Aaron Harris: Hi everyone. Thank you for having me.
大家好。谢谢你邀请我。
I'm gonna do more than just talk about investor meetings.
我要做的不仅仅是谈论投资者会议。
I also want to talk about who the investors are that you're gonna be raising money from maybe one day, and what motivates them, because in order to have a good meeting, you need to know what you're doing and how to achieve that goal. When we think about investor meetings, there's a question of when you need them, who you need them with, how to actually get the meetings, and actually how to do the meetings. This might seem weird, but a meeting isn't just walking into a room and sitting across the table from someone staring into each other's eyes. You need to actually talk, you need to make points, and you need to know what points to make. Kirsty just ran you through the mechanics of what fundraising actually means, but in order to actually get the money from somebody, you usually have to know who they are, track them down, find them, convince them to meet with you, convince them to give you money, and then get the money in the bank.
我也想谈谈谁是投资者，也许有一天你会筹集资金，是什么激励了他们，因为为了有一个好的会议，你需要知道你在做什么，以及如何实现这个目标。当我们考虑到投资者会议的时候，有一个问题是你什么时候需要它们，你需要和谁一起开会，如何真正地召开会议，以及如何进行会议。这听起来可能很奇怪，但一个会议并不仅仅是走进一个房间，坐在桌子对面，有人盯着对方的眼睛。你需要真正的交谈，你需要提出观点，你需要知道要提出什么观点。基尔斯蒂让你了解了筹款的实际意义，但是为了真正从某人那里得到钱，你通常需要知道他们是谁，追踪他们，找到他们，说服他们和你见面，说服他们给你钱，然后把钱拿到银行。
There's a lot of steps that come up ahead of time. This talk is kind of your magical plan to automatically raise money.
前面有很多步骤。这个演讲是你自动筹款的神奇计划。
If you follow these tips, no one will ever say no to you.
如果你遵循这些建议，没有人会对你说不。
If they do, it's your fault. All right, so the first thing is figuring out when you actually need to raise money, right. Not every business needs money. Mailchimp famously has never raised a dollar in outside financing and is worth billions of dollars. So before you think about whether or not you ... Or, before you think about meeting with investors to raise money, you first need to answer the question of if you actually need to raise money.
如果他们这么做了那就是你的错。好吧，第一件事就是弄清楚你什么时候真正需要筹集资金，对吧。不是每个企业都需要钱。众所周知，MailChimp从未通过外部融资筹集过一美元，价值数十亿美元。所以在你考虑你是否.。或者，在你考虑与投资者会面筹集资金之前，你首先需要回答的问题是，你是否真的需要筹集资金。
There's a bunch of different steps in this. You can raise money when you're just at the idea stage. You can raise money if you just have a prototype. You can raise money when you have users.
这里面有很多不同的步骤。当你处于想法阶段时，你可以筹集资金。如果你有一个原型，你就能筹到钱。当你有用户的时候，你可以筹集资金。
In fact, it gets easier and easier as you have each of these things, because they're demonstrations of progress. But you need money when you actually need it to grow your business, and figuring out whether or not you need money to grow your business is a very particular decision about your company.
事实上，随着这些事情的发生，事情变得越来越容易，因为它们是进步的证明。但是，当你真正需要钱来发展你的业务时，你就需要钱，而弄清楚你是否需要钱来发展你的业务，对于你的公司来说，这是一个非常特殊的决定。
If you think about this, think about raising money as a continuum, right.
如果你想一想，就把筹集资金当作一个连续体，对吧。
If you have nothing, and no understanding of how you would spend money if you had it, don't try to raise money.
如果你一无所有，也不知道如果你拥有它，你将如何花钱，不要试图筹集资金。
It's a waste of time.
这是在浪费时间。
Instead, focus on building your product and building your company.
相反，专注于建立你的产品和建立你的公司。
If you get a little further along, you have your idea or your prototype, you start to see oh, if I actually had a little more money I'd be able to do X, Y, and Z, which would make me go faster. Now flip yourself into the mind of the investor and think about, okay, well if I'm an investor, why am I giving this person money? I have to have a reason, right, and the reason is because I expect it to be very very very large one day.
如果你走得更远，你有了自己的想法或原型，你就会开始看到，哦，如果我有更多的钱，我就能做X，Y，Z，这会让我走得更快。现在让自己进入投资者的脑海，想想，好吧，如果我是一个投资者，我为什么要给这个人钱？我必须有一个理由，对吧，因为我希望有一天它会很大。
I also expect them to be able to use this money appropriately.
我也希望他们能够适当地使用这笔钱。
There are some uses that are good for money and some uses that I would say are bad.
有些用途对钱有好处，有些用途我认为是不好的。
The first thing people always say about why they need to raise money is they need to hire employees. This is very attractive because companies love to talk about how many employees they have.
人们总是说他们为什么要筹集资金的第一件事就是他们需要雇佣员工。这很有吸引力，因为公司喜欢谈论他们有多少员工。
It's a great metric when you don't have revenue or actual progress, but the truth is, because you are building startups which hopefully leverage software, you need to hire far fewer people than you think you do.
这是一个很好的指标，当你没有收入或实际的进展，但事实是，因为你正在建立的初创企业，希望利用软件，你需要雇用的人比你想象的要少得多。
In fact, hiring is the single best way to kill your company if you don't need to do it, because people cost money.
