YouSaid · the spoken record

Mike Seibel

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26
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2015-03-02
most recent
2015-03-02
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1
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  1. “I'll say more generally that One of the things that I feel like is a huge thing for me to determine whether I should make an investment is products that I use every day. So I always think back to Dropbox. I know those guys since basically day one. And I remember the first time I installed Dropbox on my computer. And I never stopped using it from that day to today, every day. And so thinking back, I always think like, oh, I'm such an idiot. I clearly should have, you know, borrowed or stolen or somehow gotten some money and tried to invest in them because looking back, if there's a product that you use every day that you love, it's a perfect investment. So that's certainly one of the things that I think about, you know, when I decide to invest.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “I think three things. One was lifestyle. I'm kind of moving to another phase of my life where I want to settle down and have kids. And I felt like the YC life that would be better for kind of being a family person. Also, because it is hell to do a startup. I had done startups for eight years. And, you know, it's a huge emotional roller coaster. And, you know, I've been lucky to be successful twice. And I kind of felt like maybe it was time to help other people and to give back.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “And it's interesting. I think there's a lot of controversy on which way is better, but I think it's actually better to start with at least an idea of who you want to work with and then kind of formulate and narrow down the idea amongst that group of people as opposed to the other way.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “Can't outsource. I don't think outsourcing is a good path to building a large billion dollar company with major impact It starts with your team. I think if you want to do a technology startup, step one is to go through all of your friends and all the people you've worked with and build your team, build that one or two or three or four founder team and make sure that team has the set of skills and abilities it needs to build an MVP. You don't have to have the best engineer in the world, but you really should have a good engineer as part of that founding team. So start there. I think most people make the mistake of starting with an idea.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “So What I would say is start early. Don't assume that you're going to be able to learn these skills in a classroom or in a larger company. If you want to do a startup, start now. You're going to learn much faster on the job than you will learn at another job.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Increase the number of people starting tech companies. And so I didn't actually expect the split to be so even, but it's really exciting because I really have the opportunity to talk to companies when they're fairly early on and help guide them in a direction that regardless whether they do IC or not will put them on a path for success.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “And the other 50% of your time, basically partners get to choose what they want to do to help YC be better. And so some partners work on educational events sometimes. Partners work on cultivating more angels. Some partners work on the software team to make our internal software better. And I work on diversity and outreach to basically help make the YC class and people who are exposed to tech more of a diverse group. So if you look at my average day, I would say that I spend about 50% of my time advising companies that are in YC or participate in YC before. And I spend the other 50% of my time talking to companies that are interested in YC or organizations that want to work with YC to help”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “So, you know, it's very interesting. Why see especially in kind of modern It's kind of modern setup where we've added a lot more partners. I think that the setup is pretty ingenious. So basically 50% of your time is spent doing the normal YC partner things, which I can go through. Basically helping the select companies, helping to interview companies, helping to advise companies and helping companies on and after demo day fundraising.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “So, you know, I was probably one of the first hundred thousand people to have a Twitter account and I didn't see that coming. I knew the founder of Pinterest. I didn't see that coming. Like there are a lot of great things that I didn't see coming. And so I don't try to kind of read the tea leaves to figure out what trends are taking off. I kind of feel like by the time the trend is taking off, the companies that are strong in that area started years before. So I just more look for strong teams in big markets After that, I like everything.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “So I get this question all the time, and I think my answer is I neither know nor care. I don't believe in my predictive powers at all”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “You know, we have a saying that a good company is going to be a good company regardless of whether it does YC. And so what you should be doing is executing on your company. Assuming you have a strong team, you should be moving as quickly as possible to an MVP and talking to customers as much as possible and iterating. And I think that if you're walking down that path, you don't have to do anything special to get into YC. All the things that we look for, all the things that you should be doing already to make your company strong.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “I would never say yes to that team. No. One of the unique things about the YC interview process is that you only have to get one partner in the room to say yes to get in. Typically there are three to four partners in the room. But yeah, I would never say yes to a company that's outsourcing engineering”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “Number one red flag. Oh God, there's so many red flags. They usually center around team. Usually center around either the lack of a technical co founder, a very, very unequal equity split, teams that aren't working full-time, teams that are relying on outsourced engineering to build their product.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Minutes. I've learned your unique insight. I've learned a different way to look at a problem where I've learned that a problem exists at all. And I think that that's really important. I think that you won't be able to impress us necessarily with your credentials, your academic, or educational background. You will be able to impress us by how fast you move and your unique insights on your business.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “And then the last thing, the third thing is traction. The way I describe this is companies enter YC at all different phases. Some of them have already launched. Some of them are imminently launching. Some of them are building things that take slightly longer. What we look for are companies that do 12 months worth of work in six months. We have to feel like you are pushing the envelope in terms of the amount of work and the amount of progress that you have. Because basically speed is one of a startup's number one allies. So we have to see that. And then I think the last thing, and this is something that one of our partners, Paul Buhai, taught me when I was doing my first interviews years ago. In an interview, we should learn something. You should be an expert in what you're doing in such a way that I feel like I've learned something at the end of those 10 years.