Why Fundraising Is Different In Silicon Valley - Michael Seibel

Y Combinator CEO and Partner Michael Seibel on why fundraising in Silicon Valley is different.

Topics
00:00 - Why Fundraising Is Different In Silicon Valley
00:25 - Overcorrecting based on investor feedback outside Silicon Valley
00:35 - Investors are not spread evenly around the world
00:50 - Why Silicon Valley investors are different
1:50 - Investors in Silicon Valley are less likely to dismiss ideas out of hand
2:30 - Judging based on if a team is executing

[SandHillRoad]

Love how you're pointing out how every investor's anti portfolio shapes the mindset going forward!

[RHWriting]

Sounds like their needs to be a YC for VC firms lol.

[danboric]

Wow. The timing of this release is almost too perfect, it's creeping me out. This is a perfect summary of recent conversations I've had. Thank you, Michael.

[lepchenkov]

Michail, thank you for sharing your knowledge

[nivasreddyinaganti]

Totally Agree about the weightage to team and execution . But if there is a new team with exciting idea how do you judge whether they can execute or not ? Based on their degree(Stanford, MIT..)?? Based on their previous successful exits ?? Based on their employment (ex-googler, ex-facebooketc..). I dont think these parameters are enough to judge a new team. And a not-so-good team can become good after YC . What is the point in selecting good teams always (they are already good by themselves) ?

[MostCommentsAreFake-udby]

Question for Michael : Do you EVER invest in lone entrepreneurs ? Or does the only hope of a successful startup involve a team of founders ?

[samuelpeace]

"Is this team executing?" Deep

[owen_nx]

What you are talking about is exactly the fund raising situation in South Africa. Investors here aren't competing with each other, it's startups vs startups.

[YoannBuzenet]

What could be the other strong startup ecosystems according to you ? Are there some in Europe ?

[samricher]

So it’s the fear of missing out syndrome

[zofe]

"Executing" is a test for blue-collar workers, i.e. technicians, rather NOT to engineers == scientists/thinkers/managers.