事实上，如果你不需要雇佣员工的话，雇佣是杀死你的公司的唯一最好的方法，因为人们需要花钱。
If you are already hiring, you already need money whether or not your idea's any good, whether or not your idea is growing. Think very carefully about whether or not the blocker between you and the next step of growth is actually hiring. The next thing people love to say is, well we need to do user acquisition. We need to spend money on Google ads. This is usually a very bad way to grow your business, especially early. You start spending money on Google ads and you start looking at your user numbers and say, "Look, our user numbers are growing up so we need to pour more money into it." What many people don't think, especially if it's their first startup, is whether or not they're acquiring people profitably, customers profitably, and whether or not they're doing that profitably on a timeline that allows them to recycle capital and keep growing. Before you start spending money on user acquisition, it probably makes sense to start acquiring people for free. Get users who love your product to tell their friends about how much they love the product, and then you get them for free and you don't need to raise money.
如果你已经在招聘，你已经需要钱不管你的想法是否有用，不管你的想法是否正在增长。仔细考虑一下你和下一个增长阶段之间的阻碍因素是否真的在招聘。接下来人们喜欢说的是，我们需要进行用户获取。我们需要把钱花在谷歌广告上。这通常是一个非常糟糕的方式来发展你的业务，特别是早期。你开始把钱花在谷歌广告上，然后开始看你的用户号码，然后说：“看，我们的用户号码正在增长，所以我们需要投入更多的资金。”很多人不认为，尤其是当这是他们的第一家创业公司的时候，他们是否获得了有利可图的客户，以及他们是否在一个允许他们循环资本并保持增长的时间表上获得利润。在你开始花钱购买用户之前，开始免费获取用户可能是有意义的。让喜欢你产品的用户告诉他们的朋友他们有多爱这个产品，然后你免费得到他们，你不需要筹集资金。
Then some of you will need customer service.
然后你们中的一些人将需要客户服务。
If your customers are getting angry because you're not doing enough to make them happy, you're not answering their questions, that's actually a pretty good reason to raise money and is actually one of the first limiting factors that a lot of companies hit. The reason this is a good one is because you as founders will be able to deal with customer service for quite a long time and you'll only stop being able to do that when you have enough users and customers that you get overwhelmed. What's interesting is that if someone's using a product that is free, their expectation of customer service is much lower which means you can handle a lot more. If they're paying you, your customer service level has to be higher, but you're making more money, so you can afford to hire more people to do customer service before you actually have to look for outside capital. Now part of the reason I'm saying and warning so actively against fundraising before you're ready, is the earlier you raise money, the more diluted that capital is. Right, people aren't going to give you a three million dollar valuation, a five million dollar valuation, a ten million dollar valuation unless you have something to show them. Every dollar raised is more of your equity in your eventual multi-billion dollar business that you're giving away. You don't want to do that if you don't have to. Let's talk a little bit about the types of investors in your neighborhood. First, we have friends and family. Then, there are accelerators, there are angels, there are seed funds, there are VC funds, and there's crowd funding.
如果你的客户因为你做的不够让他们高兴而生气，你没有回答他们的问题，这实际上是筹集资金的一个很好的理由，也是很多公司首先遇到的限制因素之一。这是一个很好的原因，因为作为创始人，你将能够在相当长的时间内处理客户服务，而只有当你有足够多的用户和客户而不知所措时，你才能停止这样做。有趣的是，如果有人使用的是免费的产品，他们对客户服务的期望要低得多，这意味着你可以处理得更多。如果他们付钱给你，你的客户服务水平必须更高，但你赚的钱更多，所以在你真正需要寻找外部资金之前，你可以雇佣更多的人来做客户服务。我之所以这么说的部分原因是，在你准备好之前，要积极地反对筹款，因为你越早筹集资金，资金就越稀释。是的，人们不会给你三百万美元的估价，五百万美元的估价，一千万美元的估价，除非你有东西给他们看。每筹集到的每一美元，都是你在最终的数十亿美元业务中所拥有的更多的股权。如果你不需要的话，你不会想这么做的。让我们谈谈你所在社区的投资者类型。首先，我们有朋友和家人。然后，有加速器，有天使，有种子基金，有风投基金，还有人群基金。
There are so many different ways to raise money and so many different places from which to raise it, but the important thing in figuring out who these investors are, how to get meetings with them, and how to convince them that they should actually give you money, is understanding a little bit about them, what motivates them, and how to get in touch with them. First, let's talk about accelerators. Accelerators are basically investors that have education programs attached to them. YC is an accelerator. We take you in for three months, we work with companies, we try to make them better and better and better and better and better by teaching them what we know and helping them avoid mistakes, and then we launch them out into the world on Demo Day, and give them a community on the other side. Now, there are thousands of accelerators all over the world. We see applications from all over the world and I think the number of accelerators is proliferating faster than the number of startups. This terrifies me because most of the people who are advising companies in accelerators have no idea what they're doing.
