The Truth About Y Combinator

1. 0:00 – 0:27

   Introduction

   1. DCDalton Caldwell0:00

      I love, I love the like, "Well, I watch all your videos, so we kind of get YC." It's like, "Guys."

   2. MSMichael Seibel0:05

      [laughs]

   3. DCDalton Caldwell0:06

      "These videos aren't YC." Like-

   4. MSMichael Seibel0:08

      Yes. [laughs]

   5. DCDalton Caldwell0:08

      Oh, it's so funny.

   6. MSMichael Seibel0:11

      [upbeat music] So this is Michael Seibel with Dalton Caldwell. And today, we just finished up, um, a YC batch, and we're getting a ton of feedback. We thought it'd be great to talk to you all about that.

2. 0:27 – 1:56

   Expectations

   1. MSMichael Seibel0:27

      Let's be critical for a second. I would argue this is something that YC does poorly, that they, that they very clearly pointed out. They were like, "When we applied to YC, we really didn't know what we were applying for." One founder said to me, "We just thought it was a three-month program. We had no idea that you follow on investing in companies later, that you have programs for helping me raise a Series A, or for helping me as I'm scaling. We had no idea." Um, another founder said to me, "We didn't even understand how YC was organized. We thought it was just gonna be some big online lecture. Like, we didn't know we would be assigned a group partner. We didn't know we'd be put into groups and sections. We get to meet with small groups of companies that are, like, in our area, and, and..." Like, they didn't know any of this stuff. And, you know, that's kind of a knock on us. I think sometimes we-

   2. DCDalton Caldwell1:17

      Yeah

   3. MSMichael Seibel1:17

      ... have to assume people know. But a lot of these founders were like, "Well, I applied to YC 'cause I talked to alums, and they really liked it. And then when I got here, I was like, oh shit. Like, this is way more stuff than I-"

   4. DCDalton Caldwell1:31

      Yeah

   5. MSMichael Seibel1:31

      "... thought." You know? [laughs] One founder was like, "Dude, we didn't even know that you helped us hire. And then today, there was a meeting about the, like, YC hiring platform. And we were like, oh, we didn't know. We, we didn't, we, we, we spend seven, 7%. We had no idea what we were getting for it." [laughs] I don't know. Why do you think we suck at that, though, Dalton? Like, it's pretty obvious we're bad at it.

3. 1:56 – 4:57

   Secret YC perks

   1. DCDalton Caldwell1:56

      There's just a lot of moving parts. And so people know about the batch because they, they heard, you know, "Oh, it's a three-month program. Oh, you move to the Bay Area, and you spend time." And even then, there's confusion. It's like, "Yeah, no, like, you get to know us in person." Sometimes they're like-

   2. MSMichael Seibel2:11

      [laughs]

   3. DCDalton Caldwell2:12

      ... surprised that it's really you and me, the you and mes.

   4. MSMichael Seibel2:16

      Yeah. [laughs]

   5. DCDalton Caldwell2:16

      They think we're, like, paid actors or something.

   6. MSMichael Seibel2:18

      [laughs] How many acceptance calls do you do where they're like, "So am I gonna get to work with, like, you?" [laughs]

   7. DCDalton Caldwell2:25

      [laughs]

   8. MSMichael Seibel2:25

      I'm like, "Yeah, I'm calling you." [laughs]

   9. DCDalton Caldwell2:28

      And, and they-

   10. MSMichael Seibel2:29

       You haven't met anyone else. Who else would it be? [laughs]

   11. DCDalton Caldwell2:30

       Yeah. We're the, we're the, uh, we're the hiring, we're the YouTubers. We're just the front guys.

