Kevin Hale - How to Pitch Your Startup

In this lecture, YC Partner Kevin Hale goes over how to package up your idea and communicate it to an investor. He shares his tips on how to craft your pitch in a clear and concise way that effectively grabs your audience's attention.
Transcript and lecture slides here: www.ycombinator.com/library/6...
This lecture is part of YC's Startup School, a free online program and global community of founders. Register and join the community at www.startupschool.org/
Chapters (Powered by bit.ly/chapterme-yc) -
00:00 Introduction
2:09 YC application
5:08 Be clear
12:30 Example pitches
16:35 "X for Y"
20:09 Be concise
27:09 Conclusion

[@daveb4446]

The more of these presentations I watch, the more obvious it becomes why Y Combinator is so successful. So much passion combined with common sense. Great combination.

[@danielpelaez8593]

Find myself coming back to this video whenever I'm preparing a new deck. Really reminds me to keep things clear and cut out all of the BS. Good stuff Kevin and YC

[@AbderrahmanFodili]

If you keep pitching again and again and coming back over here. Does that mean his advice doesn't work or you've been very successful with so many investors?

[@rickyshepherdii8146]

Me too. Kevin is always on point

[@jonnupe1645]

Deck, as in playing cards? Or for houses? I'm both confused and curious lol

[@stevekpdadzie9322]

@@AbderrahmanFodili Exactly my question.

[@SKHQuest]

I really enjoyed not only the clear, concise content, but also the way Kevin helped me understand his points with so many great examples.

[@amitawekar]

Thanks a lot Y Combinator for putting out all the great content free on youtube. These insights are super helpful.

[@VishalRaoOnYouTube]

Kevin Hale delivers another hit talk. "Evaluating Startup Ideas" was awesome...this talk is an excellent follow up.

[@27windsurfer]

This is the best tutorial that I have found online. I have joined a small class of budding entrepreneurs based in the UK to help us get ready to pitch our business's to investors. This tutorial really adds value to our course. Thank you Kevin.

[@bradhouston4734]

I’ve watched this a couple of times before, but this time I’m watching it on the way through Start Up School! Still great stuff 😀👊🇦🇺

[@jeffazletx]

How did your pitch deck go over with the investors?

[@hezha9739]

This video was full of valuable insights! The tips on using legible slides were especially helpful. The emphasis on simple language and avoiding industry jargon is very useful for me and I appreciated the advice on focusing on the problem the startup is solving and the target audience. Thank you for sharing these practical strategies and tips for success in business!

[@niloparedes233]

Wow. Really great video. What made it great for me? Content. Yep it's clear and concise. Actionable. Delivery. Kevin has energy and passion. It's obvious from his word choice, his tone and voice that he brings the content alive. Also, this valuable advice for folks that need to share ideas.

[@yashwardhandixit143]

This is beautiful. I've been looking at it for hours now :P

[@matthewfelgate]

This is a good presentation because it gave me a lot of practical advice on pitching and reasons why.

[@blek1987]

This is pure gold.

[@larsthomasdenstad9082]

So many great presentations from you guys, thanks for sharing this out for free.

[@letsgosean]

You're amazing, Kevin!! Thanks so much for sharing your mind with us!

[@jiftip]

Thanks, Kevin, your presentation is priceless. See you at Y-Combinator Summer 2020.

[@wuhei164]

Thank you so much for the clarification and illustration.

[@healingzen338]

That was an exceptionally well-delivered presentation.

[@maryamrashidi2329]

Fantastic talk! Very much enjoyed and appreciated this one… Many thanks.

[@blakemccorkle18]

*Finishes reading 50th revision of YC Application* - "Finally, it's perfect! YC won't know what hit them! Oh , Kevin posted a new video, let's take a look".. *watches video* "Annnnd now onto revision 51..."

[@johnpathadan]

What's your startup??