筹集资金有很多不同的方式，也有很多不同的地方可以筹集资金，但重要的是，要弄清楚这些投资者是谁，如何与他们会面，如何说服他们，让他们相信他们真的应该给你钱，这就是对他们的一点了解，是什么激励了他们，以及如何与他们取得联系。首先，让我们谈谈加速器。加速器基本上是有教育项目的投资者。YC是加速器。我们接受你三个月，我们与公司合作，我们试图让他们变得越来越好，我们教他们我们知道的，帮助他们避免错误，然后我们在演示日将他们推向世界，并在另一边给他们一个社区。现在，全世界有成千上万的加速器。我们看到来自世界各地的应用，我认为加速器数量的增长速度快于初创企业的数量。这让我感到害怕，因为大多数为加速器公司提供咨询的人都不知道他们在做什么。
They've never worked at a startup, they've never started a startup, they've never funded a startup outside of the accelerator. You've got to ask yourself why on Earth should I take advice from this person who's never done any of the things that they're telling me I should do, never seen any of these things work? Actually what you notice is most accelerators actually hurt companies, so be very careful about going to an accelerator. None of you need an accelerator to succeed as a company.
他们从未在一家初创公司工作过，也从未创办过一家创业公司，也从未在加速器之外为一家初创公司提供资金。你必须扪心自问，为什么我要接受这个从未做过他们告诉我的任何事情的人的建议，从来没有见过任何这样的事情起作用？实际上，你注意到的是，大多数加速器实际上伤害了公司，所以在使用加速器时要非常小心。作为一家公司，你们谁也不需要加速器就能成功。
If the accelerator is helpful, that's great, but if not, it damages your company because of the word accelerate.
如果加速器是有用的，那是很好的，但如果没有，它会损害你的公司，因为这个词加速。
If you do an accelerator, come out the other side, and you're the same or worse than you were when you started, it didn't accelerate you very well, did it? Every other investor that looks at you will look at you and think, "Huh, that didn't work. What's it actually going to take to accelerate this company? It's probably not money, there must be something wrong with the founders." And it might not be you, it might have been the accelerator that hurt you, so be careful and think very carefully and look at the track record that those accelerators have. Next up, friends and family. This is probably the most common source of funding for early stage startups at the earliest, earliest stages. Friends and family are moms, dads, rich uncles, Grammy and Pop Pop, people who have hopefully a little bit of extra money that they can give you because it feels good. Let's be honest, your friends and family don't usually think you're going to build the next Google, right? They love you, they remember when you were in diapers, and they're basically giving you money because you have conviction that you can do something and they want to support you and be nice. Don't take advantage of that niceness. Only take money from friends and family if you know that they can afford to lose every single dollar that they give you, because let's be honest, you're probably gonna lose every single dollar they give you. Let that sink in. Most startups that raise venture capital do not produce a return. Be very thoughtful about whether or not you take money from friends and family, and don't make the terms really really onerous. Don't raise 50 thousand dollars from your grandma at a 50 million dollar valuation. That doesn't make any sense. You're probably gonna get the inheritance anyway, so it just doesn't work. But seriously, if you artificially set a very high price at this point in your life, you can probably set the price because again, they're being nice, but that makes every other fundraising you do increasingly difficult because the price is so high. When you do want money from a friend or family member, treat it like a real meeting. Treat them as if they're real investors. Be respectful of their time. Go in with an actual pitch and an actual understanding of what you're doing, not just, "Can you please give me money now? Thank you." Don't do that. Really treat this as an important thing because it will help train you for the next stage of raising money, which is usually angels. Angels are basically rich people with a little too much time and money on their hands.
如果你做了一个加速器，从另一边出来，你和你开始的时候一样或者更糟，它并没有很好地加速你，对吗？每一个看着你的投资者都会看着你，想：“嗯，那是行不通的。要加快公司的发展到底需要什么呢？这可能不是钱，创始人肯定有什么问题。”可能不是你，可能是加速器伤害了你，所以要小心，仔细考虑，看看那些加速器的轨迹记录。接下来是朋友和家人。这可能是早期初创企业最早、最早阶段最常见的资金来源。朋友和家人是妈妈，爸爸，富叔叔，格莱美和流行，他们希望有一点额外的钱，他们可以给你，因为感觉很好。老实说，你的朋友和家人通常不认为你会建下一个谷歌，对吧？他们爱你，他们记得你穿着尿布的时候，他们给你钱基本上是因为你确信你能做些什么，他们想支持你，做个好人。不要利用这种和善。只有从朋友和家人那里拿钱，如果你知道他们能负担得起他们给你的每一美元，因为老实说，你可能会失去他们给你的每一美元。让它沉进去。大多数筹集风险资本的初创企业不会产生回报。仔细考虑你是否从朋友和家人那里拿钱，不要把条件弄得很麻烦。不要以5000万美元的估值从你奶奶那里筹集到5万美元。这没有任何意义。反正你也会继承遗产的，所以不管用。但说真的，如果你在生活中的这个时刻人为地设定了一个很高的价格，你很可能可以设定这个价格，因为他们再次表现得很好，但这使得你做的每一次筹款变得越来越困难，因为价格太高了。当你真的想要朋友或家人的钱时，把它当作一次真正的会议。把他们当作真正的投资者对待。尊重他们的时间。你要做的不仅仅是：“你现在能给我钱吗？谢谢。”别干那事把它当作一件重要的事情来对待，因为它将帮助你为下一阶段的筹款训练，通常是天使。天使基本上是有钱人，他们手上有太多的时间和金钱。
They invest mostly as a sport, right. Have you ever noticed on Twitter, angels will often say, "Oh, my billion dollar company this, my billion dollar company that." It's basically trophy hunting. You have no idea how much money they invested in those companies or whether or not they actually made money, or whether or not the money that they made is meaningful to them. But, they really like to invest in new companies, and there's actually a lot of reasons.
