Geoff Ralston: We're gonna have two lectures on fundraising. This one, which is going to be a high level overview, which I'll do. Then next week, my partner Kirstie, will do a deep dive into the mechanics of fundraising which are really fun, so you wouldn't wanna miss that. Before I start, I will say we have an amazing set of resources in our library on fundraising. You should look at them. You should read Paul Graham's essays on fundraising. They have aged really well and they will help you a lot. I wrote a guide to seed fundraising as well that I think is pretty useful, but there are lots of other resources. Videos from last year's start up school, from 2014, How to Start Up a Start Up. One of which I'll reference later which will be massively helpful when you go out and raise money in early rounds and in later rounds. Start ups are hard. Fundraising can be one of the hardest parts even though fun is right in the word.
Geoff Ralston: 我们要举办两次关于筹款的讲座。这一个，这将是一个高水平的概述，我将这样做。然后下周，我的搭档Kirstie将深入研究筹款的机制，这是非常有趣的，所以你不会想错过的。在我开始之前，我要说，我们的图书馆里有一套非常棒的筹款资源。你应该看看他们。你应该看看保罗·格雷厄姆关于筹款的文章。他们已经很老了，他们会帮你很多。我也写了一本关于种子筹款的指南，我认为很有用，但是还有很多其他的资源。视频来自去年的开办学校，从2014年开始，如何启动创业。其中之一，我稍后会提到，这将是非常有帮助的，当你出去筹集资金，在早期和以后的回合。创业很难。筹资可能是最难的部分之一，即使乐趣是正确的在世界上。
It's really not that fun.
真的没那么有趣。
It's a weird marketplace when you get out there.
当你出去的时候这是个奇怪的市场。
It seems like kind of an open market, but it's not rational.
这似乎是一种开放的市场，但这是不合理的。
It's seldom fair. Yeah, you will hear of founders who tell you "Ah, fundraising was easy.
这很少公平。是的，你会听说创始人告诉你“啊，筹款很容易。
I started walking down Sandhill Road and people showered me with cash." That's the exception rather than the rule. While you're fundraising, you're going to hear "no" a lot, most of you. You will hear reasons why your start up will not succeed, why your product is not a good one, why the opportunity you're talking about is not real. Sometimes they'll be right, too, but you should never believe that because you will survive. The way you will survive the multiple times you're gonna go fundraise is by being tough and resilient, and above all, by believing. No matter what you hear, no matter how many times you hear "no" or reasons why your start up won't succeed, you need to believe.
我开始沿着桑德山路走下去，人们给我泼了很多钱。“这是例外而不是规则。当你在筹款的时候，你会听到很多“不”的声音，大多数人。你会听到为什么你的创业不会成功，为什么你的产品不是一个好的，为什么你谈论的机会是不真实的。有时候他们也会是对的，但你不应该相信，因为你会活下来。你要想在多次募捐中生存下来，最重要的是要坚强、有韧性，最重要的是要相信。不管你听到了什么，不管你听到多少次“不”，也不管为什么你的创业不能成功，你都需要相信。
I promised I'd go fast, but I'm gonna go so fast ...
我答应过要快点，但我会开得太快.
I'm gonna give you a complete overview of everything you need to know about fundraising in about a minute or less. Then I'll go deeper after that.
我将在一分钟或更短的时间内给你一个完整的概览，让你了解所有关于筹款的知识。那之后我会更深入。
Anyone who wants to leave after this minute, because you got everything that you needed, I won't feel bad. Just walk out. Okay? So, in less than a minute. Figure out the story of your start up. This means figure out why you're going to matter in the future. What is it about your product, your opportunity that's gonna tell a story about the future, that a venture capitalist would care about? This might mean getting product market fit.
任何想在这一分钟之后离开的人，因为你得到了你所需要的一切，我不会感到难过。出去就行了。好吧所以，不到一分钟。弄清楚你的创业故事。这意味着弄清楚为什么你会在未来变得重要。你的产品是什么，你的机会讲述一个关于未来的故事，一个风险投资家会关心的吗？这可能意味着要适应产品市场。
It might mean growth.
这可能意味着增长。
It could mean a lot of things. Then find the right investors. Do research. Talk to other founders. This is where organizations like YC can be a ton of help. Get organized. You do your homework, you create your spreadsheet, and you get a list of everyone you're going to talk to and you're going to reach out to, or you're going to get introductions to. Then you begin. You will pitch again and again and again. You will refine your story again and again and you will get better at it as you iterate. Eventually, you'll meet the right investors. Sometimes the right investors will be the investor with whom you resonate the best and who you think is gonna be the best added value. Sometimes the right investor will be the person who is willing to write you a check first. Then you agree on a price. We'll talk about negotiations more later. Then you get the money in the bank. Lastly, you get back to work. That's it. Simple, right? I think that was less than a minute. Now you can leave. Okay, so let's get a little perspective first. Why does VC even exist? Well, there's a market for it, right? You guys need the money, most of you. Most of you want the money. There's sort of another reason, too, which is the returns can be really big.
这可能意味着很多事情。那就找到合适的投资者。做调查。和其他创始人谈谈。这是像YC这样的组织可以提供大量帮助的地方。组织起来。你做你的家庭作业，创建你的电子表格，你会得到一张清单，列出你将要与之交谈的每个人，你将要接触到的人，或者你将要得到的介绍。然后你开始。你会一次又一次的投球。你会再次完善你的故事，当你迭代的时候，你会变得更好。最终，你会遇到合适的投资者。有时，正确的投资者将是投资者，你与之共鸣最好，你认为谁将是最好的附加价值。有时，合适的投资者是愿意先给你开支票的人。那你就同意一个价格。我们稍后再谈判，然后你把钱存入银行。最后，你回去工作。就这样。很简单对吧？我想那还不到一分钟。现在你可以离开了。好吧，让我们先看一下。为什么VC会存在？嗯，这是有市场的，对吧？你们大多数人都需要钱。你们大多数人都想要钱。还有另一个原因，那就是回报可能真的很大。
It wasn't always that way. Many people tracked the beginning of Silicon Valley to Bill and Dave starting Hewlett-Packard around 1957. They started with $583 of their own money and never raised venture.
不是一直都是这样的。许多人追踪硅谷的开端，直到1957年左右比尔和戴夫开始创办惠普公司(Hewlett-Packard)。他们以自己583美元的资金起家，但从未筹集过风险资金。
It's possible to do that, but it turns out to do a high growth start up you usually do need money.
这是有可能的，但事实证明，这是一个高增长的启动，你通常需要钱。
About the same time, this French guy named Georges Doriot kind of kicked off the whole thing by investing $70,000 in this, what was to become epic company, Digital Equipment Corporation. He turned that $70,000 into $35,000,000 which as you might imagine, got some people interested. That kicked off an entire industry. But why raise money? What do you need it for? Well, you need it to pay for stuff, to hire people, to rent offices. You need it to grow, right? Start up equals growth as Paul Graham wrote a long time ago. To grow, you almost always need start up capital.
大约在同一时间，这个名叫乔治·多里奥(Georges Doriot)的法国人开始了整件事，他在这个项目上投资了7万美元，这将成为一家史诗般的公司-数字设备公司。他把那7万美元变成了3500万美元，正如你想象的那样，这引起了一些人的兴趣。开启了整个行业。但为什么要筹钱？你需要它做什么？好吧，你需要它来买东西，雇人，租办公室。你需要它来成长，对吗？正如保罗·格雷厄姆(PaulGraham)很久以前所写的，创业等于增长。要成长，你几乎总是需要启动资本。
It's possible to bootstrap. Some companies do, but it is really hard. You should keep in mind it's also true that having money can be a competitive advantage, so most start ups, most of the time, will raise money. When should you raise money? Now the obvious answer is when you need it. That's when you're gonna raise money, when you need the money. Unfortunately, it's actually the opposite that's true. The best time to raise money is when you don't need it. This isn't always possible, but when you don't need money, investors see the biggest opportunity. So throughout the lifetime of your start up, if you can arrange to be in a position where you have lots of money and lots of prospects, the money will come flowing in.
这是有可能的。有些公司是这样做的，但这真的很难。你应该记住，拥有金钱也是一种竞争优势，所以大多数创业公司，大多数时候，都会筹集资金。你什么时候应该筹款？现在最明显的答案就是当你需要它的时候。当你需要钱的时候，你就会筹集资金。不幸的是，事实恰恰相反。筹集资金的最佳时机是你不需要的时候。这并不总是可能的，但当你不需要钱的时候，投资者就会看到最大的机会。因此，在你创业的整个一生中，如果你能安排在一个你有很多钱和很多前景的位置上，这些钱就会源源不断地流入。
If you're profitable, it helps a lot.
如果你能赚钱，那会有很大帮助。
If you're desperate, VCs can smell that a mile away. How much should you raise? One rule of thumb ...
如果你绝望了，风投公司能闻到一英里之外的气味。你应该筹集多少？一条经验法则.。
And I'll give you another one in a second. One thought process to go through is assume when you raise money that this is the last time you'll ever be able to raise, so raise enough so you won't need more, so you can get to profitability. Now obviously this is not always possible.
