#88 - Office Hours with Michael Seibel

About this episode

<p><a href="https://twitter.com/mwseibel">Michael Seibel</a> is&nbsp;a Partner and the CEO of YC. <br><br>He cofounded Justin.tv, which was in the Winter 2007 batch and Socialcam, which was in the Winter 2012 batch.<br><br>For this episode we took questions from the internet. If you have questions for a future office hours episode, just tweet them our way.<br><br><a href="https://blog.ycombinator.com/office-hours-with-michael-seibel">Read the transcript here</a>.<br><br>The YC podcast is hosted by <a href="https://twitter.com/craigcannon">Craig Cannon</a>.<br><br>We're accepting applications from startups for the Winter 2019 funding cycle. <a href="http://ycombinator.com/apply">Apply here</a>.<br><br><b>Questions<br><br></b>00:25 - Why is YC worth 7% of your company?<br><br>6:25 - Generating leverage when fundraising<br><br>12:07 - Youssef asks - How did you validate your product market fit?<br><br>15:00 - LC Carrier asks - How does YC feel about companies who don't want to raise VC after the program?<br><br>17:05 - Edmilson Rodrigues asks - Do companies need to be incorporated already to participate in YC?<br><br>18:50 - Alex Rodriguez asks - What do you look for in startups that haven't had good growth but continue to push through (e.g. AirBnB) that makes you accept them?<br><br>26:50 - Fedor Paretsky asks - Do you have techniques you encourage to make pitches sound more exciting?<br><br>35:05 - David Chen asks - How to find mentors and advisors?<br><br>39:25 - building EatNeat asks - What if anything are you specifically looking for in a startup that wants to be a part of the Startup School 2018?<br><br>40:00 - Ryan Carl Mercer asks - What's your preferred way organizing your time?<br><br>41:05 - John Rigler asks - Can intrapreneurship be effective? I recently returned to IBM, have a patent, and yet have only vague ideas about how to signal and organize other like-minded folks. Could this path sabotage my dreams?<br><br>41:55 - Horacio Chávez asks - How would you approach an investor who says "I won't invest unless you have a patent"?<br><br>42:35 - Yahya Elamrani asks - Why does it feel like entrepreneurs aren’t marriage material? Should an entrepreneur look for an entrepreneurial spouse?<br><br>44:15 - Yahya Elamrani asks - How intense do you really have to be to found a startup?<br><br>48:50 - Is there a particular stage of company that's best served by Startup School?<br><br>50:35 - How do you get the most out of Startup School?<b><br></b></p>