他们的投资主要是作为一项运动，对吧。你有没有注意到，天使们经常在推特上说：“哦，我的十亿美元的公司-这个，我的十亿美元的公司。”基本上就是狩猎奖杯。你不知道他们在这些公司投资了多少钱，他们是否真的赚了钱，或者他们赚的钱对他们是否有意义。但是，他们真的很喜欢投资新公司，其实有很多原因。
It's actually not just about trophy hunting.
其实不仅仅是狩猎。
There's a lot of angels who invest because they really want to see new technologies exist, or because when they were new founders, someone gave them a chance and they want to pay it forward. Angels are usually pretty easy to get in front of because they, well professional angels are easy to get in front of. All they want to do is invest in exciting, new, interesting companies and spend time with founders who make them feel interested and who teach them things. Email them, and if they seem really, really busy, you can usually network to them pretty quickly, especially if they're local. Whatever city you're in pretty much around the world, has at least a few angels.
有很多天使投资是因为他们真的想看到新技术的存在，或者是因为当他们是新的创始人时，有人给了他们一个机会，他们想继续付出。天使通常很容易在前面得到，因为他们，嗯，职业天使很容易在前面。他们所想做的就是投资于令人兴奋的、新的、有趣的公司，并花时间与那些让他们感兴趣、教给他们东西的创始人在一起。给他们发电子邮件，如果他们看起来真的很忙，你通常可以很快地和他们建立联系，特别是如果他们是本地的。不管你在世界各地的哪个城市，至少有几个天使。
The one last thing I would say about angels is that you should be careful of angel groups.
关于天使，我要说的最后一件事是，你应该小心天使团体。
I forget what they're called, but there are basically these groups of angels that like to get together for meals and grill new founders and then not invest.
我忘记了他们的名字，但基本上这些天使团体喜欢聚在一起吃饭，烧烤新创始人，然后不投资。
It's this sport of ripping people apart because they are successful investors or something, and they just want to show you how good they are. Before you take money from, or before you go chase an angel down, do some research ahead of time to figure out whether or not they actively invest. That's the signal. Have they made an investment in the last six months, twelve months, five years, ten years? If they haven't made an investment in a year or two, they're probably not investing actively, so it's probably not a good idea to waste your time chasing them down. Next up the capital stack is seed funds. Seed funds are kind of super professional angels who have raised some amount of outside capital that they are investing. They're usually investing on behalf of angels who maybe don't have enough money to be LPs in really big funds. These are usually newer but professional investors who are trying to learn the ropes. They're often great, they're often recent founders, they're probably pretty aggressive about finding good deals. They have quick processes because they know they have to move quickly. Do research on them. Their whole job is to meet new founders who they want to talk to and invest in. Email them, cold emails to these people are fine.
这是一项把人撕成碎片的运动，因为他们是成功的投资者，他们只是想向你展示他们有多好。在你拿钱之前，或者在你去追逐天使之前，先做一些研究，看看他们是否积极投资。这就是信号。他们在过去的六个月，十二个月，五年，十年里做了投资吗？如果他们在一两年没有投资，他们可能不会积极投资，所以浪费你的时间去追赶他们可能不是个好主意。接下来是种子基金。种子基金是一种超级职业天使，他们已经筹集了一定数量的外部资本，他们正在投资。他们通常代表天使进行投资，而天使们可能没有足够的钱成为真正的大型基金的合伙人。这些人通常是较新但专业的投资者，他们正在努力学习诀窍。他们往往是伟大的，他们往往是最近的创始人，他们可能是相当积极地寻找良好的交易。他们有快速的过程，因为他们知道他们必须快速行动。研究他们。他们的全部工作是会见新的创始人，他们想与他们交谈和投资。给他们发邮件，寄给这些人的冷邮件都没问题。
If you can get a warm email, great, but you should just reach out to seed funds. Their entire job is meeting with you to see if they can invest in you. Remember, that they are investing for a return so that they can raise their next fund, so they're not interested in things that are just gonna produce a small return. They're not interested in lifestyle businesses, which an angel might be interested in investing in if there's cash flow. They need you to return capital. Then there's the VC funds. These are obviously the big deal in fundraising. VC funds run the gamut. There are VC funds that invest million dollar checks and there are VC funds that invest billion dollar checks. Know what you need for your stage of capital. They all have, or almost all have multiple LPs which are limited partners who give them money and say, "Hey, we need you to produce x percent return on an annual basis." It's called an IRR target. These people, these LPs, are looking across all the venture funds in the world and saying, "Where can I allocate money?" Then they're looking at all of the different alternative asset managers and saying, "Where can I allocate money?" Then they're looking across all of investible assets and saying, "Where can I allocate money?" If I'm a VC partner, if I'm a GP, I have to think not only do I have to be one of the better VCs, I have to return more at a better risk than anything else this investor could put money into, for me to get that LP capital. When they're looking at you, they don't just need you to return five or ten x, they're looking at every single investment and saying, "Will this investment return my entire fund?" As you're thinking about how to meet with these people, you got to think about, "Oh shoot, when I walk into that meeting, I can't just pitch a small vision of what I'm doing.