[@blakemccorkle18]

@@johnpathadan VR Experiences for First Responders, focusing on critical thinking skills. (Incident Command, Triage, Patient Assessment) It's simple to learn tying knots, much harder for complex mental tasks, because of lack realism/detail/infrequency/cost. We mainly use whiteboard/powerpoints. I have an overview on my YT showing 3 modules & my background (12 year Fire Medic, self-taught Unreal game engine developer).One of us had to learn this stuff. Thanks for the question.

[@quasa0]

@@blakemccorkle18 how's it going?

[@cbrcoder]

I am "investor" for my own "business idea" - this video is immensely helpful to pitch it to myself :)

[@danokhlopkov]

Great lecture! Thanks a lot!

[@adriannedubins2778]

Insightful!! I can see how the lack of clarity in my pitch is impacting outcomes. I am taking these insights RIGHT NOW and adjusting!!!!

[@RafCenterMyself]

Very helpful, thanks for uploading this!

[@DaviiWP]

I loved the way the first guy to ask a question runs out of the room when he doesn't get a silver bullet for his problems. Hahahaha

[@ErnestoJSilva]

Great presentation, thanks for inspiring and teaching us entrepreneurs!

[@christian15213]

I watched this about 3 times and studied it. Thank you this makes so much sense.

[@hamidullaz]

Useful recommendations for everyone who do presentation. Not only startups

[@Allen1029]

This is terrific; I really like this guy.

[@martinstine]

Great presentation Kevin. Learned a lot. Great One YC

[@AKing99]

Great video, good title, I knew what to expect

[@oksanachopak594]

Great lecture and awesome answers, like always. Thanks!

[@ailurxo]

thank you so much for sharing this

[@mosesnandi]

What an excellent talk!

[@vapeurdepisse]

The thing about being defensive is really on point. I found myself in this position too many times. "What if my pitch sounds lame and simple? Let's add more fluff."

[@nbme-answers]

5:47 "Marketing and advertising are a tax companies pay for not making something remarkable." Awesome. Wufoo-awesome!

[@rowland5951]

You still have to market and advertise even when the product is good.

[@w2ttsy670]

Rowland true, however the amount of tax a company pays is proportional to how remarkable their product is. Until recently, Instagram barely advertised at all, the network effect, problem being solved, and stickiness of the app made it super successful without huge ad spend. However, look at some other products you see popping up on KZbin ads all the time, they are the ones that don’t hit it out of the park instantly, so have to spend more to recruit users through above the fold advertising.

[@xdmooo]

Not sure, I agree with that statement, between 2016 - 2018 Apple spent $1.8 billion on advertising.

[@AdeelKhan1]

@@xdmooo Apple pretty much started a new PC industry with a minimal investment (Mark Markaullaugh). Apple is not a startup today.

[@samhoffman523]

This is a Jezz Bezos quote. “ADVERTISING IS JUST A TAX YOU PAY FOR LACK OF INNOVATION.”

[@brownbread8430]

Thx a lot!

[@OvenBakedCookie]

1:21 Market's requirement went down from the previous video's (part 1) 20%/year to 10%/year. What prompted this correction? Was 20% too narrowing?

[@andreasv9472]

what does it mean? That you take 10% of the entire market per year?

[@danielm3977]

Einstein , "If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself." Btw Kevin you are awesome, You know that .Right

[@sorcererstone3303]

Great. Can you please explain to me, a 6 year old, what is special relativity (1905) and what is general relativity (1915)?

[@holygekko]

Sorcerer Stone kzbin.info/www/bejne/h5S4lqxjebuMoM0 👍

[@DavidNayer]

@@sorcererstone3303 special relativity is about how our measure of time changes when we change our relative speeds and general relativity adds to this ideas to include gravity and other conditions to make it more complete. For example, general relativity helps to more correctly adjust the clocks of satellites that are more greatly effected by the pull gravity than by compression of their high speed around the earth.

