Lecture 19 - Sales and Marketing; How to Talk to Investors (Tyler Bosmeny; YC Partners)

Lecture Transcript: http://genius.com/Tyler-bosmeny-lecture-19-sales-and-marketing-how-to-pitch-and-investor-meeting-roleplaying-annotated Three segments in this lecture: Tyler Bosmeny, founder and CEO of Clever, starts off today's lecture with an overview of the Sales Funnel, and how to get to your first $1 Million. Michael Seibel, founder of Justin.tv and Socialcam and Partner at Y Combinator, then goes over how to talk to investors - the pitch. Dalton Caldwell, founder of imeem and App.net and Partner at Y Combiantor, and Qasar Younis, founder of Talkbin and Partner at Y Combinator, then perform an investor meeting roleplay to give you a taste of how it actually might look behind the scenes. See the slides and readings at startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec19/ Discuss this lecture: https://startupclass.co/courses/how-to-start-a-startup/lectures/64048 This video is under Creative Commons license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/

Dec 1, 201448mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Founder-led sales from zero to one, plus investor pitch fundamentals

Early-stage sales is founder work, and founders often outperform “professional sales” through passion and deep problem knowledge.
Prospecting is a numbers game focused on the small set of early adopters, using tactics like targeted conferences, concise cold email, and systematic outreach.
Sales calls should be dominated by customer talking time, with disciplined follow-up aimed at forcing a clear yes/no rather than accumulating “maybes.”
Closing requires pragmatism: avoid over-lawyering contracts, resist one-off feature promises without commitment, and replace free trials with opt-out paid agreements.
Investor pitching is best kept to a 30-second (three-sentence) core plus a two-minute expansion, and fundraising works best when scheduled in parallel and driven by company momentum, not polish.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Assume sales is your job until it’s repeatable.

The talk reframes “we’ll hire sales later” as a mistake: the founder must sell early because passion and domain understanding beat generic sales experience at the beginning.

Prospecting is math: only a small minority will buy early.

Using the technology adoption curve, the speaker highlights that ~2.5% (innovators) will consider a no-logo, no-revenue startup—so you must do high-volume outreach to find them.

Go where your buyers physically are, and pre-book every minute.

Small, industry-specific conferences outperform flashy expos; get attendee lists, email everyone beforehand, and schedule meetings so the trip is fully utilized.

Cold emails should be short, specific, and action-oriented.

A functional template is: who you are, what you’re building, and a near-term ask (e.g., “time tomorrow”), avoiding long explanations that reduce replies.

On sales calls, “shut up” and run structured discovery.

Top performers aim to talk ~30% and ask questions like why they took the call, how they solve it today, and what the ideal solution is—so you learn the real buying triggers.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Hire the salespeople, as a founder, the reality is that's you.

— Tyler Bosmeny

If you only take away one thing from this presentation today… when you get them on the phone, remember to shut up.

— Tyler Bosmeny

Where you die is if you have 1,000 maybes.

— Tyler Bosmeny

I think you can get everything you need done in two minutes.

— Michael Seibel

Anything other than a check or wired funds is a no.

— Qasar

Founder as primary salespersonAdoption curve and the 2.5% innovators tailProspecting tactics: network, conferences, cold emailDiscovery calls: asking questions and listeningFollow-up discipline and pipeline hygiene (yes/no vs maybe)Closing traps: redlining, feature bait, free trials30-second and two-minute investor pitch structureTraction, market sizing, and unique insightFundraising timing, warm intros, parallel meetingsDeal heat, investor diligence, and stopping fundraising

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