如果你能收到一封温馨的电子邮件，很好，但你应该直接接触种子基金。他们的全部工作就是和你会面，看看他们是否能在你身上投资。记住，他们投资是为了获得回报，这样他们就可以筹集下一只基金，所以他们对那些只会产生小回报的事情不感兴趣。他们对生活方式企业不感兴趣，如果有现金流的话，天使可能会对此感兴趣。他们需要你归还资金。还有风投基金。这显然是筹款的大事。风投基金经营这一领域。有投资百万美元支票的风险投资基金，也有投资10亿美元支票的风险投资基金。知道你的资本阶段需要什么。他们都有，或者说几乎都有多个有限合伙人，他们给他们钱，说：“嘿，我们需要你每年产生x%的回报。”这叫IRR目标。这些人，这些有限合伙人，正在寻找世界上所有的风险基金，并说：“我可以在哪里分配资金？”然后，他们研究了所有不同的另类资产管理公司，并说：“我可以在哪里分配资金？”然后他们查看所有可投资资产，并问：“我能在哪里分配资金？”如果我是一名风投合伙人，如果我是一名全科医生，我必须认为我不仅要成为更好的风投之一，而且我必须以比投资者所能投入的任何其他更好的风险回报更多，这样我才能获得LP资本。当他们看着你的时候，他们不仅需要你回报5倍或10倍，他们还在观察每一笔投资，然后说，“这种投资会回报我的整个基金吗？”当你在思考如何与这些人见面时，你得想，“哦，天哪，当我走进那个会议的时候，我不能只是对我正在做的事情提出一个小小的设想。
I gotta do something big here." Now VCs when they invest usually have a pretty specific structure of what they do and how they make decisions. You might meet with a partner at first and then two partners and five partners, and then the whole general partnership if you're raising something like a series A. But the earlier stages, most of the biggest VC funds can make a decision off a meeting with one single partner.
我要在这里做点大事。“现在，风投在投资时，通常有一个相当具体的结构，他们做什么，他们如何作出决定。你可能会先遇到一个合伙人，然后是两个合伙人和五个合伙人，然后是整个普通合伙人，如果你是在筹集类似A系列的资金。但在早期阶段，大多数最大的风投基金都可以在与一个合伙人的会议上做出决定。
If you're all thinking about sort of that first check, probably don't even think about these guys. This comes later in the process when you're ready to raise a lot of money. The last kind of investor that I can think of is crowd funding websites. These are a little bit of a strange thing to think about when it comes to say a meeting or getting in front of them, because they split. There's crowd funding that can be done via syndicate, where there's one person who's kind of like an angel who has a bunch of money from other people to say, "Hey, we're gonna invest in this thing." And then everyone follows them along. They work kind of like professional investors do, where you'll meet with them, talk to them, then they'll say, "Hey. We're gonna back you. Can we put you on?" There's private syndicates and public syndicates. You do not have to meet with every member of a syndicate in order to raise money on a crowd funding site. There's also the option on many crowd funding sites to simply list your company, subject to a few checks to make sure you're not committing fraud, where they'll just put you up and then people will send money your way without you ever meeting anyone. This is a good way to raise money if you can't figure out another way to do it, or there's no investors near you, or you don't want to be bothered with the time.
如果你们都在想第一次检查的话，可能连这些家伙都别想了。当你准备好筹集大量资金的时候，这是在稍后的过程中出现的。我能想到的最后一种投资者是人群融资网站。说到开会或站在他们面前，这是一件有点奇怪的事情，因为他们分手了。可以通过辛迪加提供群众资金，有一个人就像一个天使，从其他人那里得到了一大笔钱，说：“嘿，我们要在这件事上投资。”然后每个人都跟着他们。他们的工作有点像专业投资者，在那里你会和他们见面，和他们交谈，然后他们会说，“嘿，我们会支持你的。我们能让你接电话吗？”有私人辛迪加和公共辛迪加。你不必与辛迪加的每一个成员见面才能在人群资助网站上筹集资金。还有一个选项是，许多人群资助网站可以简单地列出你的公司，只需几张支票就可以确保你没有欺诈行为，在那里他们只会把你放在一起，然后人们就会用你的方式寄钱，而你从来没有见过任何人。如果你想不出另一种方法来筹集资金，或者你身边没有投资者，或者你不想被时间打扰，这是一个很好的筹资方式。
It's usually not a good way to raise lots and lots and lots of money because one, it's usually not there and two, if you have all these individual tiny little investors on your cap table, they become a nightmare to manage. Think carefully about this option and think about what it will do for you and what it can do to you. A couple of these investors, as I mentioned, are susceptible or open to receiving cold emails. Actually, every one is receptive to cold emails.