   12. MSMichael Seibel2:34

       [laughs]

   13. DCDalton Caldwell2:34

       The real, the real... It's like, "No, it's really us." And, and, and so I think they know about the program. I think they may have heard something about Demo Day, but it's always way more impressive than they expect. And then they have no idea that we keep talking to the companies for a while. And there's all this other crazy stuff we do to give people an edge, um, a lot of which we kind of don't/can't talk about. And so I think that's part of the reason that we don't market it as well, is a bunch of the stuff we do is meant to be secret. I don't know how you market that. [laughs] And there's just a lot of data that we keep secret, unless you're in YC. And that-

   14. MSMichael Seibel3:11

       Yeah

   15. DCDalton Caldwell3:11

       ... is, like-

   16. MSMichael Seibel3:12

       Yeah, it's

   17. DCDalton Caldwell3:12

       ... gonna stay that way.

   18. MSMichael Seibel3:14

       Lot of secret data.

   19. DCDalton Caldwell3:15

       [laughs]

   20. MSMichael Seibel3:15

       You know the other thing that's, that, that makes it hard? I- I've started to realize this. It's too easy to think of YC as a university. And, uh, when I think back, you know, I'm sure Yale has changed a couple ways in the last 20 years since I went, but it's not changed that much, right? I'm sure Stanford's changed some ways since you went, but it's not changed that much. And I think that when we think about a u- university, we're preconditioned to think it's probably 99% the same year over year.

   21. DCDalton Caldwell3:46

       Yeah.

   22. MSMichael Seibel3:47

       And I think what people don't think about YC as a, as as a product, right? If you were to look at Instagram day one and look at Instagram now, it's completely different. And you would expect that. You would expect the product to change all the time. And, and I think people's misconception is YC is a university or a school.

   23. DCDalton Caldwell4:05

       Yeah. Yeah.

   24. MSMichael Seibel4:05

       It's not YC as a product.

   25. DCDalton Caldwell4:07

       I, I think you nailed it. We, we talked to people about this. I think they think we have some lessons we're gonna teach you or something. Or, like, I love, I love the like, "Well, I watch all your videos, so we kind of get YC." It's like, "Guys."

   26. MSMichael Seibel4:18

       [laughs]

   27. DCDalton Caldwell4:19

       "These videos aren't YC." Like-

   28. MSMichael Seibel4:21

       Yes. [laughs]

   29. DCDalton Caldwell4:21

       Oh, it's so funny. Anyway. So it's not like a school where we're like, "Here's our syllabus. We're gonna read you. Here's our lecture. Here's lecture four."

   30. MSMichael Seibel4:31

       Yes.
4. 4:57 – 6:08

   Not a mafia

   1. MSMichael Seibel4:57

      what? And this is why it's a little dangerous. Th- this is a dangerous thing I'll say. You know, we've been accused of being a mafia.

   2. DCDalton Caldwell5:04

      [laughs]

   3. MSMichael Seibel5:07

      And we're not a mafia, right? We don't break anyone's legs or anything like that. Um, [sighs] but it's not completely false, right?

   4. DCDalton Caldwell5:17

      [laughs]

   5. MSMichael Seibel5:17

      Like, like, if you're, like, made in the mafia, you do get privileges that normal people don't, right? And, and, like, when you get to go through YC, you get access, like you said, to resources that other people don't, right? And so there, and, and there's a slightly different way it's a little bit like the mafia. People don't shit on you as hard. You know? Like, when you're in the mafia, like, someone's not gonna rob you, right? Like, when you're YC, VCs don't rip you off. Like... And so I'm not saying it's a mafia, right? I'm saying-

   6. DCDalton Caldwell5:56

      [laughs]

   7. MSMichael Seibel5:56

      ... it's not a mafia. We just have these very clear similarities To what I've seen on mafia TV. Oh, God. Anyways,

5. 6:08 – 7:02

   Misconceptions

   1. MSMichael Seibel6:08

      so, um, this kind of, th- this part of the feedback that we got from founders, it had, it had two elements. One was we didn't really understand the benefits that YC had when we were applying. Um, it also had this, um, aspect of there were some really serious misconceptions that we had about YC that didn't get cleared up until we got in. You know, one was this misconception around, like, are we actually gonna get to work with you personally? Like, is there actual structure to this thing where we feel like we're getting really personalized support? But, but what, what are some of the other misconceptions that you saw that were, you know, uh, obviously, I mean, I, I would argue, like, obviously designed to try to convince people to not do YC. Like, th- these, these were, like, designed attacks on YC. W- what else are you seeing out there?

