Kevin Hale is a partner at Y Combinator, which provides seed funding to startups. Their companies have a combined valuation of over $30B. Among their successful investments are Dropbox, Stripe, 9GAG, Code Academy, AIRBNB, Reddit and Homejoy. He works with their portfolio of companies on user experience design, product development and customer support. In 2006, he co-founded Wufoo, which was one of the earliest Y Combinator funded companies. Wufoo is a software company in Palo Alto, California.
"You gotta say no a lot to get to a billion" - Kevin Hale
Kevin shared his insights on how to pitch your own company. Start by saying in a clear and precise way what you do and not why you do it! A good idea can always be explained in one single sentence and is understandable for everyone.
To continue, he states that a successful startup is based on a team which is enthusiastic and smart. Taking this into consideration, the business model does not matter on first glance because nobody can predict how a market will develop in the future.
In order to participate in the Y Combinator program you need to convince the investors that you are both, clear in your vision but also shapeable to become a better entrepreneur. Therefore, young founders tend to have higher chances to be pitched since they are rather open for new concepts. In a nutshell, pitching is an art that combines soft skills and full devotion for your project.