这通常不是筹集大量资金的好方法，因为一、二、如果你把这些小投资者都放在你的表上，他们就变成了一场噩梦。仔细考虑这个选项，想想它会为你做什么，它能对你做什么。正如我所提到的，这些投资者中有几个很容易或很容易收到冷冰冰的电子邮件。实际上，每个人都能接受冰冷的电子邮件。
I think I respond to pretty much every cold email I get, if I can, but, there's good ones and bad ones. Here's a bad cold email. "Dear Sir or Madam, I have noticed in my research on the internet that you are an investor in technology companies.
我想我会回复几乎每一封我收到的冷邮件，如果可以的话，但是，有好的也有坏的。这是一封冷冰冰的电子邮件。“亲爱的先生或女士，我在网上的研究中注意到你是科技公司的投资者。
I'd like to introduce you to an opportunity to make money in this new and exciting field. May I come to your office for an hour to present you with this opportunity? Sincerely, Aaron." I would not take a meeting with this person.
我想向你介绍一个机会，在这个新的和令人兴奋的领域赚钱。我能来你办公室一个小时吗？给你这个机会。真诚的，亚伦。“我不会和这个人见面的。
I have no idea what they do, they don't seem to have done any work to understand what I'm interested in, who I am, what I've done in the past, and they're asking for an hour of my time in person. That's a lot of time. Remember that professional investors, sure, they meet with people all day long, but the only thing that limits them is their time. They want to give that to the people who matter most. How do you think about sending a good cold email? The answer is by doing research. Most investors are very happy to tweet about things that interest them, companies they've invested in. They write blogs about ideas that they have and companies that they want to see exist. They have prolific profiles online based on the companies that they've started in the past. You should go and research every single investor that you want to talk to and figure out a way to get in front of them with a custom introduction that is relevant to them and to you. Here's one you could send to Adora. "Adora, I'm building a marketplace for home cleaners.
我不知道他们在做什么，他们似乎没有做任何工作来了解我对什么感兴趣，我是谁，我过去做过什么，他们要求我亲自花一个小时的时间。时间真长啊。记住，专业投资者，当然，他们整天与人见面，但唯一限制他们的是他们的时间。他们想把这个给那些最重要的人。你认为如何发送一封好的冷邮件？答案是做研究。大多数投资者都很乐意在推特上谈论他们感兴趣的事情，也就是他们投资过的公司。他们写博客，讲述他们所拥有的想法，以及他们希望看到存在的公司。他们在网上拥有大量的个人资料，这些资料都是基于他们在过去创办的公司而建立的。你应该去调查每一个你想要与之交谈的投资者，并想出一种方法，通过一个与他们和你相关的自定义介绍，让他们站在他们面前。这是你可以寄给阿多拉的。“阿多拉，我正在为家庭清洁工建立一个市场。
I have a novel approach to this. All of the cleaners are robots. We've launched and are just starting to grow." So let's stop for a second, if you've done research on Adora, you know that she built a marketplace for home services, so you know that this is relevant to her. You also might know she thinks robots are cool, so that's another good hook. You tell her the stage that you're at, launched and are just starting to grow. Now, launched is great because it proves that you're actually doing things. Starting to grow is intriguing because it makes me want to ask how much are you starting to grow? How fast? How are you measuring growth? How do these things work? Then, "I think you'd be a great investor for us because of your experience with Homejoy.
我有一种新颖的方法。所有的清洁工都是机器人。我们已经启动，并且刚刚开始增长。“所以让我们停一下，如果你对Adora做过研究，你知道她为家庭服务建立了一个市场，所以你知道这与她有关。你也可能知道她认为机器人很酷，所以这是另一个很好的钩子。你告诉她你所处的阶段，刚刚开始成长。现在，启动是伟大的，因为它证明了你实际上在做的事情。开始成长是很有趣的，因为它让我想问你开始成长多少？多快?你是如何衡量增长的？这些东西是怎么工作的？然后，“我认为你将是一个伟大的投资者，因为你的经验，与Homejoy。
I think we've solved unit economics and reliability. Can we discuss this for 15 minutes? Happy to email if that's better for you. Sincerely, Aaron." Let's think of all the different things here that are good. You've only asked for 15 minutes of time, that's easy and can be done by the phone. You also offered to do it over email if Adora happens to be busy or is traveling, she can just deal with the first set of questions over email.
我想我们已经解决了单位经济和可靠性问题。我们能讨论15分钟吗？如果这样对你更好的话，我很乐意给你发电子邮件。艾伦，诚恳地说。“让我们想想这里所有不同的好事情。你只要求了15分钟的时间，这很容易，可以通过电话完成。如果阿多拉碰巧很忙或正在旅行，你也可以通过电子邮件来处理第一组问题，她可以通过电子邮件处理第一组问题。”
I love to do this, I always go to email first and if someone really gives good email responses and is thoughtful and asks good questions, I'm much more inclined to meet them and be happy when I'm meeting them, walk into the meeting with a positive understanding of what they're doing and context to understand the entire conversation. Right, that's a prepared mind for what you're thinking of doing. You reference her past with Homejoy and you'll know if you watch some of Adora's lectures and videos online that she thinks a lot about unit economics and reliability, so you know that these things are important and you're saying we've solved these two key critical issues that are important to you. This is a slam dunk. This is a cold email that is likely to get a response, whether or not you know the person you're emailing, because it's so specific.
