Ramp CEO Eric Glyman on hitting $13B valuation, Super Bowl ROI, and why they marked down their own stock

levels up you're watching tvpn we are live from the Temple of Technology The Fortress of Finance the capital of capital today is Tuesday March 4th 20125 and guess what we have a guest at the opening of the of the show Eric lman CEO ramp uh we're very excited for you to be here thank you welcome to the show awesome to see you and uh great to be in this holy place today yes yeah the the dojo of the dollar the the shrine of shareholder value it has many names but most importantly it is it is our humble abat is the host it is where we host and it should feel like home to you considering that uh I have this massive you know sort of ramp logo over my head here so uh home away from home on the air uh it's amazing to have you how how's this week been so far obviously a busy one uh with the news yesterday but from what we understand uh it was you know old news to you but I'm sure it feels to get it out in the world it's incredibly exciting and look like you you know mo most days as a Founder it's it's it's you in an office taking calls waking up early staying up late it's just uh you know a lot of uh you know constant work and it was one of those rare moments I think when um you know customers Partners the team could uh all celebrate just a little bit uh enjoy and then kind of get back to it and so it's uh you know pretty overwhelming really exciting and uh feel lucky to be here talk about the you know pressure of you know raising you know in in uh in the sort of height of zerp you guys raised at at a 8ish billion dollar valuation then you had to uh sort of reorient the team around uh obviously the business performance was still fantastic but uh many people were saying you know publicly that generally a lot of these unicorns may not ever sort of achieve that sort of peak valuation how good does it feel to not only achieve it again but exceed it dramatic rally and what did you have to do to kind of like motivate and rally the team in those sort of like the darker days uh where again the sort of public narrative was that uh you know these valuations were never really real uh and uh yeah so how how good does it feel at this moment I think someone really has to do just like a a deep in-depth piece of like the big comeback and and building up from like these 2021 companies and and and what it's took because there really were uh companies that would raise at you know 100x Revenue multiples um I I don't think it was a a sin necessarily to raise at high prices I think probably the sin was just spending it all uh really quickly um you look at a lot of the companies that have transformed uh their Industries Amazon Google uh Apple like you name it uh often started with um some kind of bubble or hysteria people were investing a lot and it uh I think it does interest things to businesses I I I can tell you that um you know our mission has been very consistent start a business that is obsessed with saving our our customers time and money um help them have every dollar an hour that they're spending in their business go a lot further um and when you have uh a large amount of capital behind you uh you of course think about what are the results that you produce next week but you start obsessing over um could I make this outcome uh 10 years from now larger um instead of taking that next marginal dollar and I'm keeping it um how do we put it back into the hands of customers see them succeed um have the ability to use that next dollar to invest in Faster growth and uh in a weird way grow a much larger business um for them 10 years from now and and we hope a much larger one for us and so I actually think it created the the the conditions for ramp uh to not just be customer obsessed but obsessed but uh to take that to a whole another level um you know I I I I would say is is one of those 2021 companies uh we certainly had a lot of of work to do to to grow but if you keep um you know uh I think in 20122 is public that you know Revenue Forex um that year uh if you keep doubling if you keep growing at incredible rates what what are very large U multiples suddenly become very reasonable and I think that the uh interesting thing that happened since is these these you know it all met uh uh and now ramp is is not only uh Trading uh like you know strongly performing public traded companies just growing at a dramatically faster clip it's driving more savings and more value for customers and uh the most remarkable thing is it's such a large Market I I think if we do our jobs right uh we intend to save our customers more and and grow uh just as fast if not faster so I remember you telling me that uh one of the things you did for the employees was actually during the All Hands during kind of the turmoil of the interest rate R rise you actually walked the team everyone the team regardless of their role in investor relations or not through how valuations are calculated where ramp is the growth rates the metrics and kind of did a bottomup analysis not like a full DCF or anything but you walked people through that do you think that's something that's unique about ramp culture or do you think more uh startup CEOs or you know scale up CEOs should be transparent at that level with their employees about how because there's a lot of companies out there right now that are just like hey yeah we're worth billion because I got one guy to write me a check at 20 billion right they bought