Tom Blomfield: Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | E 1152

Tom Blomfield is a Group Partner at YC. Before YC, Tom founded two unicorns in the UK. He was co-founder of Monzo (most recently valued at $5BN), one of the first challenger banks in the UK. Monzo raised more than £1bn and counts 15% of the UK population as customers. Before Monzo, Tom founded GoCardless (YC S11), an online payments processor, most recently valued at $2.1BN.
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Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:53) Background
(10:07) Switch from Founder to Investor with YC
(13:43) European Work Ethic Critique
(17:14) Transition from Angel to Investor in Partnership
(19:47) Signals of The Highest Quality Founders
(21:55) Questions to Ask in YC Interviews with Founders
(27:08) The YC Batch: How it Works
(43:38) The Hype Surrounding AI
(58:25) Quick-Fire Round
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In Today’s Episode with Tom Blomfield We Discuss:
1. From Founding Two Unicorns to YC Partner:
Does Tom believe that all great founders show signs of exceptionalism early?
What does Tom know now that he wishes he had known when he started his first company?
Why did Tom decide now was the right time to switch from founder to investor with YC?
2. The YC Application Process: How it Works:
How do the YC partners select which companies are accepted vs rejected?
What specifically does Tom look for in the problem the company is looking to solve?
In the interview, what are the signals of the highest quality founders?
What questions does Tom always want to ask in YC interviews with founders?
3. The YC Batch: How it Works:
How do the YC partners work with the 25 companies in their batch? What is the interaction?
What are the single biggest mistakes companies make while in YC?
What are the biggest pieces of advice YC gives founders on fundraising approaching demo day?
How do the best YC founders fundraise and use demo day? How do the most nervous fundraise?
How are YC partners measured in terms of their success and effectiveness?
4. AI: Consumer vs Enterprise/ Infrastructure vs Application Layer:
Does Tom believe there is money to be made investing in infrastructure layer models today?
Why is the commoditization of foundation models the best outcome for society?
Why is Tom most excited about the application layer for the next wave of AI?
What are the most exciting opportunities in consumer AI that are wide open today?
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[@20VC]

Subscribe to the 20VC KZbin channel for more great interviews: www.youtube.com/@20VC?sub_confirmation=1

[@danielolsen2520]

Very cool. YC partners should do more interviews. Its maybe a small audience, but tremendously beneficial for anyone of us who is thinking of starting a impactfull businesses.

[@PSModelling]

Great convo, appreciate the honesty of Tom, can see he's an authentic leader.

[@viraj_acharya]

This was beautiful, felt a bit like therapy for tom almost

[@SeanTechStories]

Loved this podcast so so much

[@trading-university.]

Fantastic. Some sage advice in here as well. Thanks

[@emmanuelben1393]

How do you know the highest quality founder?

[@victormustin2547]

For a while I thought you guys were the same one person

[@stage_meta]

Great video and insights, thank you for sharing!

[@ConorsVoicenotes]

Sick pod, thanks Harry

[@michaelforrest2202]

Very enjoyable & interesting

[@James-mk8jp]

newcomers want work life balance because they aren't getting near the same rewards for overworking as the earliest employees, who likely aren't getting near the same rewards as the founders

[@SaroopBharwani]

Tom is a legend

[@nanfukaolivia1444]

Interesting

[@BladeofLight1996]

First

[@michaelthomson5125]

YC has lost the plot during the Garry Tan era. Instead of focusing on talking to customers and solving problems it's become Crypto 2.0 - start with an AI model and figure out which problem you can jam it into. And just quietly pretend all the bias, hallucinations etc. don't exist.