[@arifashaikh1411]

General Relativity: Space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how to curve. (Dr. John Wheeler). You want me to explain Special .... much trivial.

[@murraywestenskow2896]

Einstein never said 6 year old - he said "high school student."

[@Giverb.DoGood]

Can you link to part 1 please? Maybe I missed it

[@n3hg2]

Thanks!

[@superresistant8041]

very good

[@ivanliszewski2247]

Amazing

[@Mrconcretecoatings]

Very good

[@iamhammadnasir]

This is extremely helpful! Just for fun though why he quacked at 16:46?

[@DavidProrok]

Fire presentation thank u 🔥 🎁

[@andersskele3787]

This is really good.

[@oliversissonphone6143]

I would love for you to pitch us Google and Facebook. As for Dropbox - there were a thousand other companies offering products to synchronize files.

[@kevinaud6461]

In 2007? Who?

[@henry-ng]

Arguments made by the author in the video are: 1. Companies should be clear and concise in describing their products or services (23:07-23:48). 2. Company descriptions should start with a problem rather than buzzwords (23:49-25:39). 3. The first step to improve a company's description is to figure out the nouns in it (24:34-24:37). 4. Companies should be careful when using modifiers or adjectives in their descriptions (24:45-25:25). 5. Investors don't expect companies to be simple and easy, so founders shouldn't worry about being too reductive (26:22-27:00).

[@rajs1471]

37:03 perfect!

[@luissuarez5845]

18:49 and about the Golden Circle by Simon Sinek? I prefer to lead with why. But, if I don’t know what my startup idea do, I would rather lead with what, sure. What is the first step.

[@privacygone8239]

26:24 Is it a short description? It is more than 50 characters. If it is a long description then why in final startup school slides stats shows that 78 words is an average answer of accepted companies?

[@christian15213]

i don't understand what you're saying

[@Rosini2222]

@ilikevests Thank you for this presentation. It was very very helpful.

[@maktoumrashiedalmoqbali8927]

Kevin it’s an amazing guy his tips helped me to get my first angel investment and still coming back to his videos

[@awakeningnow]

more videos like this. very helpful

[@rezaulkarimtarek1720]

Full 41 minute watching for Vedio, Wow just amazing

[@AbrahamSamma]

this is an evergreen video. very useful

[@KlaasVictor]

This is amazing!

[@RoadmapMBA]

This guys is awesome!

[@NisseOhlsen]

What I really like about a lot about these people, Kevin included, is that there is very little BS. Which builds trust.

[@leonidas1983]

Thanks Kevin for your presentation from Argentina ;)

[@Jeighmack]

Really interesting that Kevin asks us to only explain "What" it is our company does, if you compare it to a lot of hype around Simon Sinek's golden circle strategy to "Start with Why". For investors looking at thousands of applications I absolutely get that brevity should be exercised, but it's important for founders to remember that not everyone you're pitching to is in this position. Kevin listed employees, shareholders and users - these audiences will be more influenced by the "Why" and the "How" than YC Investors. Epic talk nonetheless and took heaps of value away from it - thank you Kevin!

[@K-WAYY]

Totally agree with you. I paused for a second & had a flash back to Simons talk…. Anyway we pick what we need & move

[@mahab944]

Amazing!

[@stefanocasafranca924]

Pure gold.

[@abhinavsharma2657]

Startup Essentials

[@binteam8501]

Give this man some cookies and applause.

[@senju31]

@13:35 Airbnb's Description

[@lukemurphy98]

Great presentation, but mic placement could be better. Audio suffered as a result

[@thisisnotramansmusic1045]

this is fuckin amazing

[@ibrahimimtiaz5025]

How is this free

[@sebaparaguay]

Great presentation! What font is that?