they bought a you know million dollars with a stock at 20 billion whereas you I think you said hey look there's a whole host of people around the table that agree on this valuation now we just repriced it in the new interest rate regime and here's all the multiples here's what it would look like if we were public Etc walk me through that so start start with with maybe this and think about this um where if you're a new uh employer you're considering coming to ramp um there's sort of two you know is ends of the deal just from a comp perspective um uh one was Cash um people can agree on you know um you know base bonus that that going of structure and and and what's the equity value you know maybe that you get a package worth 100,000 half a million something like that um and traditionally when this is done uh we say okay this is granted this is based on this valuation um so we believe that the stock today is worth if you stay for four years it will be worth half a million dollars and if it grows from there it'll be worth more the problem that all these companies had uh in 2022 2023 when you know publicly traded tech companies in some cases were down 70% some were down 90 others were down 30 is no one quite knew uh and for an opaque private company uh suddenly uh the bid ask spreads could be very very wide um and during all this I mean just like we were growing incredibly quickly like that 2022 years we grew four times zero over year over year um no other publicly traded company was was doing that uh and so I think part of the problem that we were trying to solve was you know we had the we were very lean we weren't burning a whole lot didn't have a capital need um but I wanted to be able to look employees in the eye and say you know um when we make a grant and we say this is a $500,000 Grant as of the day that you're joining we really believe it uh and it's not just us but other sophisticated investors have done it and so we we did what was a very unusual thing uh at the time which was you know we just went out to the market and said we just want to know where you would price this what's fair and um investors said we have more conviction than ever um uh in December 2021 we valued ramp at uh 8.

1 billion uh today um we actually think it's going to be a way bigger company and the value is 5.

8 billion um and we said great let's do it and and the interesting part is mathematically if you go through a uh TI your point on like a DCF discounted cash flow um uh one of the biggest drivers of of what the end valuation is what are all the profits you'll make in 10 years plus um and it's impacted by what is the risk-free rate the um um uh overnight rate you can get um in December 2021 um that rate was almost 0% um you know um you would get no no reward for risk and uh 2023 uh 2022 the risk free rate was like five to 5 and a half perc and if you compound that over over 10 years it has a dramatic effect and so in a weird way a 5.

8 if you kind of go through the math of$ 5.

8 billion valuation first it it it lowers the share price today but it implies a much higher share price later on um so I guess to back into it um you know I still think a lot of companies haven't taken their medicine they actually haven't just marked it to Market um and I think that a lot of employees who've been working hard um probably are still underwater and I I we didn't think this was right we rather would just say you know um here's where the stock is uh come in today um through hard work and uh you know uh Focus customer obession let's build from here and I think that proved really well you know we're we're back above all-time highs we have a lot of momentum and I think for um people who joined the team and part of the mission um I think people have been been treated really fairly and so um I I don't know hope that's helpful and and just how we thought about yeah I have a question around um ramps ramp truly lives the ramp way like the the approach to company building that you guys advertise you you you do exactly yourself right so so I feel like you're in a position like uh looking at Ram's Capital efficiency which I think was published you know yesterday around your guys's sort of net burn uh it's really astonishing right and it's got to be if you're running a business you know at at anywhere in the same category even adjacent categories you have to be highly concerned at the at the rate that you guys are growing in that context uh is that how much of that do you credit to ramp versus yourself and your team's uh operational ability I think our whole mission right to your point is like make the most of every dollar and every hour if you're spending it you should know why um uh and it's not just that you're spending it in one place but but what actually generates the return what what connects to growth um and I I I would say that um we certainly benefit a lot from our own product um uh we try to be obsessive over making sure we're not wasting and if we're spending on on um you know software licenses a product we buy 500 seats we want 500 people to use it and we use ramp to cut out extra licenses um we look and make sure we're getting the the most impact for for prices and um you know software that we're buying and uh I I just think you know for the same reason a lot of the highest performing best running companies um on the planet run on ramp and use it um you know we do too we we want to be the best customer of our own product and so some of it's that um but I'd