6. 7:02 – 8:05

   Investors

   1. DCDalton Caldwell7:02

      Trying to f- trying to encourage founders to think that investors are what makes your company great, and that you could get product ideas and product market fit based on who you let on your cap table. So you're like, "If I get this investor, they'll do this for me, and this investor does this for me." And so, "Well, YC will do this for me." And it's like, guys, like, the way you build a company is not, you're not baking a cake where you, where you sprinkle in three different investors and then a cake pops out.

   2. MSMichael Seibel7:29

      [laughs]

   3. DCDalton Caldwell7:30

      Like, that's, like, the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

   4. MSMichael Seibel7:32

      [laughs]

   5. DCDalton Caldwell7:33

      This is a really common misconception out there, which is, like, I hate to break it to you, you're doing all the work.

   6. MSMichael Seibel7:38

      All the work. [laughs]

   7. DCDalton Caldwell7:39

      We're not.

   8. MSMichael Seibel7:40

      No.

   9. DCDalton Caldwell7:40

      The reason, the reason to do YC is not that we're gonna do the work for you. It's that it's a great environment to do this with other peers and founders-

   10. MSMichael Seibel7:49

       Yeah

   11. DCDalton Caldwell7:49

       ... and get access to these resources while you're the one-

   12. MSMichael Seibel7:51

       Yes

   13. DCDalton Caldwell7:51

       ... baking the cake.

   14. MSMichael Seibel7:53

       You're-

   15. DCDalton Caldwell7:53

       And the amount of resources you get in this network way trumps the resources you get from some random small check, like-

   16. MSMichael Seibel8:02

       Yeah

   17. DCDalton Caldwell8:02

       ... similar size check-

   18. MSMichael Seibel8:03

       Waitress

   19. DCDalton Caldwell8:03

       ... right? Like, so I think that's

7. 8:05 – 8:51

   Direct experience

   1. DCDalton Caldwell8:05

      one. I think another big, uh, misconception was, um, just folks, a lot of folks that ha- apparently have the strongest opinions of telling people about YC never actually were in a batch. I don't know where that comes from. So just be, just, like, be curious 'cause, you know, it's, you don't try... D- like, I, I, I had this founder in my group this batch, and he was like, "Well, yeah, everyone that was in YC was like m- you should definitely do YC, and the people not in YC were like, 'Oh, it's not worth it.'" And he's like, "In retrospect..." [laughs]

   2. MSMichael Seibel8:37

      [laughs]

   3. DCDalton Caldwell8:37

      He's like, "Now that I think about it." [laughs]

   4. MSMichael Seibel8:41

      Everyone who never used my product had opinions about it, and everyone who did use my product had different opinions, and I weighed them equally. [laughs]

   5. DCDalton Caldwell8:50

      Yeah.

8. 8:51 – 11:11

   The scale lie

   1. MSMichael Seibel8:51

      You know, the last one for me is this crazy misconception about how far along you have to be. It, it -- and, and, like, what pains me about this misconception is that it can be destroyed through basic research. It's like, look at the companies who've done YC who've been successful, and look at how far along they were when they applied. Yet over and over again, people will tell founders, like, "Oh, unless you have this much revenue, or unless you're live, or unless you've been doing something for this period of time," or like, "YC is for scaling, but it's not for starting." That's, like, garbage. Like, literally 40% of the last batch came in with just an idea.

   2. DCDalton Caldwell9:34

      Yes.

   3. MSMichael Seibel9:34

      Most of them were working when they applied, were at work working jobs when they applied.

   4. DCDalton Caldwell9:40

      It's true. And again, l- let me just say the brutal truth. This is the brutal truth. Some company that their idea to start was to first raise a pre-seed round and sell 30% to some random investor, have some co-founder who lasted a year, and then they had to fire them and now they have a bunch of equity, who's gone through three pivots and burned half a million dollars and applies to YC. Michael, would you rather fund that or the brand-new company that started a month ago, they just quit their jobs, the cap table is completely clean, and the, and the founders are just, like, totally jazzed and ready to start a company? Like, who do you think is more likely to succeed?