我马上再给你一个。一个需要经历的思考过程是，当你筹集资金时，假设这是你最后一次能够筹集到资金，所以筹集足够的资金，这样你就不需要更多了，这样你就可以获得盈利。显然，这并不总是可能的。
It depends on the kind of start up you have. You should at least know what you're gonna spend the money on, so do some math. Figure out what the average employee is going to cost.
这取决于你的启动方式。你至少应该知道你要把钱花在什么上面，那就做点数学吧。算出一个普通员工要花多少钱。
An engineer, for example, might be $15,000. We usually use a rule of thumb that a seed run of about 18 months, whatever time frame that you need to where you can raise more money. You have to hit milestones that will be persuasive then, or you have to get to profitability, and then the number of folks you're gonna hire. So, how to raise. There could be a whole lecture on this. Rather than doing a whole lecture, I'm just gonna make a couple of points on this. First, what you know.
例如，一名工程师可能需要15，000美元。我们通常使用一个经验法则，种子运行大约18个月，无论你需要什么时间框架，在哪里你可以筹集更多的钱。你必须达到具有说服力的里程碑，或者你必须获得盈利能力，然后你要雇佣多少人。那么，如何提高。可能会有一场关于这个的讲座。我不做整堂课，我只想说几点。首先，你所知道的。
Investors invest in you. So ask yourself, if you were an investor, would you invest in you? Are you formidable enough? Are you the kind of person who can take an idea and turn it into a reality that matters, into a big company? Yeah, I know I'm repeating myself, but I'm gonna go into a little more detail and I'm gonna repeat a little bit of what I said in that very first lecture. The other thing that investors are going to invest in is the story of your start up. What product are you building for what opportunity, for what customers? Is this story interesting, believable? Does it resonate? Does it tell a future that they can believe in? Think about that.
投资者投资于你。所以问问自己，如果你是一个投资者，你会在你身上投资吗？你够强大吗？你是那种能接受一个想法并把它变成一个重要的现实，成为一家大公司的人吗？是的，我知道我在重复自己的话，但我会讲得更详细一些，我会重复一下我在第一节课上说过的话。投资者要投资的另一件事是你创业的故事。你在为什么机会，为什么客户而开发什么产品？这个故事有趣可信吗？有共鸣吗？它能告诉我们一个他们可以相信的未来吗？想想看。
It has to tell a future about a company that you guys are building that has hundreds of thousands of employees. Like those CTOs you saw sitting up here.
它必须告诉我们一家拥有数十万员工的公司的未来。就像你看到的那些坐在这里的首席运营官。
At one point, they were exactly where you are, with nothing. Now they have tens of millions or more in revenue, hundreds of employees. Can the investor you're talking to believe that about what you're going to build? What components of the story are there? It has to represent a large opportunity. By the way, if that's confusing, why do you need a large opportunity? Google venture math and understand what the venture capitalist cares about. What sort of returns they need to make things worthwhile.
有一次，他们就和你一样，一无所有。现在他们有数千万甚至更多的收入，数以百计的雇员。你所说的投资者能相信你要做的事吗？故事的内容是什么？它必须代表一个巨大的机会。顺便说一句，如果这让人困惑，为什么你需要一个很大的机会呢？谷歌风险数学和理解风险资本家关心什么。他们需要什么样的回报才能让事情变得有价值。
Is there a compelling product attraction and is the storyteller impressive? What if you don't have these things? You're telling a story.
有一个引人注目的产品吸引力和故事讲述者令人印象深刻吗？如果你没有这些东西呢？你在讲故事。
A story is more persuasive if you actually have product in traction, but it doesn't mean you can't raise money just with a good story. Look at Magic Leap.
一个故事更有说服力，如果你真的有产品的吸引力，但这并不意味着你不能只靠一个好的故事筹集资金。看魔术跳跃。
If you've heard of Magic Leap, they've raised billions on just a story.
如果你听说过神奇的飞跃，他们仅仅通过一个故事就筹集了数十亿美元。
It's the story that matters. Everything else is just how persuasive you are. Sure, if you have millions of users and growing like crazy, that's pretty persuasive. That's the easy case.
故事才是最重要的。其他一切都取决于你有多有说服力。当然，如果你拥有数以百万计的用户，并且疯狂地成长，那是相当有说服力的。这是个简单的案子。
Interestingly, the very best investors wanna get you before you have all that stuff because you're expensive by then. The greatest, best investors are Airbnb before they were Airbnb, before they have traction. So remember, to build your story, I went through this earlier, spend time on this. Build the vertebrae. Define the vertebrae of your story, the key points that are the most memorable, most important. Build a story, a pitch, a sales pitch, around that. Remember everything you're doing as a founder is being a salesperson. You're selling to investors here, or to yourself to get up in the morning after you've heard "no' 25 times in a row, to your partners, to your customers. What valuation should you choose? This again you could do a whole lecture on.
有趣的是，最好的投资者想在你买到这些东西之前就得到你，因为那时你已经很贵了。最伟大的，最好的投资者是Airbnb，在他们成为Airbnb之前，在他们有吸引力之前。所以请记住，为了建立你的故事，我之前经历过这个，花时间在这个上面。重建椎骨。定义你故事的脊椎骨，最难忘，最重要的关键点。围绕着它建立一个故事，一个推销。记住，作为一名创始人，你所做的每一件事都是一名销售人员。你要卖给这里的投资者，或者是你自己，在你连续听了25次“不”之后，在早上起床，向你的合作伙伴，对你的客户出售。你应该选择什么估价？你可以再做一次演讲。
It's complicated what valuation you should choose.
你应该选择什么样的估价是很复杂的。
It's somewhat of a market, but it's a very strange market.
这有点像一个市场，但它是一个非常奇怪的市场。
I would really recommend you look at the video of Sam Altman talking to Ron Conway, Marc Andreessen, Parker Conrad from Zenefits at the time Ripley Now when they talk about what valuation you should choose. Around the 22nd or 23rd minute, Parker starts talking about his experience raising money.
我真的建议你看一下山姆·奥特曼(Sam Altman)和罗恩·康维(Ron Conway)、马克·安德烈森(Marc Andreessen)、帕克·康拉德(Parker Conrad)在当时来自泽尼菲茨(Zenefits)的一段视频，当时他们正在谈论你应该选择什么估值。大约在22或23分钟，帕克开始
It is really dangerous to choose too high a valuation.
选择估值过高真的很危险。
In fact, it can kill your fundraising because it's quite difficult to go to an investor who might kind of be interested, and you say, "I'm gonna raise a $12,000,000 cap on my SAFE." They're like, "I was gonna invest, but that's really expensive." Then to go back to them and say, "Actually we're a lot cheaper." "You're cheaper? You mean you're not as good? No, I'm not interested in investing." I have seen companies actually fail fundraising because they chose too high evaluation. You don't wanna choose too low evaluation either because you can overdo the dilution. We'll talk about dilution in a second. The most important thing is to get the money in the bank and get back to work. That's why we talk a lot ... You'll see it again and again ...
事实上，这可能会扼杀你的资金筹集，因为很难去找一个可能感兴趣的投资者，你会说，“我要在我的SAFE上筹集1200万美元的上限。”他们说，“我本来打算投资的，但那真的很贵。”然后回到他们身边，说：“事实上，我们要便宜得多。”“你便宜吗？你的意思是你没那么好？不，我对投资不感兴趣。“我见过一些公司实际上失败了筹资，因为他们选择了太高的评价。你也不想选择太低的评价，因为你可能会过度稀释。我们一会儿再谈稀释问题。最重要的是把钱存入银行，然后回去工作。所以我们经常聊.。你会一次又一次地看到它.。
About not over-optimizing fundraising.
不要过分优化筹款。
As I mentioned, Kirstie's gonna go over the mechanics of raising money in detail later, so I'm gonna go very quickly here about the mechanics of raising convertibles or equity very briefly. Oh, and yes, I'll mention ICOs. There are other ways of raising money nowadays that have little to do with equity. There's also debt of various kinds, but we're gonna talk more about this.
正如我所提到的，Kirstie稍后将详细研究筹资的机制，所以我将非常快地讨论筹集可转换债券或股票的机制。哦，是的，我会提到ICO。如今还有其他筹集资金的方式与股权无关。还有各种各样的债务，但我们会更多地讨论这个问题。
A convertible note is a kind of debt as well, although we don't recommend you use convertible notes anymore. Convertibles are strange.
可兑换票据也是一种债务，尽管我们建议你不再使用可转换票据。敞篷车很奇怪。
It is strange. You go to an investor and say, "Do you believe in the future of my company? Would you like to buy a piece of it?" And they say, "Yes.
这很奇怪，你去找一个投资者说：“你相信我公司的未来吗？”你想买一块吗？“他们说，“是的。
I wanna buy a piece of your company." You say, "Okay, not really.
我想买你们公司的一份。“你说，“好吧，不太好。
I'm gonna sell you a promise of a piece of my company." , which is what a convertible is.
我要卖给你一份我公司的股份。“，这就是敞篷车的意思。
It's not actually equity in your company.