also say with your whole mission is you know to obsess over getting you know your customers the most from every dollar an hour you um as long as you're not a big hypocrite you start thinking about it for yourself too and so um I I I would give credit to the team I just think that the riger um you know not just financially but even just from a you know engineering perspective design perspective um I I think most organizations could not have put out a Super Bowl ad from you know uh 11 days start to airing I think we were one of the few groups that had Direct insight into that because I remember we talked to the team you know we have a sort of a weekly uh with with the ramp uh marketing team and we talked to them and they basically were like hey we got to go dark for like 3 days and so we got to witness the process and it was just it was it was incredible to see um In This Moment uh you know to me it feels like ramp's opportunity like the the value proposition for ramp has never been stronger right you you were born in 2019 you very quickly were in the zero interest rate era where it was not cool to save money it was cool tool to spend it and grow as fast as human humanly possible and we're now entering this period where you know we have terrorists there's austerity in the government right it seems that um you know saving money and making dollars go further is in uh how do you you know how are you you thinking of you know taking ramp out of you know ramp is the Super Bowl felt like this first moment where ramp was going mainstream right and you know what does that look like over the next like couple years uh in terms of you know getting uh there's there's many more businesses that that uh aren't on ramp that than are uh what is the next two years look like in term in terms of going mainstream two things I mean there's something just Timeless about uh ramp's core ideas um you know I think to paraphrase you know Jeff Bezos when he was talking about Amazon he couldn't imagine uh 10 years in the future people would ever you know say you know Jeff I I love Amazon but I wish the prices were higher I I just wish that you know these packages got to my door a little bit slower you couldn't imagine it people always want lower prices um you know and getting things earlier getting more done with less effort and uh in some ways we just took the simple idea very seriously um for a business owner you know in the US average profit margin is eight and a half percent um it means that a dollar saved is not equivalent to a dollar earned you know a dollar of cost that you cut is equivalent to increasing your Revenue by $12 and uh I just think that we you know looked at the ma and just took it seriously um and I I think that um you know simple truth in some sense are one of the most powerful forces in in in business um uh when I look at where we are it's it is incredible to be serving uh empowering I what we believe is 1 to two% of all corporate and small business cards spend in the US which is maybe the market that we're largest in um you know it's 98 to 99% to go I I think part of you did the you did the meme you did the 1% the 1% of the if we just take 1% of this thing it would be a big company and you did it they did it in five years ridiculous it's so frustrating yeah yeah people are going to be like yeah yeah can I get a breakdown of like postmortem on the Super Bowl I want to know I mean everyone kind of knows okay Super Bowl like it just looks good it looks like a six to seven figure spend but how do you everyone wants to know you know what does it feel like how do you start calculating like does this make sense and did we make money from it what's your early read and then what are you look what signals are you looking for down the road it was incredible um so there was a couple things and also there was even kind of in ramp fashion some things that made the um the buy particularly impactful and maybe a little more clever so um by being by buying the ad much later than most normal people would do we had access to very unique inventory like it's sort of is a a little insane to say 11 days before the Super Bowl you know what if we did that um and so as a result we actually knew who was playing in the Super Bowl you know we were able to to find someone that had incredible relevance to to what people were were watching and of course saquan is an amazing one of one Talent um that was phenomenal next um there was without getting too specific a lot of folks that um for various reasons would normally buy Super Bowl ads and shes who had to deal with fires and other things like that that dropped out of the Super Bowl um you know didn't want to be advertising at a time when you know we we sort of coming under attack and it meant that some of the the spots that we were able to get were in extraordinary slots um for people who were watching closely we were the very last ad uh going into to the Super Bowl um and that was nationally aired um for folks in other markets saw the ad twice and um well I can't get specific on the figures it was a lot less than what people think and the impact was a lot more I think that saquin um you know being a core contributor and having an extraordinary season meant that not only um you know was a lot of coverage of of him but you know even the next week he was on The Today Show and um you know they talked about his his story as well as um our partnership and um the ad aired there and and and we can see this in the metrics where