How Do You Avoid Investors When They Say, It's Too Early?

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As perfect anser, have a plan, basically. How does an investor judge a heavy mvp? That is, someone with basically long sale cycle. Most of these companies try to do pilots. So start with like a four week, six week pilot. Show progress through that. It's not necessarily customer growth. It's more than one customer hav youare facing with them. I would take the now and not read into the now, and keep moving.

We've cut down the third week of lectures to be even shorter and combined them into one podcast.

First, a lecture from Anu Hariharan. Anu is a partner at YC. Her lecture covers nine common startup business models and the metrics investors want to see for each.

Then, a Q&A with Anu and Adora Cheung. Adora is also at partner at YC. During their Q&A they’ll answer questions from Startup School Founders on how investors evaluate startups.

Y Combinator invests a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200), twice a year.

Learn more about YC and apply for funding here: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/

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Topics

00:00 - Intro

00:39 - Anu Hariharan on Nine Business Models and the Metrics Investors Want

1:44 - Enterprise

4:09 - SAAS

8:55 - Subscription

11:33 - Transactional

14:44 - Marketplace

19:04 - E-commerce

21:14 - Advertising

23:12 - Hardware

23:44 - Common mistakes

25:35 - Anu Hariharan and Adora Cheung on How Investors Measure Startups Q&A

26:07 - Team, product market fit, and market opportunity

27:10 - What if the founder doesn't have experience in the are in which they're building a product?

28:19 - How do investors know you're moving fast?

29:40 - Local vs remote

30:40 - Evaluating solo founders

31:45 - Clarity of thought

33:35 - International founders

35:17 - Solo founders

36:21 - Should I fundraise?

38:33 - How does an investor evaluate a company with a heavy MVP?

39:36 - How do you avoid investors who say "it's too early for us"?

40:06 - Is it sensible to engage with investors before product market fit?

40:26 - How do you find the perfect investor?

41:21 - What are the best approaches for minority female founders to gain visibility within VC?

42:36 - How do investors come up with valuations?