其实不是你公司的股权。
It represents equity and it represents dilution, it's just not actually dilution right at the time. The great thing ... So why does this even exist? Why do investors agree to this? Well, because partly YC demanded that they agree to it. Partly because it's really good for companies.
它代表了股权,它代表了稀释,只是在当时它并不是真正的稀释。最棒的是.。那么为什么会存在这种情况呢?为什么投资者会同意这样做呢?因为部分YC要求他们同意。部分是因为这对公司真的有好处。
It's fast and simple. The average document here is three to five pages. When you do equity, it will be three or four documents representing hundreds of pages, lots of legalese. You don't need a lawyer for this.
它又快又简单。这里的平均文档是三到五页。当你做股票时，它将是三到四个文件，代表数百页，大量的法律术语。你不需要律师。
It's super cheap.
太便宜了。
It can cost hundreds of dollars or less. You can do it almost automatically using tools like Clerky. Still read the fine print. You should read every fundraising document you ever have to deal with, every last word. You really need to. There are many, many stories of nightmares of people agreeing to things they didn't know they were agreeing to. Equity, when you actually issue new shares to a shareholder, is slow, almost always expensive. You almost always need lawyers. You're gonna be giving those investors rights that you don't have to give when you do a convertible. Those rights are important and important to understand. They're usually called preferred provisions. So again, read everything.
它可以花费数百美元或更少。你几乎可以自动使用像办事员这样的工具。还在读小字。你应该阅读你必须处理的每一份筹款文件，每一个字。你真的需要。有很多噩梦的故事，人们同意他们不知道他们同意的事情。当你实际向股东发行新股的时候，股权是缓慢的，几乎总是昂贵的。你几乎总是需要律师。当你做敞篷车的时候，你会给那些你不需要给的投资者权利。了解这些权利是重要和重要的。他们通常被称为首选条款。所以，再读一遍。
I'm sure you guys all understand dilution. Dilution's dead simple, right? You're a shareholder in your company.
我相信你们都明白稀释。稀释很简单对吧？你是你公司的股东。
If you sell 20 percent of your company, you now own 20 percent less.
如果你卖掉20%的公司股份，你现在拥有的股份就少了20%。
If you raise $1,000,000 on a $4,000,000 post valuation, post-money valuation, you've just sold 20 percent of your company, 1,000,000 over five, 20 percent.
如果你从4，000，000美元的后估值中筹集到1，000，000美元，那么你刚刚卖出了公司20%的股份，1，000，000美元，超过5，20%。
If you owned 50 percent of your company ... Everyone with me? ... You've just sold 10 percent of that 50 percent, 20 percent times 50 percent. Now you own 40 percent. That's dilution. Simple, right? Convertibles actually made that complicated to figure out because you actually haven't sold yet. So there's a representative dilution, but not an actual dilution.
如果你拥有公司50%的股份.和我一起的人吗.。你刚刚卖出了百分之十，百分之二十乘以百分之五十。现在你拥有40%的股份。这是稀释。很简单对吧？可转换债券实际上使这个问题变得很复杂，因为你还没有卖出。所以有代表性的稀释，但不是实际的稀释。
As it turns out, when you do a pre-money convertible, the actual dilution that you're selling is difficult to know.
事实证明，当你做一次预兑换时，你出售的实际稀释程度是很难知道的。
It depends on how much extra money, how much other money, you raise besides on that convertible.
这取决于你在那辆敞篷车上筹集了多少额外的钱，还有多少其他的钱。
If you raise lots of money on lots of different convertible notes understanding the actual dilution is complicated.
如果你用很多不同的可转换票据筹集大量资金，了解实际的稀释是很复杂的。
I actually wrote a tool called Angelcalc that helps you figure it out.
实际上，我写了一个叫做Angelcalc的工具，它可以帮助你解决这个问题。
It's more complicated than I'm actually letting on because how you calculate the price that you actually get when you convert includes things you might not expect, like future option pools for pre-money SAFEs. We've changed that and now the standard YC document that Kirstie will go into more detail, is a post-money SAFE.
这比我实际透露的要复杂得多，因为你如何计算当你转换时实际得到的价格，包括一些你可能不会想到的东西，比如未来货币前SAFE的期权池。我们已经改变了这一点，现在Kirstie将详细介绍的YC标准文件是一个邮政SAFE。
A post-money SAFE is dead simple, mostly.
大多数情况下，一个邮政SAFE是非常简单的。
It's dead simple in that if you invest $1,000,000 on that $4,000,000 post-money SAFE, you own 25 percent. You can be pretty sure that at that moment in time, you're really buying about 25 percent. So it's good for investors because they understand.
很简单，如果你在400万美元的邮政SAFE上投资100万美元，你就拥有25%的股份。你可以非常肯定的是，在那个时候，你真的买了25%。所以这对投资者有好处，因为他们明白。
It's equally good for founders because you guys understand. You guys have a good feeling for what your cap table looks like.
这对创始人同样有好处，因为你们都明白，你们对自己的帽子桌是什么样子有很好的感觉。
I'm gonna go through this pretty quickly. You guys probably know all this. There's angels and VCs. Angels are usually wealthy people that invest their own money. They usually invest for similar reasons to VCs, but they also invest because they're passionate about things. So, different sort of conversation when you're talking to someone who's gonna invest their own money and how they close and what their decision process is than a VC. Sorry. Than a VC who is a professional investing someone else's money, limited partners. They have a very different approach, different process for closing. There's also other ways of raising.
我很快就会经历的。你们可能都知道这些。有天使和风投。天使通常是富有的人投资他们自己的钱。他们投资的原因通常与风投相似，但也是因为他们对事情充满热情。所以，当你和那些打算投资他们自己的钱的人交谈的时候，他们是如何结束的，他们的决策过程是什么，而不是一个风投。抱歉的比一个专业的风投谁是别人的钱，有限合伙人。他们有一个非常不同的方法，不同的过程结束。还有其他的饲养方式。
I'm not gonna spend a lot of time. There's Kickstarter, there's AngelList, there's Wefunder. There's all sorts of crowdfunding mechanisms out there now that usually don't play the major role in your fundraising, but often will play an ancillary role. They might help you fill out a round or fill out the amount of money that you're trying to raise.
我不会花太多时间的。这是Kickstarter，这是AngelList，那里是Wefunder。现在有各种各样的众筹机制，它们通常不会在你的筹款中发挥主要作用，但通常会起到辅助作用。他们可能会帮你填一轮，或者填写你想筹到的钱。
All right, everyone's heard of an ICO, right? An initial coin offering.
好吧，大家都听说过ICO，对吧？首次发行的硬币。
I had a conversation earlier in the class with Andy Bromberg, the president of CoinList, which helps companies do ICOs. The vast majority of you probably wanna do an ICO, but shouldn't.
早些时候，我和CoinList的总裁安迪·布罗姆伯格(AndyBromberg)进行了一次交谈，他帮助公司做ICO。你们中的绝大多数人可能都想做ICO，但不应该。
ICOs are complicated. You need usually a certain kind of network for which having a cryptocurrency is a smart thing to do. You have to know SCC regulations backwards and forwards.
ICOS很复杂。您通常需要某种类型的网络，对于这种网络来说，拥有加密货币是一件明智的事情。你必须前后了解SCC的规定。
It's a moving target. Even though there's big dollars associated with it, you should approach this whole topic with a lot of caution and educate yourself a ton. Just again, part of the ecosystem. Usually, we talk in terms of rounds. There's a lot of fuzziness in this now, but usually you might start your company by putting money on a credit card. Then you might get some friends and family money. Usually, this is sort of debt. You don't usually give out equity here, but sometimes you will. Then you raise a seed round. We don't recommend you do equity in a seed round. Usually it'll be on some sort of convertible. Then you get into your equity rounds. Bigger rounds. Usually this is smaller amounts of money to great amounts of money. You can do a Series A, B, C, D.
这是一个令人感动的目标。尽管与它相关的钱很大，但你应该非常谨慎地对待整个话题，并对自己进行大量的教育。再说一遍，这是生态系统的一部分。通常，我们是按回合来讨论的。现在这里面有很多模糊的地方，但通常你可能会通过把钱放在信用卡上来开始你的公司。然后你可能会得到一些朋友和家人的钱。通常，这是一种债务。你通常不会在这里提供股权，但有时你会。然后你就种下一粒种子。我们不建议你在种子轮中做股权交易。通常是在某种敞篷车上。然后进入你的股权圈。更大的子弹。通常，这是较小数额的钱到大量的钱。你可以做A，B，C，D系列。
I've seen Series F. Then eventually, if things go well and you don't get acquired, which could be things going well, you can do an IPO. Let's talk a little bit about meeting investors.
我看过F系列，最后，如果事情进展顺利，而你没有被收购，这可能是件好事，你可以进行IPO。让我们谈谈如何与投资者见面。
I know I'm repeating myself here, but it bears repeating.
我知道我在这里重复自己，但这是值得重复的。
If you want to meet investors, do your homework. Know what they've invested in. Know what the particular person you're talking about cares about.
