Michael Seibel

Discover the best ways for a seed-stage startup to pitch to investors and successfully fundraise from Y Combinator's Michael Seibel. Any founder you talk to likely remembers every investor who said no to them. Those founders hold a special kind of "not hatred," says Michael Seibel, Managing Director and Group Partner at Y Combinator, but a special kind of something for those investors and a desire to prove them wrong. If you're a seed-stage startup, Michael shares the best ways for you to present your company to startup investors.

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator

While the Equity crew prepares for another Y Combinator Demo Day, we're throwing it back to when Natasha and Alex caught up with current YC Partner and Managing Director of YC Early Stage, Michael Seibel. The main question on the pair's mind was how is YC evolving to meet a changed market?  Seibel doesn't often do press -- and neither does YC -- so the interview was used to connect the dots on news from the accelerator, cross check top trends from the 2022 summer batch and ask about some of the biggest critiques people have about the institution. We went a bit long, but figured it was worth it given the way the conversation was going. As always, we'll be back with our weekly roundup on Friday, and don’t forget that Equity is opening this year’s Disrupt. We’ll see you there! For episode transcripts and more, head to Equity’s Simplecast website. Equity drops at 7 a.m. PT every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. TechCrunch also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders and more! Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex asked: How is YC evolving to meet a changed market? The question is fresh off of Demo Day last week, where Team TC and TC+ banded forces to cover the twice-a-year event that sees hundreds of startups launch to the public. These days, Seibel doesn't often do press -- and neither does YC -- so the interview was used to connect the dots on recent news from the accelerator, cross check top trends from this past batch and ask about some of the biggest critiques people have about the institution today. We went a bit long, but figured it was worth it given the way the conversation was going. Equity has a live show on Thursday, and lots more to come. Chat soon! Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PDT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PDT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast,Spotifyand all the casts. Credits: Equity is produced by Theresa Loconsolo with editing by Kell. Bryce Durbin is our Illustrator. We'd also like to thank the audience development team and Henry Pickavet, who manages TechCrunch audio products. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator

Michael Seibel has spent the last eight years advising thousands of startups at Y Combinator. In this podcast, he'll talk about the advice that he's found to be most transformative for startups. Blog post and video: https://www.saastr.com/the-essential-startup-advice-for-founders-with-y-combinators-michael-seibel-podcast-488-and-video/ Sponsors: https://www.invoca.com/ https://stripe.com/ https://www.ontheclock.com/

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator

Michael Seibel (@mwseibel) and I discuss the secret sauce of what goes on inside Y Combinator and how indie hackers can create it for themselves. And because Michael sees nearly 2,000 startups a year--we'll find out the difference between companies that make it and companies that don't.  Follow Michael on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mwseibel Read startup advice on the YC Startup Library: https://www.startupschool.org/ Apply for a YC batch: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator

Barreling full-speed ahead isn't always the key to scale. For Michael Seibel, managing director at Y Combinator and co-founder of Justin.tv and Socialcam, action sometimes needs to take a back seat to asking: "Is this working?" Michael learned early on that by stopping to ask the counterintuitive question, he gained the wisdom – and avoided time lost to big mistakes – that ultimately propelled him forward. At Y Combinator, he's helping other founders ask themselves uncomfortable questions. The answers aren't always obvious, and sometimes they seem downright irrational. But following where they lead, he says, feeds efficiency, confidence, and ambition. That's why the ability to ask the right questions at the right times of the right people is an essential skill for every entrepreneur. Read a transcript of this interview at: mastersofscale.com Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator

Nilay Patel talks with managing director of Y Combinator Michael Siebel. YC is one of the most well-known and successful startup incubators in Silicon Valley. Michael is also a co-founder of Justin.tv, known now as Twitch, and he recently joined the board at Reddit after cofounder Alexis Ohanian stepped down and asked the company to replace him with someone who is Black. That means Michael is uniquely suited to talk about a lot of things that I’m really interested in exploring on Decoder: starting and growing tech businesses, finding opportunities for new ideas, the growing creator economy, and making sure the next generation of business leaders doesn’t look exactly the same as the last one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator

Investment can create more problems than it solves and founders may trick themselves into thinking they have product-market fit when they don't. Michael Seibel, CEO @ Y Combinator explores the top risks founders should be aware of after funding and his best tips to avoid them. Video and blog post: https://www.saastr.com/5-things-that-kill-startups-with-y-combinator/

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator

My guest this week is Michael Seibel. Michael is a Partner at Y Combinator, and the CEO of YC's startup accelerator. He was the cofounder and CEO Justin.tv, which eventually became Twitch, and Socialcam. In this conversation, we discuss all Michael has learned reviewing thousands of applications to YC, interviewing countless new entrepreneurs, and watch young companies begin to grow and, occasionally, find product market fit. Listeners will also enjoy when Michael traps me big time in my thinking about AirBnb and his framework for great problems to solve. Enjoy this great conversation with Michael Seibel   This episode of Invest Like The Best is sponsored by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis.  If you’re a professional equity investor and haven’t talked to Canalyst recently, you should give them a shout. Learn more and try Canalyst for yourself at canalyst.com/Patrick.     For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag   Show Notes (2:22) – (First question) – Emerging trends among founders (6:00) – The long-term impact of Covid on business (7:16) – What an application to YC looks like and what stands out for him (11:46) – What he wants to learn in the interviews (13:54) – Poise in the interviews (15:40) – How the YC experience has evolved and improvements they’ve made (18:38) – How he defines technology             (18:50) – Every Company is Becoming a Software Company (21:12) – His thoughts on non-software companies and how they play into what YC does (23:48) – Why frequency and intensity of the problem matter to him (28:32) – Serving the supplier and building the demand (30:38) – Bravery in founders (36:07) – Partnerships and collaboration in venture capital investing (37:58) – Second time founders focus on distribution (39:23) – Coaching the psychological component of being a founder (44:16) – Learning as a founder vs the education system (46:08) – Customer vs investor focus of founders’ mindset (48:16) – How teams know they are really onto something (52:38) – His being a founder trainable or innate (54:08) – Kindest thing anyone has done for him   Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator

Michael Seibel is CEO and a partner at Y Combinator and co-founder of two startups – Justin.tv and Socialcam. He has been a partner at Y Combinator since 2013, advised hundreds of startups, and has been active in promoting diversity efforts among startup founders. Hear his take on the future of work with a decade in learnings from YCombinator. Missed the session? Here's what Michael talks about: How quickly should you hire? When is the right time to sell a startup? How large a differentiator will investors make in your company? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin SaaStr Michael Seibel