   5. MSMichael Seibel10:20

      Uh, yeah, you know? You know? Uh, I think if you look at the last batch, it's very clear where our preferences lie.

   6. DCDalton Caldwell10:26

      Yeah.

   7. MSMichael Seibel10:27

      It's very, very clear.

   8. DCDalton Caldwell10:28

      And so again, people that their idea that you've, you know, go to I- go to YC once you're ready to scale or once you've done all this stuff and after the, you know, [exhales] exactly wrong. Dude, how many companies have we funded the past few batches that they have to change their idea, which is fine. It's good to change your idea. We like it. But they've already raised and they already have all this hair on the company, and they think they're really far along. How much harder is it to change your idea once you have a bunch of hair on the company because you thought you were ready to scale?

   9. MSMichael Seibel11:02

      So hard. So hard. I, I think that, like, you know, [sighs] it's so funny,

9. 11:11 – 12:33

   Why to do YC

   1. MSMichael Seibel11:11

      but in my mind it's so clear. You do YC because you want an amazing peer group. You do YC because you want to not be screwed over by investors. You do YC because you want honest feedback, and you want to take responsibility for the win or loss of your company. And you do YC because so many other great companies did YC and extracted value out of it, that you should be confident that if you're a great founder, you can extract value out of it as well. It's that simple. And, and, like, so many people that convince founders that YC is bad, they can't c- explain why taking their money or doing their program or doing their thing is better. All they can do is, like, neg YC. And, like, if you ever see someone making an argument that's 100% ripping something else down and 0% explaining why their thing is good- If all of your talking points is the alternative is bad, [laughs] like, uh, you know, like maybe all you're selling is fear 'cause that's all you have to sell. And like maybe that's your business model is selling fear. Um, not the kind of investor I want on my cap table.

10. 12:33 – 15:08

    Recent batch

    1. DCDalton Caldwell12:33

       And then what's the reality? Like inside of YC, if you're a YC company, if you're in the batch-

    2. MSMichael Seibel12:39

       Yeah

    3. DCDalton Caldwell12:39

       ... if you're getting the advice from us to prepare for demo day, uh, how'd it go, Michael? Like, [laughs] like what did we notice?

    4. MSMichael Seibel12:48

       You know, first valuations, I think everyone was nervous that valuations this summer would come way down. Wasn't it like #VCsummervacation or some shit like that was going on where no one was around? Prices are almost exactly the same as they were during the last batch when it was like VC heaven on earth and money was flowing like, like crazy. We saw 15 to 25. Some companies raised at 30. Almost no change from the last batch. Didn't see any change on speed. You know? We saw investors going from meeting to commitment within one to two meetings. Didn't see any difference on terms. Like, you know, investors weren't demanding board seats or weird craziness. Uh, I don't know. What did, what-

    5. DCDalton Caldwell13:38

       Yeah

    6. MSMichael Seibel13:38

       ... what did you see?

    7. DCDalton Caldwell13:40

       All similar stuff. And, and again, I think this is like an evergreen lesson for everybody, YC alums or people not in YC, is it's too easy to take an anecdote that you heard from people or stuff people are saying in the group chat and think it applies to you. Like one of the classic mistakes we see from later stage YC companies is they base how easy or hard they think their fundraise will be based on TechCrunch articles they read of other people raising. They're like, "Hey, so and so just raised, so I'm gonna be able to raise at the same valuation." And think about how much time you and I have to talk people off the ledge on how like some random company in Europe raising for like some AI whatever doesn't magically mean their fundraising will be easy, right? Like you're, it's like bad data. Like garbage in, garbage out, okay? So again, the advice for folks [laughs] is your mileage may vary. I'm sure there are people out there having a harder time to fundraise. I apologize to you. Right? I'm not saying my experiences or the experiences YC companies have are the same as yours, but this is sort of the meta point I'm making, which is too many folks think fundraising is a market like the stock market, and that there's like graphs and charts you can have, and it all operates like an efficient market instead of what it actually is, which is like 10 different things, right, Michael? Like the YC funding ecosystem is like its own little universe.