如果你想见见投资者，做好你的家庭作业。知道他们投资了什么。知道你说的那个人关心什么。
If you don't, you're at a disadvantage immediately or you're certainly not putting yourself in the advantageous position that you can. Simplify your pitch. Work on this all the time. You wanna capture their attention in the first minute or two you're talking to them.
如果你不这样做，你就会立刻处于不利地位，或者你肯定不会把自己置于你能得到的有利地位。简化你的音高。一直在做这件事。你想在你和他们谈话的第一、二分钟内引起他们的注意。
I know this is a hard thing to say, but don't be boring.
我知道这是件很难说的事，但别无聊。
I say it's a hard thing to say because you guys all probably think that what you're working on is the most fascinating thing in the world, but it might not be fascinating the way you tell it. You might tell it backwards. You might come at it from the wrong way, which like every detail is fascinating to you, but you need to capture someone's attention. You need to build a story that's compelling from the beginning. The simplest way to tell your story is usually the best way to tell it.
我说这是一件很难说的事情，因为你们可能都认为你们正在做的事情是世界上最吸引人的事情，但你所说的方式可能并不有趣。你可以倒着说。你可能是从错误的方向来的，就像每一个细节一样，对你来说很吸引人，但是你需要吸引别人的注意力。你需要建立一个从一开始就引人入胜的故事。讲故事最简单的方法通常是讲故事的最好方法。
If you can, bring a demo.
如果可以的话，带个演示。
If you can't, fake it. Bring a prototype.
如果你做不到，就假装吧。带个原型。
It's so fast, especially if you have a software product, it's so fast to build things. Even if you're building hardware, bring a prototype of your hardware. Steve Jobs used to demand prototypes in wood. The first tablet, the first iPad, was in wood.
它是如此之快，尤其是如果你有一个软件产品，它是如此之快的建设东西。即使你在制造硬件，也要带上你的硬件原型。史蒂夫·乔布斯(SteveJobs)曾要求用木材制作原型。第一台平板电脑，第一台iPad，是用木头制作的。
Anything to get a feel for what it's going to be.
任何能感受到未来的感觉的东西。
Also remember, you're trying to convince the investor that you can actually build what you're talking about, so coming completely empty handed, well, you better be a really good storyteller, if you come empty handed. Often forgotten, is that you should listen. You're not there to monologue. You're there to have a conversation, to listen to what they have to say in terms of feedback.
记住，你试图说服投资者，你可以建立你所说的东西，所以如果你空手而归的话，你最好是个很好的讲故事的人。经常被遗忘，就是你应该倾听。你不是来独白的。你在那里进行对话，听取他们的反馈意见。
It can be incredibly useful even if they say no.
即使他们拒绝，这也是非常有用的。
Also, the good sign that an investor meeting is going well is when they talk at least as much or more than you do. When you're pitching investors, you will suck in the beginning. One of the marks of a successful fundraiser is they get better and better every meeting they have. So, yes, you should practice. Probably the first investor meetings you have, it's not necessarily your highest target investors unless you're positive you have it nailed.
此外，投资者会议进展顺利的好兆头是，他们的谈话至少和你一样多或更多。当你向投资者推销时，你会在一开始就陷入困境。一个成功的筹款活动的标志之一是他们每一次会面都会越来越好。所以，是的，你应该练习。这可能是你开的第一次投资者会议，除非你肯定你已经搞定了，否则这不一定是你的最高目标投资者。
If any of you are golfers, you know that you can hit a lot of golf swings and never improve unless you get feedback and take in that feedback.
如果你们中的任何人都是高尔夫球手，你们知道你们可以打很多高尔夫秋千，除非你们得到反馈并接受这些反馈，否则永远不会提高。
It's the same thing with pitching. Pay attention to what happens. Pay attention to how interested they are. Pay attention to how the meeting went and what the feedback was and improve every time. Do not leave an investor meeting without some sort of conclusion. Now the best conclusion is a check or an agreement for a check. We have something called a handshake protocol that you can look up as well. Getting a handshake for a deal, getting someone to agree to give you money, that's awesome.
投球和投球是一样的。注意发生了什么。注意他们有多感兴趣。注意会议进行得如何，反馈是什么，每次都要改进。不要在没有某种结论的情况下离开投资者会议。现在最好的结论是一份支票或一份关于支票的协议。我们有一种叫做握手的协议，你也可以查到。得到一个交易的握手，让某人同意给你钱，这太棒了。
If you don't get that, try to understand whether it's a firm 'no' or whether there's next steps so that you can work towards getting that. For most VCs, including angels, there's a process. Most people won't give you money on the first meeting. Some will, but most won't. For raising seed, I think decks are not that useful.
如果你不明白这一点，试着去理解它是一家公司的“不”，或者是否有下一步的步骤，这样你就可以朝着这个方向努力。对于大多数风投公司，包括天使，都有一个过程。大多数人不会在第一次会议上给你钱。有些人会，但大多数人不会。对于培育种子，我认为甲板没有那么有用。
As an angel investor myself, I almost never even look at the deck.
作为一个天使投资人，我几乎从来没有看过甲板。
I just wanna look at the founder and here their story and see how they tell it. Many of you won't be comfortable telling it without a deck and some investors actually want a deck. They're more comfortable, too. So you should probably have some short pitch deck.
我只想看看创办人的故事，看看他们是怎么讲的。你们中的许多人都不愿意在没有甲板的情况下告诉他们，而有些投资者实际上想要一副牌。他们也更舒服。所以你可能应该有一些短的球场甲板。
In A Guide to Seed Fundraising, I outlined the 12 items that are important to have in such a deck. Don't create a story around the deck, create a story around your story, and your product, and your future. Figure out how to tell it without a deck because if you can't, well, you can, right? So you're going to be able to.
在“种子筹款指南”中，我概述了在这样一个平台上重要的12个项目。不要在甲板上创造一个故事，要围绕你的故事、你的产品和你的未来创造一个故事。想办法在没有甲板的情况下说出来，因为如果你不能，你可以，对吧？所以你可以。
A word on negotiations, a very brief word. First, I hope you don't have to. Hopefully, you'll meet an investor, you'll tell your story. "We're building this awesome product. We have this traction.
一句关于谈判的话，一句非常简短的话。首先，我希望你不必这么做。希望你能遇到一个投资者，你会讲述你的故事。“我们正在制造这个很棒的产品。我们有这个牵引力。
It's great. We're raising $1,500,000 on an $8,000,000 cap." And they say, "I'm in for $100,000." Done. No negotiation. No problem. Usually the most likely thing you might negotiate around is that cap. Sometimes it's okay to state firmly what it is. Sometimes, if it's too high, they might negotiate down.
太好了。我们用800万美元的上限筹集了150万美元。“他们说，“我赚了10万美元。”完成了，没有谈判。没问题!通常情况下，你最有可能协商的就是那顶帽子。有时候，坚定地说出它是什么是可以的。有时，如果太高，他们可能会谈判下来。
If you're not sure really what you're raising on, you haven't raised any money on, you're just talking to investors, it's okay to start talking to them about what they think is reasonable and try to zero in on what the right number is.
如果你不确定你在筹集什么，你还没有筹集到任何资金，你只是在和投资者交谈，你可以开始和他们谈论他们认为合理的东西，然后试着把注意力集中在正确的数字上。
If you do enter into negotiations, just a few things to keep in mind. What do I mean by empathy? Understand what they care about.
如果你真的参加了谈判，只需要记住几件事。我所说的移情是什么意思？明白他们关心的是什么。
Investors are different, each one.
每个投资者都是不同的。
If you're talking to an angel, they don't wanna seem like an idiot.
如果你在和天使说话，他们不想看上去像个白痴。
If you're talking a venture capitalist, they want to own a certain percentage of your company. There's this trade off between how much money they put in and how high the valuation is. Understand the person you're negotiating with.
如果你说的是一个风险投资家，他们想拥有你公司的一定比例。在他们投入了多少钱和估值有多高之间有一种权衡。理解和你谈判的人。
If you don't, you're probability of getting it right and optimizing your negotiation is pretty low. Try to have options. If I'm negotiating with you and I'm an investor and I'm the only person there putting in money, I'm in a pretty strong position vis-a-vis you. Sometimes you'll be in that position. That's okay as long as you get the money. This is what they do. They're almost certainly better than you at negotiation. So if you do get into a negotiation, a deep negotiation, the one thing you have on your side is you can delay. You can say, "I don't know, I need to talk to my co-founder, or my mother, or someone." Don't try to go toe to toe with the pros in negotiating, especially with the VCs, because that's what they do.
如果你不这样做，你就有可能把它做好，并且优化你的谈判是相当低的。试着有选择。如果我和你谈判，我是投资者，我是唯一一个投入资金的人，我相对于你来说处于相当有利的地位。有时候你会处于那种境地。只要你拿到钱就行了。他们就是这么做的。他们几乎肯定比你更擅长谈判。所以，如果你真的参与了一次谈判，一次深入的谈判，你有一件事是可以推迟的。你可以说，“我不知道，我需要和我的联合创始人，或者我的母亲，或者其他人谈谈。”不要试图在谈判中与专业人士针锋相对，特别是与风投公司谈判，因为他们就是这样做的。
And I've said this a few times, read everything. Okay, coming to the end here. What's gonna go wrong? I've mentioned over-optimizing. This merely means that the most important thing that you guys can do is build great products that customers love. That has little to do with fundraising, except as an enabler of that. Trying to get the last dime out of fundraising is taking away from that.