我喜欢这样做，我总是先发电子邮件，如果有人真的给出了很好的电子邮件回复，并且考虑周到，并提出了好的问题，我更倾向于与他们见面，当我遇到他们时，我会感到高兴，走进会议时，我会积极地理解他们在做什么，以及理解整个谈话的背景。好吧，这是你想要做的事情的准备。如果你把她的过去和Homejoy联系起来，你就会知道如果你在网上看了Adora的一些讲座和视频，她对单元经济学和可靠性有很多看法，所以你知道这些事情很重要，你说我们已经解决了这两个对你很重要的关键问题。这是一次扣篮。这是一封冷冰冰的电子邮件，无论你是否认识你发邮件的人，都可能得到回复，因为它是如此具体。
It's the same thing by the way, if you are sending lots of emails to people you don't necessarily know to try to convince them to use your service. There's a big difference between spamming people and sending them a relevant email about a relevant service that they will find interesting. Don't spam investors, it doesn't work. They're immune to it.
顺便说一句，如果你给你不一定认识的人发了很多电子邮件，试图说服他们使用你的服务，那也是一样的。发垃圾邮件和给他们发一封关于相关服务的电子邮件有很大的不同，他们会觉得这很有趣。不要给投资者发垃圾邮件，这是行不通的。他们对此免疫。
Investors are not usually sitting around waiting for an email from someone they've never met introducing them to an investment opportunity. What they are waiting for is the company that no one else knows that is secretly amazing, that nobody else has talked to yet, that has no connections. That is the company that if you find it, and is actually as good as it seems, that's the one that makes you all of the money. An investor who gets a cold email this good, is already starting to think, "Oh crap. This is my Google and no one else knows about it.
投资者通常不会坐等从未见过的人发来电子邮件，向他们介绍投资机会。他们正在等待的是一家没有人知道的公司，这个公司秘密地令人惊奇，没有其他人与之交谈过，也没有人与之有任何联系。这是一家公司，如果你找到了它，而且实际上它看起来很好，那是一家能让你赚到全部钱的公司。一位收到如此好的电子邮件的投资者，已经开始想，“哦，糟糕，这是我的谷歌，没有人知道这件事。”
I better move fast, meet them, figure out what's going on, give them a bunch of money, and then help them IPO." That's the response you want to get out of someone.
我最好赶快行动，见见他们，弄清楚到底怎么回事，给他们一大笔钱，然后帮他们IPO。“这就是你想从某人身上得到的回应。
In fact, that's what you want to walk out of every meeting with, an investor who's excited to move on to the next steps. As you move through meetings with investors, there are a whole bunch of different meeting types that you'll have to navigate, and different investors do different kinds of these meetings. Let me list them and then I'll walk through a little bit more about what they are. First up, there's the intro meeting. All investors do intro meetings except the crowd funding sites. Then, there's a follow up meeting. Pretty much all investors do this except some angels who might decide to invest in you after that first meeting. Then you've got the decision meeting. This is really only professional investors. This will be a meeting with multiple partners or with that one partner, but to really dig in and make sure that they want to do the deal. After, well depending on how competitive your fundraise is, which is a whole other set of things, there's diligence. A diligence meeting might be with you, might be with your team, might be with your lawyer. Sometimes it's handled by the VC themselves or the investor themselves and sometimes it's handled by someone on their team. Then finally, if it all goes according to plan, you get fancy dinners. Fancy dinners are the goal. Not raising money for your company, getting to eat for free. Different investors will use fancy dinners differently. Sometimes it's used to sell you on an offer that they've made where they really want to get to know you better and show you how great they are, and then usually after everything's done, you can finagle a closing dinner out of someone.
事实上，这就是你想从每一次会议中走出来的，一个非常兴奋的投资者，他将继续下一步的工作。当你和投资者开会的时候，你会遇到很多不同的会议类型，不同的投资者会进行不同的会议。让我列出它们，然后我再详细介绍一下它们是什么。首先是介绍会议。除人群融资网站外，所有投资者都会进行介绍性会议。然后有个后续会议。几乎所有的投资者都这样做，除了一些天使，他们可能决定在第一次会议后投资你。那你就有决定会议了。这其实只是专业投资者。这将是一个与多个合伙人或一个合伙人的会议，但真正深入并确保他们想要做的交易。然后，好吧，这取决于你的募捐有多有竞争力，这是另外一套事情，那就是勤奋。一个勤奋的会议可能与你在一起，可能与你的团队，也可能与你的律师。有时由风投自己或投资者自己来处理，有时则由他们团队中的某个人来处理。最后，如果一切按计划进行，你就会得到丰盛的晚餐。华丽的晚餐是我们的目标。不是为你的公司筹款，而是免费吃饭。不同的投资者会用不同的晚餐。有时候，它会把你卖给他们真正想更好地了解你并向你展示他们有多棒的地方，然后通常在一切都做完之后，你可以从某人那里得到一顿最后的晚餐。
In all serious though, the reason that I put this on here is that every investor that you take onto your cap table is going to be with you for the life of your company. You need to make sure that the people you're taking money from aren't jerks.