    8. MSMichael Seibel15:03

       It's its own thing.

    9. DCDalton Caldwell15:05

       Right? It operates separately than this other stuff.

11. 15:08 – 16:45

    Running an auction

    1. MSMichael Seibel15:08

       A lot of what people don't understand is the power of running an auction, right? Like they just like, it's so rare that you really get to run an auction. You know, most founders, early stage founders, are not running an auction. They're begging for money. Like let's be frank, we, Dalton, you and I were there, right? Like we were, we were begging for money. [laughs] Like when you're in an auction, you get to do things like name your own price. Like YC companies say to investors, "We're raising this much money at this price. Are you in or are you not in?" Right? Like-

    2. DCDalton Caldwell15:44

       Yeah

    3. MSMichael Seibel15:44

       ... that's, that's, that's a foreign language to people who've like, most people who've raised a round. "Oh, we need a lead to price us." Completely different for YC companies. I think the other thing that happens when you're running an auction that people don't understand is you get inbound offers. Like a typical company in this batch got between 10, and I've seen 60 or 70 investors cold emailing them, wanting to learn about investing in their company. I get founders messaging me on Slack, "Michael, what's going on?" And I'm like, "Oh yeah, no, this is just how, this is what... Nobody told you this is what happened at YC?" They're like, "No." And I'm like, "Oh yeah, this is... Yeah, investors cold email you. You don't cold email investors." And they're like mind blown. Mind blown. So I think that's what's so funny is that we talked to so many founders who had such a different experience fundraising.

    4. DCDalton Caldwell16:40

       Yeah.

    5. MSMichael Seibel16:40

       Often from the same funds before doing YC than after doing YC.

12. 16:45 – 20:33

    Fake advisors

    1. MSMichael Seibel16:45

       And, and, and let's dig into that. Like I think you have like this great analogy around this kind of early stage investing environment. Like try to kind of frame what's going on here-

    2. DCDalton Caldwell16:54

       Yeah

    3. MSMichael Seibel16:55

       ... folks.

    4. DCDalton Caldwell16:55

       My first company, uh, was in the music industry, for better or worse. And so I s- I, I learned a lot about, in the eight years I worked on it, I learned a lot about how the music industry works and how Hollywood works in general. And I started to see a lot of parallels, um, between those industries and Silicon Valley. Again, kind of depressingly, if I'm honest with you, and it's the following. A lot of the folks who are most approachable when you're a first-timer or when you're just moving to the area or you're trying to break into the industry, the friendly people that want to talk to you are often the most exploitative, and they're the people whose business model is to just like squeeze you and like pull you up the funnel to someone else. And that the folks that you-

    5. MSMichael Seibel17:43

       And make you feel like they're doing you a favor while doing it.

    6. DCDalton Caldwell17:46

       Yeah.

    7. MSMichael Seibel17:46

       Right?

    8. DCDalton Caldwell17:46

       They're like, they're gatekeepers, but they're really friendly, and you don't know. You're like, "Oh, you're, you're a talent scout? Oh, you, you like, you know, you like the way my demo... You came to my show?" Like whatever it is, like there's folks who really aggressively, um, sell themselves to newcomers, and part of the pitch is, "Oh, I'm really important. I know all these important people."

    9. MSMichael Seibel18:05

       Yeah.