我已经说过几次了，什么都读过。好了，快到终点了。会出什么问题？我已经提到过优化了。这仅仅意味着，你们所能做的最重要的事情就是制造出客户喜欢的优秀产品。这与筹资没有什么关系，只是作为一个推动因素。试图从募捐中得到最后的一毛钱就是拿走了那笔钱。
It's usually counterproductive. Now there are fundraising ninjas, people who can do anything. You look at them and say they raised $40,000,000 valuation, it was incredible.
通常会适得其反。现在有募款忍者，可以做任何事的人。你看看他们，说他们筹集到了4000万美元的估值，真是不可思议。
Again, it was like people were showering them with money. You should not use them, most of you, as your model. Figure out who the right investors are. Meet lots of them and then get a deal done. Please don't be a bad actor. Don't break deals. Be responsive. Don't be a jerk.
又一次，就像人们在给他们洗澡一样。你不应该把它们当作你的模型。找出谁是合适的投资者。见他们很多人，然后达成协议。请不要做一个坏演员，不要破坏协议。要有反应。别像个混蛋。
It is a really small community and that stuff gets around. This might not be the last start up you do. Even if you've raised 90 percent of what you wanna raise, it's not likely to be the last time you're gonna raise. Oh, and when you get your money ... and this happened. Don't go to Vegas and gamble it. Think about ... This is a weird thing ... For a second. Think about what you're asking investors to do, especially when you're raising a seed round. You're asking them to write a check, a lot of money, to you that you're gonna have control of that money based on a promise of something in the future. That's it. There's a lot of trust built in there. Which is why, by the way, you shouldn't exaggerate or pretend to know things you don't know. Who's gonna trust someone who's not being quite frank, who I don't get that feeling for, with that kind of ... You know, "Here's the money. See you in a couple years." This is what they do, by the way.
这是一个很小的社区，到处都是这样的东西。这可能不是你做的最后一个开始，即使你已经筹集了你想要筹集的90%，也不太可能是你最后一次筹集。哦，等你拿到钱.这事就发生了。不要去拉斯维加斯赌博。想想.。这是件奇怪的事.。就一会儿。想想你在要求投资者做些什么，尤其是当你在筹集种子的时候。你要求他们开一张支票，给你一大笔钱，告诉你会根据未来的承诺来控制这笔钱。就这样里面有很多信任。这就是为什么，顺便说一句，你不应该夸大或者假装知道你不知道的事情。谁会相信一个不太坦率的人，我对他没有那种感觉，对那种.你知道，“这是钱。几年后见。”顺便说一句，他们就是这么做的。
If you think you can get away with something here, you usually won't.
如果你认为你能在这里逃脱，你通常不会。
If there's one thing ... VCs aren't all brilliant, they're not all actually all that good at being a VC. What they are good at is sniffing this stuff out, so don't try. It's actually not a good way to go through life anyway. Tell it straight. Tell your story straight. Don't bullshit. There's very little win. Now there are people, we know of them, we can name names, who are masters of bullshit, and it seems to work. Don't try to be those people. When you get a "no", which you will get, almost all of you, don't take it personally. They're probably right.
如果有一件事.。风投并不都是才华横溢的，他们并不都很擅长做一个风投。他们擅长的是嗅出这些东西，所以不要尝试，这实际上并不是度过人生的好方法。直说。直说你的故事。别胡扯。赢的很少。现在有些人，我们知道他们，我们可以说出他们的名字，谁是胡说八道的主人，这似乎是可行的。别想成为那种人。当你得到一个“不”，你会得到，几乎你们所有人，不要把它当作个人。他们可能是对的。
Anyway, all you're saying is that their vision of the future is different than your vision of the future.
不管怎么说，你说的是他们对未来的看法与你对未来的看法不同。
It's really hard to have an accurate crystal ball.
很难有一个精确的水晶球。
I think you'll all agree with that. So don't take it personally, except maybe internalize that you didn't do a good enough job in telling your story of the future. Take this one in. Fundraising is not the goal. You go and you raise $2,000,000 in your seed round and you high five everyone and it's great and you have gotten to the starting line. You're building a business. You're building a product that people want. You're trying to build something that's sustainable over the long term. Fundraising is just one small step on the way to that. By the way, that's another reason not to be competitive about it. Dropbox raised their first round at like a two or three million dollar valuation.
我想你们都会同意的。所以不要把它当成是个人恩怨，除非你在讲述未来的故事中做得不够好。把这个拿进去。筹资不是目标。你走了，你在种子圈里筹到了200万美元，你击掌了每个人，这很棒，你已经走到了起点。你正在建立一家企业。你在制造人们想要的产品。你在努力建立一个长期可持续的东西。筹资只是实现这一目标的一小步。顺便说一句，这是另一个不具竞争力的原因。Dropbox将第一轮的估值提高到了两百万到三百万美元。
It worked out okay for Drew and team, right? They went IPO this year. Fundraising's not winning.
对德鲁和团队来说没问题吧？他们今年进行了首次公开募股。筹款赢不了。
A company that raises the most at the highest valuation will not necessarily, or even usually, be the biggest, most successful company at the end of the day.
一家估值最高的公司不一定，甚至通常情况下，也不一定是一家最大、最成功的公司。
Investors actually do matter.
投资者确实很重要。
At some point, especially at seed, you need the money, but the better you can do at choosing your investors wisely, investors who will make great connections for you, who will help you build your product, and who won't be a pain later, the happier you'll be. You'll hear this again and again. You'll hear Ron say it several times if you look at that video I mentioned. The important thing, the most important thing about fundraising is to get it done and get back to work, get back to the real work on the real goal which is building your great company. Good luck.
在某种程度上，尤其是在种子公司，你需要资金，但你越能明智地选择你的投资者，那些能为你建立良好关系的投资者，谁将帮助你打造产品，谁以后不会痛苦，你就会越快乐。你会一遍又一遍地听到这个。如果你看我提到的那个视频，你会听到罗恩说了好几遍。重要的是，最重要的是做好这件事，回到工作中去，回到真正的工作中去，真正的目标就是建立一个伟大的公司。祝好运!
I'm done.
我不干了。
I'll take some questions. Yeah.
我会回答一些问题。嗯
Speaker 2: I appreciate your thoughts [inaudible] What advice would you give me for fundraising [inaudible]
演讲者2：我很感激你的想法[听不见]你会对我的筹款[听不见的]给我什么建议？
Geoff Ralston: The question is, about if you're an international entities in London, what advice would I give to fundraise? That's always a tough one, because it kind of depends. Built into that question, should I become a US entity, et cetera. Most US based, exclusively US based venture capitalists will not invest in an overseas entity. Or they'll do it with a lot of hesitation, so it's certainly ... We require that everyone become a Delaware corporation at YC.
Geoff Ralston: 问题是，如果你是伦敦的一个国际实体，我会给你什么建议来筹集资金？这总是很难的，因为这要看情况而定。在这个问题中，我是否应该成为一个美国实体，等等。大多数在美国的风险投资家都不会在海外投资。否则他们会犹豫很久所以这肯定是.。我们要求每个人都成为YC的特拉华公司。
It's pretty cheap and easy to do. So if you do intend to raise in Silicon Valley or elsewhere in the States, I strongly recommend you do create a US entity.
这很便宜，而且很容易做。因此，如果你真的打算在硅谷或美国其他地方筹集资金，我强烈建议你创建一个美国实体。
If you're building your business in London or in the UK or overseas, there is a venture community there.
如果你在伦敦、英国或海外建立业务，那里就有一个风险社区。
A lot of times, they'll understand your business better than a US market, so you have to make that trade off as you figure out what the right target investors are.
很多时候，他们会比美国市场更了解你的业务，所以当你找出合适的目标投资者时，你必须做出权衡。
It's a complex equation and it's a little hard to answer in too much detail in this context. Sure, yeah.
这是一个复杂的方程，在这种情况下，要回答太多细节有点困难。当然，是的。
Speaker 3: What's typical for [inaudible]
演讲者3：什么是典型的[听不见的]？
Geoff Ralston: The question is, look for investment and then incorporate or incorporate ...
Geoff Ralston: 问题是，寻找投资，然后合并或合并.
Incorporation, you can do an incorporation using Atlas, if you're international from Stripe sort of instantly.
公司化，你可以使用阿特拉斯做一个公司，如果你是国际从条纹某种程度上立即。
I think that's the wrong way to think about it.
我认为这是错误的想法。
If you're gonna fundraise, you should incorporate because a lot of you'll be LLCs or you are not even LLC yet. People won't invest in that stuff.