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “There are four things that I like to see. One, I like to see strong technically talented teams who are working on their company full-time and who are splitting their equity equally or close to equally and who've known each other for at least six months, but I like teams that have known each other for much longer. I like to see them going after large markets. I don't particularly care what the idea is, but I do care that either a lot of people have this problem or the people or companies that have these problems are willing to pay a lot of money for these solutions. So really big markets are important.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “We do. So many, many companies apply, very many companies. And so there's basically a three-phase process. The first phase is kind of a general review of the applications. And that basically sorts the applications into ones that we should be considering and ones that we shouldn't really even consider. Then the second phase involves each partner I'm sorry involves each application being read and graded by at least three partners. And from that process, we create a stack ordering, stack ranking of approximately 450 applications at the top. And then we take those 450 best ranked applications and we offer them all interviews. Interviews are 10 minutes long, and they're done over the course of a week in Mountain View. And then of those interviews, approximately one in four companies will be offered a spot in YC.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Everyone has been helped by another YC founder, so everyone feels the urge to give back. And then I think the last thing is demo day. I think that, you know, it can't be ignored that money is kind of the lifeblood of an early stage startup. You have to Be able to work on full time. You have to be able to put research to bear to make your company good. And I think that on demo day, we create a situation that's very advantageous to founders. We put all of the investors in one room. We allow all of the founders to pitch the investors at the same time. And as a result, it helps make fundraising go faster. It helps increase the amount of money you can raise and the valuation. So I think those three things, the advice, the alumni, the fundraising are kind of how YC really differentiates itself.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “So, I would say first and foremost, the founders make these companies happen, and we just kind of help out on the edges. I would say that YC really does for companies, I think, can be easily divided into three categories. The first is that we'd like to give companies good advice. Advice from the perspective of founders, oftentimes almost all of the time, from former founders. So instead of kind of generalized or academic style advice, you're actually hearing straight from the trenches someone who's had your exact same experience. And all of the partners provide that level of advice. The second thing is the alumni community, which is massive. Now, I think it's over 2,000 people have gone through IC. And so there's just a wide range of people you can reach out to, whether it's to do a deal, whether they're potential customers, or whether you want to ask them for advice. And so”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Let's see the winter class of 2007, I think. And so we then went on, built out Justin TV. And I essentially started working at Y Combinator many years later in the winter of 2013. So January 2013. After that point, I had basically spun a company out of Justin TV called SocialCam. I had sold SocialCam Justin TV was starting to become Twitch TV video gaming site that Emmett was leading. And YC asked me to come back and be a part-time partner while I was working at the company that bought SocialCan. And that was tons and tons of fun. And so about a year later, Sam asked me to join as a full-time partner.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Oh, no, no, no. That was much later. So actually, Justin and Emmett were in the first Y combinator class, which was in the summer of 2005. And they ended up actually selling their company on eBay, which was pretty cool at the time. And Justin TV was their second company. And so we basically participated in YC, but this was now in San Francisco. So this would have been”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Of course, yeah, very bad idea. It's one of the reasons why I don't really care much about ideas now. And so he said kind of in the airport before I was going to leave, he said, well, you know, just think about it. And on the flight back to the East Coast, the only thought that went through my mind was, when is the next time your great friend is going to ask you to start a company? Like this might be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And I was really into politics, but their presidentials every four years. If this doesn't work out, presidential campaigns aren't going anywhere. So I ended up in October of 2006 packing up as much stuff as I could put in a couple bags and flying to San Francisco to be co-founder of Justin TV. And it's a crazy ride ever since”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Basically, I helped plan the road trip. And then once we got to San Francisco, I helped them set up their bank account and figure out where to live. And at the end of the trip, Justin asked if I wanted to join. I said no. I said it was still a bad idea.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Going to start a company on the West Coast in San Francisco. And he told me about it. And it was this online reality TV show And I thought it was basically the worst idea ever. I guess I was probably, we were probably either both 22 or I was 23 and he was 22. And I was working on a political campaign at the time as a fundraiser. And so about four or five months later, my campaign had wrapped up and I was looking to go on vacation. And he and his co-founder, Emma Chir, were driving across the country to start this company. They were driving from Boston to San Francisco. So I asked if I could join them on the road trip.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “You know, I don't know, I think that I think about that a lot, and I think that I was so focused on school and doing well in school. And because computer science and software engineering isn't one of the primary subjects taught at school, I just figured I would focus on those things that I had to focus on to get good grades at school, which I don't know is sad looking back. I really wish there was a CS or programming track in school along with math and science. I think it would make people so much smarter. So anyways, then I graduated from high school. I went to Yale and became friends with this guy named Justin Kahn. And we were in the same dorm together. And after school, about a year after school, Justin told me that he was”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Sure. So growing up, my dad was a programmer and my grandpa was very into computers. He was a professor. And so basically I was just always around computers. I was always around tech. I got my first computer when I was in sixth grade. And so it was something I was very comfortable with. But unfortunately, I never really went down the programmer path. It's one of the things I'm sad about.”

    2015-03-02 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20 VC 016: Y Combinator, Twitch.TV and Socialcam with Mike Seibel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source