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Matthieu Hafemeister
Building something new ✨
Matthieu Hafemeister is a prominent figure in the fintech space, currently serving as a Co-Founder at Stealth, a company focused on innovative financial solutions. He has a background in venture capital and technology, having previously worked as a fintech investor at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and held leadership roles at Jeeves, a financial platform aimed at streamlining corporate spending.
Career Highlights
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Co-Founder at Stealth: Since January 2023, Hafemeister has been instrumental in developing Stealth's offerings, which are currently under wraps as the company operates in stealth mode. The organization is based in Los Angeles and employs around 164 individuals.24
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Concourse: He is also associated with Concourse, a startup that emerged from stealth to automate financial tasks using AI technology. Hafemeister emphasizes the need for finance teams to move beyond manual workflows and traditional tools like Excel, advocating for more sophisticated automation solutions.1
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Experience at Jeeves: Prior to his current ventures, Hafemeister was involved in growth strategies at Jeeves, where he gained firsthand experience with the challenges faced by finance departments.1
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Education: He is an alumnus of Y Combinator, which is known for accelerating startups and fostering innovation in various sectors.3
Vision and Impact
Hafemeister's work focuses on leveraging advanced technologies, such as large language models, to enhance financial operations. He aims to provide tools that not only improve efficiency but also deliver actionable insights for finance teams.1 His insights into the fintech landscape highlight the ongoing transformation within financial services, driven by automation and AI.
In summary, Matthieu Hafemeister stands out as an influential entrepreneur and investor in the fintech industry, combining his expertise in technology and finance to drive innovation through his current ventures.
Highlights
We launched a month ago and are already closing 5 figure deals
Lessons from coming out of stealth mode and launching @Concourse_ai 🚀:
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👂I need to listen to @mwseibel & @ycombinator more often. Their advice is launch fast and launch often. The amount of feedback, demos, deals, and momentum we got after our launch has been incredible and only really possible by announcing your product to the world. Kind of makes sense when you think about it 🫣
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🎥 Do a launch video. Share your story and show your product. When you’re launching being able to create your narrative and share it with your network and target buyer is really important. It worked really well for us and as a bonus created additional product videos to show even more of the product in action without overwhelming the launch video
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📰 Press is still really impactful. We were super grateful for @Kyle_L_Wiggers @bayareawriter and @TechCrunch for covering our funding announcement and our launch. It really helped us gain some legitimacy and spread the word about Concourse and kick start our journey in the public. TC is the best in the business to help founders tell their story and are amazing to work with
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🛜 Your network makes or break the announcement. Our lead investors at @a16z and @CRV + our bench of angels helped share the news and repost our launch. This helped us gain traction and start trending for the day which was important to rise above the rest of the news cycle and stories. We would not have gotten the reach and traction we got without their help
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🤝 Your customers can make the biggest outsized impact on a successful launch. We decided to launch only when we felt like our customers could truthfully stand by the product and share our story with their network. If they are willing to share your story and product with their piers it can be an amazing flywheel to experience to gain visibility within your target audience & buyers
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📆 Clear your calendar. Launch day is amazingly fun and you want to be ready to ping everyone you know, respond to every comment, schedule demos and meetings, and really capitalize on making it a success. It was a full 24 hour day for us but seeing the reception in the market was amazing and made it all worth it
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🪫Corollary to #6 - make sure the next week+ is mostly clear. You want to capitalize on the momentum you’re going to get from launching. We went to a conference the week after our launch (our first one!) and I should have spaced them out more. Our panel and booth got us leads that have been amazing but the entire time I wished I was talking to interested customers from the launch instead of standing at our booth and getting new leads
8.📈 Launching solves all problems. There is a saying in startups that revenue solves all problems which every founder will swear by. Launching is the pre-requisite to that and created a ton of amazing momentum within our customers, company, and network. It breaths a breath of fresh air into the company and makes you focus on the important and impactful priorities
Grateful for everyone who helped make our launch a success 🙏🙏
Let me know what worked best for your launch or what launches you’ve been impressed with in the comments!
Excited to apply learnings to our next one 🫡
Happy Launching 🚀🚀