如果你要募捐，你应该合并，因为你们中的很多人都是LLC，或者你们甚至还不是LLC。人们不会在那些东西上投资的。
Incorporate so that's not a barrier, so you don't have to say, "Oh, yeah, we're doing this and we're LLC." It just doesn't seem right. Incorporation is dead simple now, so I would incorporate. Yes.
合并，这不是一个障碍，所以你不需要说，“哦，是的，我们正在这样做，我们是有限责任公司。”这似乎是不对的。合并现在已经非常简单了，所以我会合并。是
In the back there.
在后面。
Speaker 4: You mentioned two possibilities [inaudible]
演讲者4：你提到了两种可能性[听不见]
Geoff Ralston: The question is, when is equity preferable to convertible? There are companies that raise up to $30,000,000 on convertibles. Convertibles are fast and simple, so when fast and simple is your priority, convertibles are great. From an investor perspective, equity is often preferable because, like I said, you're just buying this promise and you have no rights. Usually, when you raise larger amounts of money, equity works better all around because there's a little more fiduciary management.
Geoff Ralston: 问题是，什么时候股权比可转换股票更可取？有些公司通过可转换债券筹集了高达3000万美元的资金。转换是快速和简单的，所以当快速和简单是你的优先，转换是伟大的。从投资者的角度来看，股权通常更可取，因为，就像我说的，你只是买下这个承诺，而你没有任何权利。通常情况下，当你筹集到更多的资金时，股权的运作会更好，因为信托管理会更多一些。
If you raise five to 10 million dollars, you tend to form a board. You have people you have to talk to about how you're spending that money. Hopefully, they're experienced and can help you through a lot of the issues that you'll run into because they've seen it a lot of times. Generally, when you're raising seed and you wanna go fast, and you're just building and trying to get product market fit, and you don't have time, and you don't wanna spend $25,000 with lawyers, convertibles. But when you're raising a huge amount and the company's getting serious, usually equity is preferable all around.
如果你筹集到了五千万到一千万美元，你就会形成一个董事会。你需要和别人谈谈你是如何花这笔钱的。希望他们有经验，能帮你解决很多你会遇到的问题，因为他们已经见过很多次了。一般来说，当你在筹集种子的时候，你想走得更快，你只是在建立和尝试产品市场，你没有时间，你也不想花25，000美元在律师身上，可转换债券。但是当你筹集了大量资金，公司变得严肃起来时，通常情况下，股权是最好的选择。
Speaker 5: Yeah, so on one of the slides you talk about exaggeration. Do not exaggerate.
演讲者5：是的，所以在一张幻灯片上，你谈论的是夸张。不要夸大其词。
I was trying to understand how do we draw a line between not exaggerating but still sharing our vision.
我只是想弄清楚，我们应该如何在不夸大其词，但仍能分享我们的愿景之间划出一条界线。
If you're talking about the future of the company, so ...
如果你说的是公司的未来，所以.
Geoff Ralston: It's actually a good question. One of my slides said, "Don't exaggerate." The question is, but what about your vision? A vision by definition is an exaggeration.
Geoff Ralston: 这其实是个好问题。我的一张幻灯片说：“不要夸大其词。”问题是，但是你的视力呢？从定义上看，远景是一种夸张。
I wouldn't even look at it that way. Don't exaggerate the facts on the ground. Don't try to hide something that's a problem by either lying about or obscuring the data. However, when you're telling your story about how you're gonna take over the world, tell your story. Take over the world. The caveat there is don't tell something stupid. Don't tell a story that beggars belief. Remember, in the end, it has to be believable. So tell a story that is credible, yet impressive. Yeah.
我甚至不会那样看待它。不要夸大地面上的事实。不要试图通过撒谎或掩盖数据来隐藏一些问题。然而，当你讲述你的故事，你将如何接管世界，告诉你的故事，接管世界。这里的警告是不要说蠢话。不要讲一个令人难以置信的故事。记住，最后，它必须是可信的。所以讲一个可信的，但令人印象深刻的故事。嗯
Speaker 6: If you've saved up money from consolidating [inaudible] or whatever to fund doing a start up, what's the right way to put it in when it's your money but it's ... Most of it is seed round funding?
演讲者6：如果你已经从巩固(听不见的)或任何为创业提供资金的地方攒下了钱，那么当它是你的钱但它是.的时候，有什么正确的方法来把它放进去呢？大部分都是种子资金？
Geoff Ralston: The question is, if you're putting your own money into the company, what's the right way to do that? I'm not a lawyer, or an accountant, so you might wanna ...
Geoff Ralston: 问题是，如果你把自己的钱投到公司里，有什么正确的方法？我不是律师，也不是会计，所以你可能想.
If you're here, save that question for Kirstie. Generally, I will say that you should just buy equity in your company. There's a lot of ways to do that. You can do a convertible. You can just buy the equity. Probably in the beginning, especially because you don't need a lawyer to negotiate with yourself.
如果你在这里，把这个问题留给Kirstie。一般来说，我会说你应该买你公司的股票。有很多方法可以做到。你可以做一辆敞篷车。你可以直接买下股权。可能在一开始，尤其是因为你不需要律师来和你自己谈判。
If you do, that's a separate issue. You can probably just buy the stock in the company at the right price and just ... You might wanna get a little legal advice to get that right, or at least do your research, but-
如果你这样做了，那是另一个问题。你可以正确的价格买下公司的股票然后.你可能想得到一些法律建议来做正确的事情，或者至少做你的研究，但是-
Speaker 6: Like doing a SAFE or something yourself, that's not [crosstalk]
演讲者6：就像自己做一个安全的或其他的事情，这不是[相声]。
Geoff Ralston: I've seen people do that.
Geoff Ralston: 我见过有人这样做。
It works.
它起作用了
Speaker 6: I was wondering how you do it.
演讲者6：我想知道你是怎么做的。
Geoff Ralston: How you do it is you just write the SAFE and give yourself the money. That's the thing about this. You guys are managing the money. You literally, when you do a SAFE, you write this thing, you sign it, you give them your bank account, and they wire you the money. Then you spend it, but you spend it keeping in mind that you are now a fiduciary for that money. You have responsibilities. That's just not your money, it's the company's money. Yeah.
Geoff Ralston: 你是怎么做到的？你只需要写SAFE，给自己钱。这就是问题所在。你们在管理钱。你真的，当你做一个保险箱，你写这个东西，你签字，你给他们你的银行帐户，他们给你的钱。然后你花了它，但是你花了它，记住你现在是那笔钱的信托人。你有责任。那不是你的钱，是公司的钱。嗯
Speaker 7: I know that [inaudible]
演讲者7：我知道[听不见]
Geoff Ralston: You said YC invests on a SAFE. That's true, but what's your question?
Geoff Ralston: 你说YC投资于SAFE。是的，但你的问题是什么？
Speaker 7: I thought YC [inaudible]
演讲者7：我以为YC[听不见]
Geoff Ralston: Actually in the future, our investment's gonna be entirely on a post-money SAFE.
Geoff Ralston: 事实上，未来我们的投资将完全放在一个邮政SAFE上。
Speaker 7: Post-money SAFE. Okay. Thank you.
演讲者7：邮资SAFE。好的。谢谢。
Geoff Ralston: We just announced our new deal and that's what we announced. $150,000 for seven percent on a post-money SAFE. Yeah.
Geoff Ralston: 我们刚刚宣布了我们的新协议，这就是我们宣布的。在一个邮政SAFE里，以15万美元换7%。嗯
Speaker 8: What's the definition of traction for a pre-SAFE start up? Everyone talks about traction, but there's no definition for it.
扬声器8：预安全启动的牵引力定义是什么？每个人都在谈论牵引力，但没有定义。
Geoff Ralston: The question is, what's the definition of traction, indeed for a presale start up.
Geoff Ralston: 问题是，牵引的定义是什么？
If no one's using your product, you have no traction. The definition of traction is usage of some kind.
如果没有人使用你的产品，你就没有吸引力。牵引力的定义是某种用法。
It can be any kind of usage.
它可以是任何一种用法。
It can be free usage or it can be paid customers. Now you might ask a better question, which is what's the definition of good traction? The answer is unfortunately, it depends. Usually, the one thing to look at with traction is growth. How fast are you growing? Because you can go to a VC and say, "I have $1,000,000 in sales." That might sound really good. $1,000,000 in annual recurring revenue.
它可以是免费使用，也可以是付费客户。现在你可能会问一个更好的问题，好的牵引力的定义是什么？答案是不幸的，这要看情况而定。通常，用牵引力来观察的一个问题是增长。你的成长有多快？因为你可以去风投公司说，“我有100万美元的销售额。”这听起来很不错，每年有100万美元的经常性收入。
If five years ago, you had $1,000,000 in annual recurring revenue and now you still have $1,000,000 in revenue, they would much rather see someone with $100,000 in revenue that grew that over the past month. So growth. Yeah.
如果五年前，你每年有100万美元的经常性收入，而现在你仍然有100万美元的收入，他们更愿意看到一个拥有10万美元收入的人在过去的一个月里增长了。所以成长。是的。
Speaker 9: I guess two questions. The first one is-
演讲者9：我想有两个问题。第一个是-
Geoff Ralston: One question at a time, please.
