Mateo Vega-Sanz learned from an early age that he needed to be scrappy to be successful. As a student at Babson College in Massachusetts he taught himself to code and then dropped out of school to co-found LULARides, a peer-to-peer car sharing app for college students that picked up members on more than 500 campuses nationwide within the first five months. When the COVID-19 pandemic destroyed LULARides, Vega-Sanz sold his car to cover payroll, but he quickly pivoted the company to the world of insurance tech, and the company quickly raised $18 million in venture capital from Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, SoftBank, Strada and others.

On this episode of Something New, Vega-Sanz discusses the origins of LULA, working with his twin brother as a co-founder, how his scrappy/curious nature has helped the company endure through difficult times, the difference between millionaires and billionaires, and why he looks up to cosmetics heroine Estée Lauder.

Leeor and Steph also discuss some heuristics that seem counterintuitive to startup success.

Don’t forget to follow Leeor on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lmushin and Steph at https://twitter.com/stephmui. Learn more about the Something New podcast at https://somethingnewpod.com.