Believe the no, but not the why.

less than 1m read

·Nov 3, 2024

There are a couple pieces of advice that we give to YC founders when talking to investors. I think the first is: believe the "no," but don't believe the "why." You're going to get a lot of "no"s when pitching, and more often than not, the investor will not be transparent as to why they're saying "no."

I think the second is that we say often is, you know, a good investor is respectful of your time, responds to your questions, makes a decision quickly, and leaves you alone. There are very, very, very many people who aren't that good, and there are very few people who add value.

So, if I were to kind of summarize our advice, it is really hard to tell whether you're interacting with a great investor or not. Oftentimes, as an early-stage YC founder or startup founder in general, you don't get to choose, right? Like, you don't have this wealth of choice.

I might say the first optimization is to try to go for people who regularly invest in startups and who are respectful of your time, respectful with you, and who move quickly.

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Believe the no, but not the why.

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