Geoff Ralston: 请一次问一个问题。
Ask the most important one.
问最重要的人。
Speaker 9: Other than referrals from other people you know are sort of founders or other investors, what would you recommend are best practices to connect with investors, other than just cold email or something?
演讲者9：除了你所认识的其他人是创始人或其他投资者的推荐人之外，你还会推荐哪些最佳做法来与投资者建立联系，而不仅仅是通过电子邮件之类的方式呢？
Geoff Ralston: The question is, what are the best practices for connecting with investors.
Geoff Ralston: 问题是，与投资者建立联系的最佳做法是什么？
I think you said other a lot of the things I'm gonna say, but I'm gonna say them anyway. Clearly, the best way to connect with an investor is via someone who knows that investor. The absolute ultimate best way to connect with an investor is via an investor who invests in your company who will connect you to another investor. That is the best possible introduction.
我想你说了很多我要说的话，但我还是会说的。显然，与投资者建立联系的最佳方式是通过认识该投资者的人。与投资者建立联系的绝对终极最佳方式是通过在你的公司投资的投资者将你与另一位投资者联系起来。这是最好的介绍。
In fact, it's a pretty bad introduction to have an investor introduce you to someone if they passed on your company. Think about it.
事实上，如果投资者把你介绍给某个人，如果他们离开了你的公司，那是非常糟糕的介绍。好好想想。
It doesn't really scan very well. The other way I'd say is find other founders who have investors and get them to introduce you. Other than that, yeah, you have to cold email, but that's what they do. They look for cold emails. You have to pound the pavement. There's no way of escaping that. Yeah?
它扫描得不太好。我想说的另一种方式是找其他有投资者的创始人，让他们介绍你。除此之外，是的，你必须发一封冷邮件，但他们就是这么做的。他们在寻找冷冰冰的电子邮件。你得敲打人行道。那是无法逃避的。嗯
Speaker 10: [inaudible] funding for building out our product.
演讲者10：(听不见)资金用于我们的产品建设。
Along those lines, I'm wondering if certain money needs to be allocated to our developers and some other staff that may be required. Do you itemize that when you're raising seed money?
按照这些思路，我想知道是否需要将某些资金分配给我们的开发人员和其他可能需要的工作人员。
Geoff Ralston: I think the question is, how do you explain the use of funds when you raise your seed? I don't think there's any formula for that.
Geoff Ralston: 我想问题是，当你筹集种子的时候，你怎么解释资金的使用？我不认为这有什么公式。
I wouldn't get into the weeds too much.
我不会太喜欢杂草的。
If you're gonna raise $1,000,000, you say, "Look, with $1,000,000, we get here. We achieve this milestone. We get to this level of revenue. The way we're going to do that is by hiring three engineers, two salespersons, and three support people. That staff is going to cost us this much money. That's why we're raising this much money." Yeah.
如果你要筹集100万美元，你可以说，“听着，用100万美元，我们就到了。”我们实现了这一里程碑。我们达到了这个水平的收入水平。我们要做的就是雇佣三名工程师，两名销售人员和三名支持人员。那工作人员要花我们这么多钱。这就是我们筹集这么多资金的原因。“嗯
Speaker 11: The new post-money SAFE, it seems like if you use that in, let's say the pre-seed stage, or even seed stage, it could cause problems for [inaudible] seed, maybe like a post-seed or something [inaudible] would force you to a price [inaudible] Has that been a problem if, especially-
演讲者11：新的邮资SAFE，看来如果你在种子前阶段，甚至种子阶段使用它，它可能会给种子带来问题，比如种子后或其他什么东西(听不见的)会迫使你付出(听不见的)价格(听不见的)，这是一个问题吗，特别是.
Geoff Ralston: The question is, is there an unintended consequence of the post-money SAFE that it will force founders to do an equity round sooner because the definition of a post-money SAFE is that future convertibles also get diluted by that post-money SAFE because it's post-money and it is what it is? The answer is no, we haven't seen that because we just launched it.
Geoff Ralston: 问题是，邮政货币SAFE会不会有一个意想不到的后果，那就是它会迫使创始人更早地进行一轮股票交易，因为“后货币SAFE”的定义是，未来的可转换债券也会被“后货币SAFE”稀释，因为它是“后钱”，它就是这样的？答案是否定的，我们还没有看到，因为我们刚刚推出了它。
I don't think that's that likely. Here's the reason. The nice thing about a post-money SAFE is it's clear.
我觉得这不太可能。原因如下。邮政SAFE的好处是很清楚。
It's not ambiguous. You know what percentage that was sold.
这不是模棱两可的。你知道卖了多少钱。
If they have a percent of the company, they have a percent. By the way, if you do a post-money SAFE after ...
如果他们拥有公司的百分之一，他们就有百分之一。顺便说一句，如果你在.
If I invest $50,000 at a $5,000,000, I have a percent.
如果我以5，000，000美元投资50，000美元，我就有1%。
If later, you invest $100,000 at a $10,000,000 SAFE after me, and it's a post-money SAFE, you own one percent.
如果以后，你投资10万美元在我身后的一个1000万美元的保险箱里，这是一个邮政SAFE，你拥有1%的股份。
It's clear, so I suspect that your concern will not become reality. Yes.
很明显，所以我怀疑你的担心不会成为现实。是
Speaker 12: Financials. Five year projections. Just from-
发言者12：财务。五年预测。只是-
Geoff Ralston: What sort of financial projections should you have? If you run into an investor who's asking for five year projections at seed, you've run into what we colloquially, call a newb. They don't know what they're ... Who has five year projections at this point? In fact, if you can tell what you're gonna do about for 12 or 18 months, that's great. When you raise future rounds, Series A's and B's, you're going to start to say like okay, so you have 12 months of revenue or two years of revenue experience. What are the next two or three years look like? You'll be wrong, but at least you can do that. Now you're just so guaranteed to have error bars that are 50 or 100 percent, why bother?.
Geoff Ralston: 你应该做什么样的财务预测？如果你遇到一个在SEED公司要求五年预测的投资者，你会遇到我们所说的“新手”(Newb)。他们不知道自己在做什么.。现在谁有五年的预测？事实上，如果你能说出你要在12或18个月里做些什么，那就太好了。当你提出未来的回合，A和B系列，你会开始说，就像好，所以你有12个月的收入或两年的收入经验。接下来的两三年是什么样子？你会错的，但至少你能做到。现在，您可以保证有50%或100%的错误条，为什么要麻烦呢？
I would actually de-prioritize any investor who asked for that sort of revenue projection. Yeah.
实际上，我会取消任何要求提供这种收入预测的投资者的优先次序。嗯
Speaker 13: How effective ...
演讲者13：有多有效.
If you're doing a B2B pitch, how effective are customer testimonials? If you got into the [inaudible] and replicated the process the business would have, how effective is that feedback to an investor? So you've demonstrated attraction and demand-
如果你在做B2B宣传，客户推荐信有多有效？如果你进入了(听不到的)，并复制了业务的过程，那么反馈给投资者的效果有多大？所以你展示了吸引力和需求-
Geoff Ralston: The question is, how effective are customer testimonials? I would generally say, not very. One of the most common slides we get rid of in demo day is "Our customers love us." That's great, but do they pay you? If they love you enough to pay you, that's interesting.
Geoff Ralston: 问题是，客户推荐信有多有效？我一般会说，不是很好。我们在演示日最常见的幻灯片之一是“我们的客户爱我们”。太好了，但是他们付钱给你吗？如果他们足够爱你，付你钱，那就有意思了。
If they just love you, well, of course you're gonna find the customers that say they love you. Now it is true that sometimes what you're doing is so radical or changes their life so much that having customers who are willing to talk to venture capitalists, who serve as references ... Venture capitalists, less at seed, more at later rounds, will check customer references. Those matter a lot. Yes.
如果他们只是爱你，你当然会找到那些说他们爱你的顾客。的确，有时候你所做的事情是如此的激进或改变了他们的生活，以至于有客户愿意与风险资本家交谈，他们作为推荐人.风险投资家，更少的种子，更多的在以后的回合，将检查客户的推荐信。这很重要。是
Speaker 14: How important is it to mention when you're showing somebody your captive or snapshot of equity whether you're dynamic or static equity splitting [inaudible] Does that even matter? Because it's gonna-
演讲者14：当你向某人展示你的被俘或股权快照时，提到你是动态的还是静态的股权分割(听不见)有多重要，这有什么关系吗？因为它会-
Geoff Ralston: What does that mean, dynamic or statically-
Geoff Ralston: 那是什么意思，动态的还是静态的-
Speaker 14: Dynamic equity split like a slice of the pie versus just a static, hey one founder has 50 percent, one founder has 40 percent-
演讲者14：动态股权分割就像一块馅饼，而不是静态的，嘿，一个创始人有50%，一个创始人有40%-
Geoff Ralston: I've never seen this dynamic thing. People should know what they have. You mean dynamic based on performance or something?
