From bankruptcies to Ramp: Eric Glyman’s advice for startups
- Define the core of the company early on.
- Be ready for moments of intense pressure.
- Funding rounds should be thought of as science experiments.
- Never take the highest single round price.
- Know when to optimize for a fast decision versus a higher quality one.
Extending the lifespan of businesses has been a recurring theme in our CEO Eric Glyman’s career to date. His very first job was at a firm that helped struggling companies restructure their bankruptcies. After selling his first startup Paribus, Eric teamed up with Karim Atiyeh and Gene Lee to co-found Ramp, a corporate card designed to help businesses save more and spend less.
These experiences have taught Eric a thing or two about building self-sustaining businesses. He recently went on the 20VC podcast to share his top advice for founders:
Define the core of the company early on.
You get pulled in a million directions when building a product. Having a clear view of your company mission will help you put the right constraints in place for your team and move much faster. At Ramp, our singular focus on helping companies spend less guides our decisions and priorities every day.
Be ready for moments of intense pressure.
Extreme stress is inevitable and it's during these times that the worst decisions are often made. At Paribus, Eric and the team once saw 80% of their revenue disappear overnight. He shares how he and the team put their terrified emotions aside to work through the crisis one step at a time.
Funding rounds should be thought of as science experiments.
What do you need to prove with the limited amount of capital you have on hand to unlock the next stage of funding and growth? Asking this question will help you hone in on your most important goals in light of constraints.
Never take the highest single round price.
Take the long view. Your goal is to maximize your ultimate enterprise value, not the value of a single round. Sometimes this means leaving capital on the table so you’re able to pull together the right team and create more upside for your investors and employees.
Know when to optimize for a fast decision versus a higher quality one.
When it comes to core foundational building blocks, take the time to get them right. For all other issues, what matters most is iterating fast instead of proving things right. Push your team to continuously test tactics that lead to incremental, compounding growth.
In his wide-ranging conversation with Harry Stebbings, Eric also tackles the questions of whether the world really needs another corporate card, when to build versus buy, and how to get the most out of your board meetings. To get a full download of Eric’s insights, listen to the 20VC podcast episode here.
“I assumed I would have to choose between speed and control. What I found is that you can have both. A well-designed system takes friction out, for the finance function and for everyone else.”
Justin Webster
CFO, Denver Broncos
“A well-run district should not have to choose between getting work done at the school site and keeping control of the dollars behind it. We're not hiring more people to do more jobs, so we have to be smarter about the process. With Ramp, the purchase, the receipt, and the record stay together from the start. ”
Nick Brizeno
Director of Purchasing, San Marcos Unified School District
“In senior living, scale only works if the communities still feel personal. We needed the back office to carry more of the complexity, not the people serving residents. Ramp helped us build that infrastructure, so the experience in the community could stay human.”
Ryan Cole
CFO, Agemark Senior Living
“AI is moving faster than the finance context around it. Prices change, models change, and the value is not always obvious from an invoice. We needed enough detail to know which bets deserved more investment — and which ones did not.”
Greg Cooley
Controller, AngelList
“Invoices, cards, tokens. The categories change but the principle doesn't: know where the money is going, remove the work around it, and make sure the spend is worth it.”
Maciej Mylik. Finance
ElevenLabs
“We weren’t trying to retrofit an old finance system. We had a blank canvas, and Ramp gave us the foundation to build a global finance function of the future.”
Justin Dourado
Director of Finance, Othership
“There's just no surprises anymore. No more waiting two months to find out how a job did. We know how it's doing as it's happening.”
Erich Kuss
Financial Systems Manager, Infinity Home Services
“More token spend isn’t proof that AI is working. Less isn’t proof that it isn’t. What matters is whether we’re buying the right level of intelligence for the work. Ramp lets us make that judgment in the same place we manage every other type of spend.”
Cody Nutt
Senior Director of Business Systems, Daxko
