20VC: Scaling to $50M ARR in 3 Years, Scaling to $20M ARR with Just $2M Invested; The Story of PhotoRoom, Is This YC’s Most Capital Efficient Company with Matthieu Rouif, Co-Founder & CEO @ PhotoRoom

Matthieu Rouif is the Co-Founder and CEO @ PhotoRoom, one of the fastest-growing YC companies having scaled to an astonishing $50M in ARR in just 3 years. Their capital efficiency is immense having scaled to $20M in ARR on just $2M of invested capital. Prior to founding PhotoRoom, Matthieu founded several start-ups, including an app for ski resorts, HeyCrowd, and Replay, a video editor which was ultimately acquired by GoPro. Whilst at GoPro, Mattheiu led all image editing products.

In Today's Episode with Matthieu Rouif We Discuss:

1. From GoPro to One of YC's Fastest Growing Companies:

• How did Matthieu make the move from GoPro to founding PhotoRoom?
• What are the big mistakes Matthieu made on prior companies that he did differently with PhotoRoom?
• What does Matthieu know now that he wishes he had known when he started PhotoRoom?

2. Scaling to $20M in ARR with $2M of Cash:

• What allowed Matthieu and PhotoRoom to be so capital-efficient in their scaling?
• What are the biggest mistakes founders make when it comes to resource allocation and capital efficiency?
• On reflection, what did Matthieu not spend money on that he wishes they had spent money on?

3. Consumer Subscription + Photo Editing: Is it a Good Business:

• What are the customer acquisition costs by channel for PhotoRoom?
• What are their payback periods on a per-customer basis?
• How can it be a good business when the churn rate annually is 30-40%?
• How does this space play out with Canva, Adobe, Veed, Kapwing? Who wins?

4. The Future of AI:

• Who wins; incumbents or startups?
• What matters more; data size or model size?
• Will UI be more or less important in an AI-first world?
• Why does Matthieu believe that everyone hates command line prompts?
• Will we see $BN revenue companies created with just 10 people?