Geoff Ralston: 我从没见过这种动态的东西。人们应该知道他们拥有什么。你是说基于性能或什么的动态？
Speaker 14: No, it's based on how much time you're putting in versus your fair market value as an-
演讲者14：不，这是根据你投入的时间和你的公平市场价值作为一个.
Geoff Ralston: Oh, so you're sort of vesting into your ...
Geoff Ralston: 哦，你好像在.
If you have a vesting schedule, that's fine. You can show them that.
如果你有一个归属时间表，那就好了。你可以给他们看。
I don't think it matters. The math is the same in the end, right? Yes.
我觉得这不重要。结果是一样的，对吧？是
Speaker 15: Common splits for ... How much equity do people generally sell off at say, A, B, and C?
演讲者15：常见的分裂.人们通常在A、B、C等地出售多少股权？
Geoff Ralston: The question is, what sort of dilution should you expect at each stage in the company? There's just very general rules of thumb for that. We usually say 10 percent to maybe 20 percent at seed.
Geoff Ralston: 问题是，在公司的每一个阶段，你应该期望什么样的稀释？这是非常普遍的经验法则。我们通常说种子有百分之十到百分之二十。
If you sell as much as 30 percent, we start to get a little squirrelly.
如果你卖到30%，我们就开始有点不舒服了。
It happens sometimes. 20, 25 percent, sometimes 30 percent at Series A.
有时候会发生。在A系列赛中，20%，25%，有时是30%。
After that, it's too variable to talk about.
在那之后，它是可变的，不能谈论。
It depends on how well the company's going. Series B's are usually 20 percent or less, but again, it really depends.
这取决于公司的发展情况。系列B通常是20%或更少，但同样，它真的取决于。
Speaker 15: Thanks so much.
演讲者15：非常感谢。
Geoff Ralston: Sure. Yes.
Geoff Ralston: 当然。是
Speaker 16: What's a good way to research angels and VCs [inaudible]
演讲者16：研究天使和风投的好方法是什么？
Geoff Ralston: The question is, what's the best way to research angels and VCs? Of course, the best way is to get into YC, so should try; because we have a database. There is lots of information online that you can look up, but I would also ...
Geoff Ralston: 问题是，研究天使和风投的最好方法是什么？当然，最好的办法是进入YC，所以应该试一试；因为我们有一个数据库。网上有很多信息可以查到，但是我也会.
I think the very best thing to do is to talk to as many founders as you can, who are familiar ... You can look up what their portfolio company is and see if you know anyone in that portfolio company. Try to get connected to someone who has some knowledge of how that investor was. Yeah.
我认为最好的做法就是尽可能多地和熟悉的创始人交谈.您可以查找他们的投资组合公司是什么，看看您是否认识该投资组合公司的任何人。试着与那些对投资者有一定了解的人建立联系。嗯
Speaker 17: Hi, there.
演讲者17：嗨，你好。
I have a blockchain company. How do I address traditional VCs that are a bit cautious when it comes to blockchain? On the other hand, how do I address blockchain VCs or investors that expect cryptocurrencies and programs which I do not provide? Incredible , 10X, 100X, [inaudible] How do I address both of these worlds?
我有一家连锁公司。当谈到区块链时，我该如何处理一些谨慎的传统风投？另一方面，我如何应对那些期望我没有提供的加密货币和程序的区块链风投或投资者呢？难以置信，10倍，100倍，[听不见的]我如何解决这两个世界？
Geoff Ralston: This is an individual question for his company which is ...
Geoff Ralston: 这是他的公司的个人问题，就是.
It seems like it's a blockchain company without crypto.
好像是一家没有密码的区块连锁公司。
I'm not really sure I know what that means, but ... The question was, how do I address conventional VCs that are afraid of blockchain and non-conventional blockchain investors who expect him to be more crypto-y or something? I don't know. You have to tell a really good story to each.
我不太清楚那是什么意思，但是.问题是，我该如何应对那些害怕区块链和非常规区块链投资者的传统风投，这些投资者希望他更隐秘或什么的？我不知道。你得给每个人讲一个很好的故事。
A lot of conventional investors just won’t go there for good reason. There's so much fraud and so much uncertainty outside of the fraud in that space, in the ICO space, especially, that a lot of people run away.
许多传统投资者就是没有理由去那里。在这个空间里，特别是在ICO空间里，有如此多的欺诈和不确定性，以至于很多人逃跑了。
I would tend to just stay with the investors who are familiar with it and then explain why whatever strange configuration of your company makes sense for you.
我倾向于与熟悉它的投资者呆在一起，然后解释为什么你的公司的任何奇怪的配置对你来说都是有意义的。
Speaker 18: I wanna come back to the $150,000 new deal from YC.
主持人18：我想回到YC 15万美元的新政。
Geoff Ralston: The new deal?
Geoff Ralston: 新政？
Speaker 18: Yes.
发言者18：是的。
I'm trying to understand because generally companies can raise their seed or post-seed after YC or maybe a few months after and $150,000 suggests to me [inaudible] .
我试图理解，因为通常情况下，公司可以在YC之后或几个月后提高种子或后发种子，15万美元建议我(听不见)。
Is that where companies are gonna raise money or how does that work [inaudible]
公司是在那里筹集资金，还是如何运作[听不见]？
Geoff Ralston: The question is, does YC's $150,000 investment handicap the companies that do YC because the imputed value of the company is too low.
Geoff Ralston: 问题是，YC 15万美元的投资是否会因为该公司的估算价值太低而阻碍YC公司的投资。
It's not a problem. Look, we don't even actually have a cap on our investment because we don't think it's appropriate to think of it that way. We've been investing at this level for many years now and the vast majority of companies that go through YC raise seed and the average cap tends to be over $8,000,000 now; so it's clearly not a handicap. The reason you do YC is because it increases your value and increases your probability of success. Investors get that, so they don't look at that ... They look at that as sort of the cost of doing business with YC.
这不是问题。听着，我们甚至没有对我们的投资设置上限，因为我们认为这样想是不合适的。多年来，我们一直在这一水平上进行投资，大多数通过YC的公司都在培育种子，目前的平均上限往往超过800万美元；因此，这显然不是一个障碍。你做YC的原因是因为它增加了你的价值，增加了你成功的可能性。投资者明白这一点，所以他们不会去看.他们将此视为与YC做生意的成本。
Speaker 18: So YC is not that [inaudible] add more money [inaudible] to invest at a [inaudible]
演讲者18：所以YC并不是说[听不见的]增加更多的钱[听不见的]来投资[听不见的]。
Geoff Ralston: Correct. Yes. This is gonna be the last question, so hopefully it's a good one.
Geoff Ralston: 对。是这将是最后一个问题，希望这是个好问题。
Speaker 19: I just [inaudible] prediction [inaudible] because one of the way to reach the investor that at some point your company will [inaudible] company. That's some advice I got from [inaudible]
演讲者19：我只是[听不到]预测[听不见的]，因为在某一时刻，你的公司会[听不见]公司，这是达到投资者的途径之一。这是我从[听不见的]那里得到的一些建议
Geoff Ralston: I'm not sure I understand, the question is something to do with, how can you square the fact that we're supposed to be $1,000,000,000 company and yet we don't make financial projections? Do I have that right?
Geoff Ralston: 我不确定我是否理解，问题是，我们应该是一家价值10亿美元的公司，但我们却没有做出财务预测，这一事实你怎么能理清呢？我有这个权利吗？
Speaker 19: Yeah, when you sort of discouraged making long term financial predictions-
演讲者19：是的，当你对长期的财务预测感到沮丧的时候-
Geoff Ralston: You shouldn't make long term financial projections that are complete and utter bullshit. The vast majority of you who try to make a long term financial projection pre-product or when you have one or two customers, it's a joke. You can't do that.
Geoff Ralston: 你不应该做一个完整的、彻头彻尾的胡说八道的长期财务预测。你们中的绝大多数人在产品出品前或有一两个客户时，都会做一个长期的财务预测，这是个笑话。你不能那样做。
If an investor asks you to do that, they're not very smart. Or they're not very good investors. However, that doesn't mean you can't talk about your opportunity. You can't talk about the fact that look, this business opportunity is enormous. We have these customers who have started using our product in a very fundamental, very deep way and they're gonna be our customers forever.
如果投资者要求你这么做，他们就不太聪明了。或者他们不是很好的投资者。然而，这并不意味着你不能谈论你的机会。你不能谈论这样的事实，这个商业机会是巨大的。我们有这样的客户，他们已经开始以一种非常基本、非常深入的方式使用我们的产品，他们将永远是我们的客户。
It shows the customer need. There's many, many, many thousands of those customers.
它显示了客户的需求。有成千上万这样的顾客。
If I just get five percent of that customer base, I'll have $100,000,000 in revenue and then I'm a billion dollar company. That's different than making a financial projection. You're not actually projecting the time frame to get to five percent, you're just saying, "Imagine if we got those customers". Thanks very much guys. We'll see you next week.
如果我只得到百分之五的客户群，我将有1亿美元的收入，然后我是一个十亿美元的公司。这与财务预测不同。你并不是在预测达到5%的时间框架，你只是在说，“想象一下，如果我们有这些客户的话”。非常感谢各位。下周见。