garry

18 ms·

151.
by garry 10y ago
I previously blogged here about the general application process. You should definitely apply. YC is basically one of the few places where anyone in the world can apply and have a real fair shake at having their application be read and voted
152.
by garry 10y ago
I've been trying to answer emails from founders as much as possible, and have been taking a few meetings from cold emails. My schedule is booked out to December as a result, but I'm working through it.
153.
by garry 10y ago
I usually tell teams to really focus on specific and direct stories that are helpful to answer the three things all people in a pitch care about: Team, idea, and traction. Team is pretty straightforward. E.g. How do you know if you can do X
154.
by garry 10y ago
I'm not sure what you're saying. You've always got to put your best foot forward. What worked in 2007 is just not going to work in 2016, naturally.
155.
by garry 10y ago
I think Leo nailed it with that post. I just had lunch with him actually and it's remarkable how similar our philosophies are. Not that surprising I guess, since he is also a seed investor who started as a hacker.
156.
by garry 10y ago
Just jotted my quick notes on what kept coming up with the half dozen or so early interviewees I met in advance of their interviews the past few days. It was surprising how the same things kept coming up over and over again, so that's
157.
by garry 10y ago
We absolutely do. Kim-Mai Cutler has been great here making sure that we invite a diverse set of folks to our happy hours and events. We don't track ethnicity in our portfolio but do have many Latino, Latina and African-American founde
158.
by garry 10y ago
If by received product you mean we invested in early stage companies and helped them grow, then yes?
159.
by garry 10y ago
You're mistaking Palantir for the NSA. Palantir has rock solid access logs and access control that actually prevent the government from breaking with due process without court orders. Personally I'm anti-surveillance and have been
160.
by garry 10y ago
Hi Josh, thanks so much! I feel the same way - fellow founders are our peeps. Great questions. Community is of course amazing to have, and very necessary. We've all been to those horrible mixers where everyone runs around talking about
161.
by garry 10y ago
That's not actually true, we invested in their seed round directly from Initialized Capital. Apoorva's in the thread above with a testimonial. :-)
162.
by garry 10y ago
Yes, a long time ago — I forgot what it was called but thanks for the reminder! My 15 mo old at home will love it!
163.
by garry 10y ago
There are lots of small seed funds now! And many of them are new. This way we can lead seed rounds and so when a founder gets our money, they know they'll be done soon (lots of smaller investors will follow on quickly) and will be able
164.
by garry 10y ago
Try to use plain spoken language to describe what you do, who needs it, and ideally what you've done already. Doing that alone will get you to better than 80% of pitches out there.
165.
by garry 10y ago
By late stage for us, I was thinking that you still also have YC for the earliest stage and it's still the best way in the world to "cold pitch" someone but still have a chance to get funded and identified with no existing co
166.
by garry 10y ago
I'd say 2/3rds are in the SF Bay Area. SF/SV is still the most concentrated place for startups, so when you want to grow fast it's still probably the most concentrated place for talent and capital. You can certainly star
167.
by garry 10y ago
One talk I like to give at college campuses is such: A startup is like the obscure 1990's Playstation game Katamari Damacy. You start off with a small magic ball about the size of a pencil eraser. You can pick up anything smaller than
168.
by garry 10y ago
We've definitely funded hardware and hardware that's software-enabled. The economics and and execution required are very critical, so the bar just gets set higher, I think.
169.
by garry 10y ago
Thanks for the note. I'm happy to talk more — garry@initialized.com.
170.
by garry 10y ago
About 1 out of 3 startups from our last fund were not YC. Many came from warm intros, but a few I scouted and found myself. I went out and recruited Bannerman to YC personally (they're focused on security, which fulfills a key role on
171.
by garry 10y ago
We've been spending some time in the UK and really think the ecosystem in London is impressive and growing with real companies doing great work. We haven't invested any UK-based startups yet, but have funded many UK founders, if t
172.
by garry 10y ago
We're working on a system to do this, and will announce it when it's ready. Sign up for email notifications at initialized.com to see when it's up.
173.
by garry 10y ago
Dude yes. Congrats on the ongoing success!
174.
by garry 10y ago
Working on it. :-)
175.
by garry 10y ago
Thanks for this. Working on a fix.
176.
by garry 10y ago
It really varies based on the company, stage, market. Check size typically $500K to $1M. We typically try to be the biggest investor in someone's seed round, and when we invest, the founder knows their round will be closed soon and the
177.
by garry 10y ago
It's just me, Alexis and Alina. :-)
178.
by garry 10y ago
At the early stage this is always classically difficult. For both founders and early stage investors, you're balancing dilution vs. percentage ownership. We think buying 5% of the company is the right level for a given seed fund. It&#x
179.
by garry 10y ago
We finally got the initialized.com domain this year. What are you seeing? Let us know and we'll take care of it. Thanks for the note.
180.
by garry 10y ago
We've definitely spent some time and talked to a number of startups there. I'm happy to talk with you and help you with your pitch, and if we end up investing then all the better. garry@initialized.com

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