[@MrBlackMamba07]

Whatever you said kevin is like revealing the secret of a magic trick ... Once the trick is out its just a rabbit hiding in a fake compartment

[@hireshtrivedi9731]

Its just me or his shoulder twitching when he gets excited about his talk :p

[@ianhobson9935]

He's winding up for the pitch

[@vardaanagarwal3629]

note to self :- how to adjust a long para ? ans:- 24:00

[@--DjAS--]

with some AI you can get more concentration reading all those applicatons Kevin, by the way im working with AI :D

[@george_davituri]

⭐

[@tejaspandit5416]

Suggestion: The title of this and pt 1 video is misleading. I thought this is about "How Founders Should Evaluate Startup Ideas". The title should say "How Investors Evaluate Startup Ideas" instead.

[@PoolMedia]

True

[@sumitkhanna7786]

15:35 seriously?? Anyone just randomly comes and says we 're building Google for next billion users and you turn heads?? Doing a mammoth thing, a herculean task and not even mentioning how you're doing it "differently" and it gets YC's attention. Wow!

[@claughlin]

You forgot the most important thing - the team.

[@m44235]

For the 34 people who disliked this video, did you ever get accepted to any incubator lol ?

[@pasticcinideliziosi1259]

36:06 whats happening to the guy behind on the left

[@sealy999]

The title is misleading. this is how to apply to YC

[@ztruth7792]

Whats the point of getting an MBA if it'll turn you into that?

[@shahrukh877]

Turn you into a multimillionaire?

[@hilltan2611]

What do you think of idea evaluation / consulting services such as ideaconsult.com.au? Anyone find it helpful?

[@nieder-olm]

7:00 slide completely not legible

[@christian15213]

"Fucking Screenshots" LOL

[@--DjAS--]

Kevin your twitter account is suspended :$, do you have a new one?

[@zb3645]

he completely disappeared

[@yeeitmete]

12:10

[@xftp]

I can see his kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z2i7i3qLjcRsn68

[@SuperKillaki]

Why is he so angry?

[@stimpyfeelinit]

saxton no relation

[@freddougly1509]

4:32...you are not good at selling? had me for 4 minutes 32 seconds before i instantly turned off my speaker lol

[@freddougly1509]

changed to a liked video tho because content creators deserve support, let's not confuse content creation on youtube with a company's initiatives!

[@CrispyBK]

The peaceful multimedia socioeconomically satisfy because luttuce spectacularly wrap along a voracious egypt. colorful, festive eel

[@MB561]

Very basic level information here.

[@pottymouthmexican]

this does not apply to unicorns.

[@da_revo5747]

Start-ups aren't born Unicorns

[@aseindia7424]

as I know Airbnb was part of Y Combinator Accelerator

[@justusgreen8498]

Of course it does lmao

[@musiconly7447]

how to design an ugly pitch deck

[@dipteshsharma3102]

Thank You Elon 2.0 (Ik he is not elon musk)

[@ivantodorov]

Asking chatGPT to pitch my startup to a 5yr old VC is a great way to generate some gems for sound bites. "A magic show for your eyes and ears" was a great find in the copy below. I fed it about 30 pages of pitch deck and website copy, and got this deliverful pitch: Hi there! My name is Ivan and I'm the founder of Vibes + Logic. We make really cool things that help people feel happy and calm. Have you ever listened to music and felt like it made you feel a certain way? Well, our technology makes music even better by adding special lights that change with the music. It's like a magic show for your ears and eyes! We use something called Al, which is like a robot that helps us make the lights and music work together perfectly. And we use something called XR, which is like a special headset that lets you see the music and lights in a whole new way. It's super fun and makes you feel like you're in a different world! We're building our own special products, like a lightbulb that changes colors with the music and a headset that lets you see the music and lights in 3D. And we're also working on something called the Metaverse, which is like a giant playground for music and lights. You can go there with your friends and explore all kinds of cool music and lights together. We think Vibes + Logic is going to be really big and popular, and we need some money to help us make it happen. Will you help us, VC? We promise to make lots of people happy and calm with our cool music and lights, and we'll make sure you get lots of money back too. Please say yes!