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator

In this episode of Product Hunt Radio, I'm visiting Y Combinator's San Francisco headquarters to talk to two of the people who are integral to Y Combinator — Kat Manalac and Michael Seibel. Kat is a Partner at Y Combinator and one of the people that convinced us to apply to join the program back in 2014. She's been at YC for five years, focusing on founder outreach, company pitch perfection, and much much more.. Prior to joining YC, she was Chief of Staff to Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian and also worked on brand and strategy at WIRED. Michael is CEO of Y Combinator's accelerator program. He has been through YC himself a couple of times — first in 2007, as co-founder and CEO of Justin.tv — and again in 2012 as co-founder and CEO of Socialcam. Justin.tv later became Twitch and sold to Amazon, and Socialcam was sold to Autodesk. In this episode we talk about: The evolution of Y Combinator. It's changed a ton since Product Hunt went through the program four years ago. They've been working on several programs for founders — things that Michael wishes existed when he went through the program. Michael and Kat's advice for founders, including counterintuitive tips they've learned after working with literally *thousands *of startups. A key mistake that trips up new founders when pitching their company, as well as advice for founders seeking a technical co-founder. How YC has scaled the organization as a 50-person company with its 4,000 (and growing) alumni. Of course, we also chat about some of their favorite products, including a virtual assistant that will do anything, a $1,500 smart mirror that will get you fit, and a beverage that will get you high. We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Also, big thanks to our sponsors, Airtable, GE Ventures, Intercom and Stripe for their support. 😸 Quotes from This Episode "80% of the pitch is to tell me what you do and 20% is to tell me why it's good." — Michael "[When pitching] it is always best to start [by answering] one line: 'what do you actually do'?" — Kat “The goal is always to make sure that people who are smart and want to build things have the opportunity to get funding and startup advice no matter who they know or where they come from." — Michael "I think that a lot of people try to hustle around having a technical co-founder, which is possible, but I don’t think they realize how hard it is to hustle around that, [and if they did] I think they would just hustle to get a technical co-founder." — Michael "Instead of pitching your tech friends on whatever your solution to that problem is, instead pitch your friends on how important that problem is." — Michael "I recommend talking to as many people as possible about your idea because you never know who is going to be excited about it, or who might be interested in being an early investor, or who might want to join the team." — Kat "You’ve got to get it out and into the hands of users, otherwise how do you know that they actually want what you’re building." — Michael "It takes a special personality I think [to be a startup founder] — that you wouldn’t want to do anything else — that you couldn’t maybe. A lot of startup founders I know would be terrible employees." — Michael Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode Bitwise — The world's first cryptocurrency index fund. California Dreamin' — Cannabis infused sodas. DearBrightly— Personalized prescription skincare products. Fin — Virtual assistant service. Gixo — Live fitness classes wherever you are. JUMP — Electrified, dockless bike rentals. Magic — Get whatever you want on demand with no hassle, through SMS. Mirror — The mirror that's also an interactive home gym. Nanit Baby Monitor — Smart baby monitor that tracks sleep using computer vision. Peloton — World class indoor cycling experience wherever you are. Remix — The platform for designing your city’s transportation future. Robinhood — $0 commission stock brokerage. Station.io — One app to rule them all. STEEZY — Online dance classes with the world's best instructors. Titan — Built like a hedge fund. Tonal — Machine learning digital gym + personal training built in. Twindog — Find other dogs and their owners around you.

Kat Manalac

Partner

Y Combinator

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator

Mike Seibel has enjoyed the most incredible career in the technology industry on both the Founder and the VC side of the table. He was Co-Founder and CEO of Justin.TV which was part of the Y Combinator Winter Class of 2007, and was later acquired as Twitch.TV by Amazon for $970 million. In that time Mike also created a spin off from Justin.TV, SocialCam, where he was Co-Founder and CEO, culminating in their acquisition in 2012 for $60 million by Autodesk. Items mentioned in Todays' Show: Twitch.TV SocialCam Y Combinator Dropbox What you will learn in this episode? How Mike got into the technology industry and later the tech accelerator business with Y Combinator? Why Mike did not learn to code? Mike's own experiences in Y Combinator. What is it that Y Combinator does to produce such amazing and revolutionary companies? What does Demo Day look like at Y Combinator? What is the selection process for choosing which companies to back and which not to? What do you look for in the interviews with the Founders? Are top level University degrees necessary for entry into the Y Combinator class? What are Mike's biggest red flags when looking at startups? Why Mike would never outsource engineering? What can startups do to prepare themselves for the Y Combinator process? What sector is Mike really excited about and why? What is a day in the life of a Y Combinator partner? We then finish todays episode with a rapid fire round where we hear Mike's thoughts on the best piece of advice Mike has received, the hardest decision Mike has had to make in his career, how can an individual start a company with no technical skills or experience? For all the resources mentioned in today's show, check out www.thetwentyminutevc.com Likewise, we would love to hear from you, so if you have any questions you would like asked or VCs you would like to have on the show, send an email to harry@thetwentyminutevc.com

Michael Seibel

Managing Director

Y Combinator