    10. DCDalton Caldwell18:05

        "I can open doors for you. Um, you know, here's some other people that I know. I can introduce you to them." Like there's all these like-

    11. MSMichael Seibel18:13

        Yeah

    12. DCDalton Caldwell18:14

        ... kind of promises And sadly, the story with a lot of folks, you know, in the entertainment business is, um, [lip smacks] you learn the hard way that those... You, you wanna not talk to those people. [chuckles] Or you wanna understand there's... You wanna make it to the, to the big leagues, uh, and get, again, if we're talking about agents or something, to the extent you can get a really good well-known agent that's like a large agency like CAA-

    13. MSMichael Seibel18:39

        Yes

    14. DCDalton Caldwell18:39

        ... or something, all right, well then you, you made it. [chuckles] Like, it's like a key step to go from like s- Anyway, we-- I don't wanna get too deep in the Hollywood stuff, but there's commonalities across these industries. And the thing I noticed in Silicon Valley in my startup experience was a lot of the characters that came out of the woodwork and that they were most successful to me, as a first-time founder, in retrospect-

    15. MSMichael Seibel19:01

        Sure

    16. DCDalton Caldwell19:02

        ... were not great. [chuckles]

    17. MSMichael Seibel19:04

        No.

    18. DCDalton Caldwell19:05

        Like-

    19. MSMichael Seibel19:05

        No

    20. DCDalton Caldwell19:05

        ... "Hey, give me advisor shares to introduce you to someone. Hey-"

    21. MSMichael Seibel19:08

        Oh

    22. DCDalton Caldwell19:08

        ... "pay to pitch. We have a pitch competition coming. Hey," you know, like all these angles that weren't great. And what's weird is a lot of the people, you know, were like medium famous and had like some social media clout. Like you-- Like they did enough to seem successful or drive fancy cars or seem rich that you would-

    23. MSMichael Seibel19:27

        Yeah

    24. DCDalton Caldwell19:28

        ... think they did actually know people. I mean, you had this too with like fake advisors, right? Like-

    25. MSMichael Seibel19:32

        Yes. Yes. God. I had a fake advisor who literally took 2% of our company to help us fail at raising a round that was rescued by our existing inside investors. 2%. And exactly the same thing, right? Like, "Oh, really nice. So I'm helping you out. Oh, it didn't work out, but, like, you signed this thing," or the, "What about my consideration?" I actually didn't even sign anything. It didn't matter. And so I think this is like what's interesting is when talking to YC founders, they have so many of these horror stories of these kinds of experiences fundraising before YC, and then they're shocked when like an investor's like, "Sure, I'll sign a SAFE. No, I don't need pro rata rights. I don't need a board seat. I don't need a board observer seat. No, I'm fine." You know? Like, and the founders are like, "What do you mean?" And then it's like... And, and

13. 20:33 – 26:40

    Horror stories

    1. MSMichael Seibel20:33

       I think that it'd be helpful for us to talk about some of those specific horror stories that they tell us about, right? Um, company in, in my, um, [lip smacks] uh, group that raised money, um, they were desperate. They raised a, a good chunk of money from an investor who, um, you know, put in hundreds of thousands of dollars and bought over a third of the company straight away. And what they didn't tell that founder is that every subsequent investor would say to themselves, "Huh, this investor put in a relatively small amount of capital, bought so much of the company that the founders are gonna get so diluted," dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, "they're not gonna end up owning anything. And it's gonna shut off later stage rounds completely." And, you know, these founders, of course, the, a couple hundred thousand, it wasn't enough. They raised more. They raised more. They came in YC with almost 50% dilution. And it's like from an investor who knows better, but who saw that they could get leverage over a founder, and so they took it.

    2. DCDalton Caldwell21:38

       This leverage point is fascinating because so much of when you talk to founders that go out to do a lot of fundraising, there's a lot of talking points that get beat into your head, and it's easy to believe them. Um, like, "Oh, I have to own 20%. Oh, I have to have a board seat. Oh, if you raise it too high of a valuation, it's bad. Oh," like... And when you think about it, those are actually very, you know, clever talking points from the investor perspective. And again, so many of the memes out there about fundraising that are be- are being pushed by folks where it's convenient. Do you see how it's actually [chuckles] convenient to be like, "Prices are down, and founders should give up more rights than they used to give during the economy." What, what are some other horror stories, man? What else you got from this batch?

