing else. Like, and I think investors use that to their advantage. You know, the, the bad investors out there would use that to their advantage to take advantage of founders. I feel like the, the script is equalized in a sense. Like there's so much information now. Like when I started my second company, it's just like a fire hose, like shooting at me of like just how many things you can do and like what you can do and like where to get funding and who to, you know, like what kind of investors are out there and you know, what kind of PE firms are out there, what kind of this, what kind of that, what kind of technology? Like, it's just, it's it, it's a different world now. Like, but you know, I was heads down for 14 years, I was just grinding it out, like doing my startup, like not looking at that stuff, right? Like, I was just like, how do I get to the next phase? Let's get more revenue. Let's figure out like how to build the team and build a better culture. But now it's just like, I feel like if there's a process, like baking a cake almost, at least to get to the certain point in a company and then it's like, you know, it just, it's just changed. Changed. Drastic. Drastic.
Immad Akhund:
- What did you, what did you as like the most useful resource and like, you know, when you, when you were re-approaching starting a new company,
Daniel Kivatinos:
- All the articles out there, it wasn't just one, it wasn't one like perfect source, but like, you know, Y Combinator has a ton of stuff, you know, YouTube has a ton of stuff, you know, medium. There's just all this just different sources of stuff and there's no, no like one source of truth. I just think that there's so many different places that you could just get information from and, you know, you just start on YouTube and look at the Y Combinator stuff to start and they just have some really good advice. You can start, you can go anywhere, honestly. You can go anywhere and like, look, there's all these new accelerators out there that are just throwing money at founders like Neo, I've heard of that. I, you know, I don't really know too much about them. And then there's like, don't mention Neo and Y Combinator in the same, I don't really know them, but I'm like, Hey, there are rivals now. Yeah, I don't know how that happened, but I'm like, all right, there's, there is more like funding available and more support and structure.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah, there’s a lot. There's a lot. And Immad, what would you recommend to founders, you know, starting off now? What, what, what should they read? What should they do?
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah, actually Y Combinator is probably the, my go-to recommendation. They have like a whole set of articles and like starting a company, fundraising, et cetera. And then I am like a big podcast aficionado. So there's a, obviously there's this podcast, there's 20 minute vc, there's a, there's a bunch of podcasts where there's like founders just talking about their, their journeys. And I think you can learn a lot of like nuggets of wisdom from those.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah. Y Combinator itself has a good podcast and they have some interesting segments on, on that podcast. Like, they have like these, like a dedicated, like, you know, how to build a B2C company and stuff like that. Yeah. Like, so it's quite actionable advice. Even I, I watch those, I'm like, oh yeah, it's reminds me of some, like, you know, these tactics that I, I might have forgotten. And, and the game changes, you know, you gotta stay up to, up to date. But it would be good actually, Immad, to put together like a, like, Hey, here are the podcast episodes you should like, listen to in, in your first year of a founder. Here's like the articles, like, you know, we should update that list as advice to other founders. Probably would be a good social post too, you know, I think because the, the game has changed. I mean, before it used to be the PGSA, right? Like that's the, the main thing you would read. And there might be one or two. I used to read Marks's blog, which is really good.
Immad Akhund:
- Oh yeah, that was good.
Raj Suri:
-Both sides of the table.
Immad Akhund:
- And Fred Wilson's blog. Yeah, those were, those were like the three, those were like literally only the three things that existed back then. Totally. Why, why not healthcare? Daniel, why did you start a kinda B2B AI company?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I'm looking for something that I could apply to all businesses in the, in the US and it's like, if I can help them collect their revenue, it's a big business. It's a big space. And you know, I think it's adjacent to healthcare in a sense. 'cause healthcare does have money involved. So I think it's like adjacent to it. But it, it's just a broader thing that I can sell to like many, many different types of companies. I did wanna sell startups. Like, part of it is like getting plugged into the startup community. So like, you know, I literally am pitching startups all day on using our stuff. It's great.
Immad Akhund:
- Is that more fun than pitching doctors or administrators?
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Just different. I, I mean doctors, you know, I, I, I actually think it was fun talking to doctors. They, they would, I learned a lot even about just my own health. Like talk, you get free healthcare and you're pitching them. So it's, it's just different. But I, I think founders, you know, selling to founders is part of the fun of this company. And, you know, but like, you know, I spoke to one company yesterday and I, I had no idea that there was an industry, I can't talk about it 'cause like, they may actually buy our product, but I was learning a lot about just a totally random industry. And I'm like, oh, this is cool. Like, it's almost like being, you know, I, I know you invest a lot. It's like, yeah, you get that
Immad Akhund:
- From it, it reminded me of investing. I mean, that's the main reason I invest. It's just like super fun to hear about like random Space Tech, right? I, I wouldn't mean the room to hear about if it wasn't for Invest.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- I think that's part of the reason why I started this company is 'cause you're kind of in the room and they're pitching and telling you like what their revenue is and what they're building and how do they use the product and that sort of thing. So you can, you can sell it to a lot of people. And I think that was the main reason. It's like something that's broad global and money touches everybody. I mean, you're, you know, you're a startup does money, you know, it's essentially money startup. So it's similar. It's, it is super similar. This what the call from now on as well. Money Startup. Money startup
Immad Akhund:
- Fintechs have been rebranded. Yeah. Actually goes back to the investment banker thing. Like being in, being in the flow of money is like, I think actually like a good way to build a startup, right? People willing to pay for things that help you collect money quicker and, you know, do these kind of like revenue related things.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Yeah, I mean even, you know, Mercury, it's a, it's for startups, so you probably talk to startups even just from that, not only in the investing. So now it's a, you know, you have all of these,
Immad Akhund:
- You know, actually like, this is a good sales tip. You know, when I talk to startups about Mercury, I literally spend like the first 20 minutes out, 30 minutes just talking about their startup because, I mean, it's just way more interesting to me than like selling Mercury. But people really appreciate it. People want to like, you know, talk about that and get like ideas and advice or whatever, much more than they wanna be pitched. And it helps build that relationship. And then, yeah, at the, in the last 10 minutes, I'm like, oh yeah, any, any issues with your bank and everyone's got issues. So that's kind of the flow of me pitching Mercury. Maybe it's not the most efficient, but actually makes the whole sales persons like way more entertaining for me.
Raj Suri:
- It's like the sale is like, should I invest in your startup or not? Like, it's like,
Immad Akhund:
- No, no, no. Like I'm not asking them to like you.
Raj Suri:
- Like you're scouting.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah. I'm not trying to invest, I just like, I'm just genuinely cur curious and not about it.
Raj Suri:
- Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, I'm sure like a, a lot of founders excited to talk to you and, you know, get their, get your thoughts. Yeah. Yeah.
Immad Akhund:
- Cool. I guess we're at time. Any, any final thoughts, Daniel or Raj?
Raj Suri:
- This was great. Thanks Daniel. Appreciate the time.
Daniel Kivatinos:
- Yeah, no thank you guys for having me. It was a lot of fun. I appreciate being on and yeah, happy to do it again in the future with you guys.
Immad Akhund:
- Yeah, we should definitely have you get some more juicy gossip about this acquisition that you didn't tell that much about. But yeah, this was fun
Raj Suri:
- ChatGPT has details, so.
Immad Akhund:
- Oh really? Wow. Well we should have just read that out. Well anyway, thanks for joining Daniel. Thanks for listening everyone. Talk to you again in one week and in the meantime, kinda subscribe. Leave us a review and let us know what you think on our tribe chat.
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