February was you know uh by many accounts the um by far the biggest February that we've ever had um uh the acceleration just in terms of of of sales as well as people feeling like um you know it's gone from startup to you know this company that I knew when is is actually on this big stage and so you you can see it in in in in the growth and just even in how people feel How likely people are to recommend and and and we've seen all these go up I have a more personal question uh you now run a a 13 billion plus company you're still one of the most kind and genuine people that I know and it's almost most people by the time they they sort of climb the mountain to to to build a company this big they get sort of hardened uh what do you what do you credit your ability to you know um your your ability to sort of lead with kindness and I feel like every conversation that I've had with you but at the same time sort of broadly your sort of reputation despite you know building uh such a behemoth in such a short period of time uh that's broadly your reputation with anybody that I feel like interacts with the company where does that come from so one I I just think um you know we're we're thrilled to be here but you know I I I you know show some humility um 13 billion is a lot it's still very small uh in the grand scheme of things you know we're competing directly with companies that have multi- hundred billion if not uh almost trillion dollar market caps um some of the largest companies you know today are um call it$ three and a half trillion dollars um and the wild part you know is that mathematically a company like um you know an apple or Microsoft soft or Nvidia you know talking to a ramp uh is almost like a ramp talking to a seed or Seri J uh startup it's actually those multiples and between valuations are about the same um uh and so in some sense uh uh I think some of it just comes from the the reality of um we have such a long way to go um there's so much more to build there's so many more people that we can serve and uh just remembering that um I I I think that when you look at at at Great companies in the past often are by by hubris um you know arrogance and you know forgetting like the reason why they were able to to grow and get there is were people who early employees who gave them a shot and um worked hard who didn't have to be there who who who were there early customers who said you know what I I I'm going to try and and you know trust you with my business and please take good care of it and you know that still is true um and so I I don't know um I guess it's a little bit too like you know you grow up a certain way and you know that those kind of things stick with you but um that's really how I think about it right do you want to get into any of the general entrepreneurship questions or anything yeah I mean uh I guess you you've had your pick of the litter in the valley right uh at at this point uh I'm sure you've talked with every major you know investor for you know across different rounds and obviously some funds get conflicted and things like that uh what's the single best piece of advice you've ever gotten from somebody on your cap table it could be um you know uh you know specifically uh on the investor side it's a really good question I mean I uh I tend to really resonate with former operators people who who have built and and run business I think that experience is very it's fun it's interesting also times very solitary turn out it's pretty valuable it's pretty valuable yeah yeah and so look I I uh you know we have a very small board um you know one of the members is is is Keith herb boy and I I think that part of why I wanted to work with with him even from the you know the earliest days is um I just think he had an obsession with um what it takes to to be a highquality operator like I still think his um how to operate talk he gave over a decade ago is is uh as good as it is I think it's very underrated um I think focusing just of that it was uh cannonballs and barrels right barrels and ammunition yeah barrels and bullets bullets yeah I mean the IDE is like the bottleneck you know you might have as many bullets as but if you have a too few cannons you can't fire as many bullets you need to have more more more cannons to go quicker but I I think a lot of the heart of it and some of this is like the score takes care of itself with the idea you manage towards the inputs to drive the out the outcome and you know I think ramp has been in this very large and in some sense people look at it from the outside in hyper competitive space um and we've grown um at a level others haven't in part I I actually think is just by taking that advice to heart um uh it's really looking you know Upstream what are the activities that lead to the outcomes you're trying to drive what are the things I can do today that will save your business you know time and money tomorrow um what are the things we can do today to drive more sales tomorrow and so uh in some sense it wasn't you know profound it just was right and we um tried to listen to it um pretty often it's great yeah I feel like the best uh the the best advice in the valley is actually out in these sort of blog posts or individualized talks and in the same way on the company side you know the ramp secret plan is out there it's like we're going to save businesses the the most amount of time and money and if you want to compete with us on that you're welcome to it's good for the world but we're going