    3. MSMichael Seibel22:28

       Yeah. I mean, I had one where the investor-- The founder was like, "Hey, when we previously went out, we wanted to raise a million dollars, and the investor wanted us to do it as a priced round and to pay for $50,000 of their legal fees." And I'm like, "Companies raise on SAFEs and pay nothing."

    4. DCDalton Caldwell22:53

       There's no legal fees.

    5. MSMichael Seibel22:53

       "There are no lawyers." [chuckles] On this situation, you hand 50K. And, and the even more criminal thing is, great, you wanna do a priced round. Awesome. There's standard paperwork for that. It shouldn't cost $50,000 to do a priced round. Like, you're just ripping off founders. Pure and simple, ripping off founders. There are other situations where someone is basically like, "Oh, I'm committing to be in your round, but I need to be the last money in. Tell me when you've raised this much money."

    6. DCDalton Caldwell23:24

       Yeah. Once you find another million, I'm in.

    7. MSMichael Seibel23:27

       But like you have to, and you have to leave room for me. I'm like, wait, wait. Are you just making rules up? No, this doesn't, [chuckles] this isn't how it works, right? But founders don't know. We, we got another one where it'll be like someone saying, "All right. Um, I'm committing 500,000 of your $2 million round. You just have to go and get the rest. I'm gonna lead, but you just have to go raise another 1.5 million." Like these horror, these are like all horror stories over and over from founders in this batch talking to us about fundraising before doing YC. And it's like, I, I know why they were shell-shocked. I know why they were shocked when they did want fundraising during YC. They didn't hear any of this shit. [chuckles]

    8. DCDalton Caldwell24:07

       And, and what's tough, man-

    9. MSMichael Seibel24:09

       It's insane

    10. DCDalton Caldwell24:10

        ... is when you think about it, to just go back to the, to the music industry metaphor, the entertainment industry metaphor, for a lot of folks, they were, they would've been better off, or people would say, "I was, I would've been better off just like waiting longer to get better, a better agent- Or like be, not having like a bad agent, just having no agent. Or-

    11. MSMichael Seibel24:31

        [laughs]

    12. DCDalton Caldwell24:31

        ... instead of having a bad manager who like stole the masters from me, maybe having-

    13. MSMichael Seibel24:36

        No bad manager. [laughs]

    14. DCDalton Caldwell24:38

        And so this is what's weird, is a lot of the content marketing we get from the venture capital industry is to convince people they need it and want it immediately. It's, like the message that you're brainwashed with as a, as a founder is like, "You can't even start without raising a pre-seed round. And we're in the business of pre-seed round," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And again, I, I hope people never hear that from YC or they don't get that from us. We say the opposite. If you watch our other videos, we're like, "Yeah," like, "You don't actually need to go raise money-"

    15. MSMichael Seibel25:12

        Get started. Yeah. [laughs]

    16. DCDalton Caldwell25:13

        "... to like start a company and to like get customers." Like this is deeply part of the YC mantra, which is if your idea for how you start a startup is to first create a pitch deck and go pitch VCs, you're setting yourself up to get screwed. You're setting yourself up to get taken advantage of who pe- uh, by people who are gonna have 20 different ways to rip you off. Versus if you do something cool, um, you're gonna have a lot more leverage, right?

    17. MSMichael Seibel25:42

        Anyways, um, this was an amazing batch. And I don't want YC to take too much credit here. The founders did the work, like we said. The founders did the work. And, you know, to one of the points you made earlier, being able to see everyone in person this batch was also just like amazing. You know? It, it was one of the things that reminded me about why this is such a fun job, is being able to see everyone and interact with them throughout the batch. So this was a good one, right? I don't know. This was a good one.

    18. DCDalton Caldwell26:16

        This is good. We made it.

    19. MSMichael Seibel26:17

        Yeah. We made it. [laughs]

    20. DCDalton Caldwell26:19

        We made it. And we survived.

    21. MSMichael Seibel26:19

        1920? We survived 19. Kinda nuts. Kinda nuts. All right, man. See you later.

    22. DCDalton Caldwell26:27

        Sounds good. Talk to you later. [upbeat music]

Episode duration: 26:41