to do it the best um so it's amazing to witness and uh uh yeah we'll have to have you back on uh in the very near future because uh you know if there's one thing about ramp is uh there's always always news coming always news can't wait guys I really appreciate it and uh look I uh thanks for having me on the show when uh I say I you wi I think this is going to get continue growing really quickly oh yeah we're excited we have CRA coming on in a couple minutes I think so we're gonna have him psychoanalyze you we'll let you go Eric uh we'll talk to you soon talk to you soon have a great rest of your day cheers we'll talk to you soon cheers yeah bye bye and uh we are GNA take a 30 second break while we um fix some stuff with the stream and then I will give you a little rent of show because we did we jumped straight into that interview uh obviously we're getting live later and later uh and uh so yeah we we want we want to go we want to touch on the Trump tariffs thing but just a little bit Dipper toe in stay not political but it is the top story it's what everyone's talking about so we're going to focus on the tech reaction we're not going to really deep dive into the politics of it we're going to talk about what people on Tech Twitter are saying about it we're going to go through a bunch of timeline uh cover some reaction to earlier uh clips that went out yesterday from the show uh and then I want to talk about Greenland I think Greenland's super interesting and there's uh there's an article in the walet journal about whether or not Greenland could be a place for a mining boom and the then the question they ask is Greenland has the makings of a mining boom so where is everyone like like there are minerals there but no one's really going after them we're gonna try and get to the bottom of it with this Wall Street Journal article and then also uh Google's making a new push with star project Starline have you seen Starline I have not it's one of these like Tech demos that feels very fake but every because like you just can't go experience it but they bring in journalists and like YouTubers and they all walk out journalists and they all walk out of the room like Journal that was incredible and you don't know if they're being paid off or something yeah yeah you know put on the tinfoil hat like they might be paid off to be like that was amazing and really it sucks uh so it's in the it's in the like project Orion realm of like seems really promising but basically it's like a TV that's like 3D and it uses kind of like an illusion technique to help you see someone across the table in like as a hologram interesting and they want to roll it out and they want to get it like cheaper so that basically everyone can have this but uh they're they're making a push so we could podcast holographically I would love that I mean it reviews The Early reviews have been has been remarkable but uh it's very unclear like how real it is or how or how expensive it is to actually roll out so we're going to go through that but mostly we're going to do a ton of phone calls today because we're really enjoying the guest spots we're having a lot of fun people on so we will have uh David SRA hop on and then we're gonna have Bridget Harris from Founders fund hop on at 11:45 and uh who else is maybe going to come on maybe Maguire we'll see I texted him hopefully he can get on um let me see if he's on he's on X this is turning increasingly into just like a live stream we're just like hanging out we're hanging out the um okay he just liked my post he dm' me his cell phone number I texted him hopefully he get with double text maybe maybe we'll just call him live at noon and just be like you're on and that's it uh what's going on okay we got to catch you a break we will be right back you're watching tvpn you'll still be watching in a couple minutes when you get back e that's great we are back you're still watching tvpn we had a little HDMI issue I guess when I was looking at Jordy it would look like I was looking off to the other side anyway it's fixed we're back we're happy to be here uh Ben give me an update on David senra is he in the waiting room does he have the zoom link I mean we're talking about the most powerful man in Miami he is the most powerful man in Miami now you know we had Keith on but Keith has kind of relinquished it a little bit he's got his toes in DC he's got one foot in Silicon Valley now senra senra isn't making a move he's he's locking down the islands he's having he's establishing he's not leaving he's not leaving you're gonna have to drag him out of Miami and I would be happy to drag him out of Miami very easy to get him out of Miami you just got to send a private jet yeah he really does hold the bar well yeah he he he holds a line it's remark how he set that bar and then still manages to get on a plane twice a week you would think that that would reduce the amount of travel but somehow it does not uh anyway uh senra senra senra hopefully he hops on he says he needs five minutes um that was like four minutes ago you know maybe we should just uh play a little bit of his podcast on our podcast the dynamic range between the average quality and the best quality is that two to one but in the field that I was interested in I noticed the dyamic range between what an average person could accomplish and what the best person could accomplish was 50 or 100 to one so given that you're well advised to go after the cream of the cream and to build a team that pursues