尽管如此，我把这件事写在这里的原因是，你把每一个投资者放在你的帽桌上，都会和你一起度过公司的一生。你需要确保从你那里拿钱的人不是混蛋。
If you can't sit through an hour dinner with someone, you should think very carefully about whether or not you want to take their money. This is a little less relevant at very early stages with small check sizes from angels, but anyone who's giving you a material amount of money, you need to think very carefully about whether or not you want them there. All right. What you need for each of these meetings changes. The intro meeting is really simple. All you really need is a clear explanation of your idea. That's actually the base level of everything, a super clear ... This is the elevator pitch, right? The reason this is important is because research shows that people make decisions about what they want to do in an interview sometimes in the first 30 seconds of a meeting. You can't necessarily get to 'yes' in 30 seconds, but you can often get to 'no'.
如果你不能和某人共进一个小时的晚餐，你应该仔细考虑你是否想拿走他们的钱。这在早期阶段有点不相关，天使的支票尺寸很小，但是任何给你钱的人，你都需要仔细考虑你是否想要他们。好的每一次会议你都需要做些什么。介绍会真的很简单。你真正需要的就是清楚地解释你的想法。这实际上是每件事的基本水平，一个超清晰的.。这是电梯场地对吧？之所以如此重要，是因为研究表明，人们会在面试中决定要做什么，有时是在会议的前30秒。你不一定能在30秒内达到“是”，但你经常可以说“不”。
If someone comes in and cannot explain what they do, that's a really bad sign. Make sure you really understand what it is that you want to say and how you want to explain it.
如果有人进来，不能解释他们做什么，这是一个非常坏的迹象。确保你真的明白你想说的是什么，以及你想如何解释它。
If you have a demo of what you've built, that's awesome.
如果你已经做了一个演示，那就太棒了。
Investors love to engage with real products and see, and not only do they want to see that because they love playing with things, this is evidence that you are doing the things that you are saying you're gonna do. The entire purpose of meeting with investors is to show them that you are inevitably going to be gigantic and progress is critical to that.
投资者喜欢与真正的产品打交道，他们不仅想看到，因为他们喜欢玩东西，这是你在做你说你要做的事情的证据。与投资者会面的全部目的是向他们表明，你将不可避免地取得巨大的成就，而这方面的进展是至关重要的。
I would also recommend having a reasonably clean shirt. Doesn't have to be spotless, I understand what it's like to be a founder, but don't show up looking like you just rolled out of bed all rumpled. You can get away with that sometimes, but again, people unfortunately judge based on first impressions.
我还建议穿一件相当干净的衬衫。我不需要一尘不染，我明白作为一个创始人是什么感觉，但不要出现你就像刚刚从床上滚出来，满脸皱巴巴的样子。有时候你可以不受惩罚，但不幸的是，人们还是会根据第一印象来判断。
If you walk into the room looking like you don't give a crap about the meeting, the investor isn't gonna give a crap about the meeting.
如果你走进房间，看上去不关心会议的事，投资者就不会对会议大惊小怪了。
If you get past the intro, you're gonna get to a follow up meeting. Again, except for the angels that invest off the first meeting. Follow ups start to dig a little more deeply into your business. You need to understand your metrics. Now in some cases, this will be the metrics that your business already has, and in other cases, it'll be the metrics that your company will have in the future.
如果你通过了介绍，你就会去参加后续会议。再说一次，除了投资开第一次会议的天使们。后续行动开始更深入地挖掘你的业务。您需要了解您的度量标准。现在，在某些情况下，这将是您的业务已经拥有的度量，而在其他情况下，这将是您的公司在未来的度量标准。
If you're building a consumer business, but you haven't launched yet, you need to have a framework for understanding that monthly actives are important to you, or weeklies or dailies or hourly actives are important to you. Talk about how you're thinking about those things and how you're gonna focus on them. You need to be able to explain your progress up to now, and remember that progress isn't an absolute value. Progress is a slope. How long have you been working on what you've been working on and how far have you gotten in that time? If you've been working on something for five years and have yet to launch, not great.
如果你正在建立一个消费业务，但你还没有推出，你需要有一个框架来理解每月的活动对你很重要，或者周报、日报或小时活动对你很重要。谈谈你是如何思考这些事情的，以及你将如何专注于这些事情。到目前为止，您需要能够解释您的进度，并且记住，进度不是一个绝对值。进步是一个斜坡。你花了多长时间研究你一直在做的事情，在这段时间里你做了多少？如果你已经做了五年的工作，但还没有推出，那就不太好了。
If you've been working on it for a month and have a prototype ready, that's amazing.
如果你已经做了一个月的工作，并且已经准备好了一个原型，那就太棒了。
It's all relative. You want to be able to dig a little more deeply on your insights into why you're doing what you're doing than you did in that first introduction meeting. Remember that that introduction meeting can be 15 minutes.
都是相对的。你想要比在第一次介绍会议上更深入地挖掘你为什么要做你正在做的事情的洞察力。记住，介绍会可以是15分钟。
It could be an hour, but it's probably pretty short, so this is your chance to show just how much you understand about what you're doing. When you get to an actual decision meeting, this is really when you need the deck. Again, this is mostly for professional investors. Most angels don't need to see a deck.
它可能是一个小时，但它可能是相当短，所以这是你的机会来展示你有多了解你在做什么。当你到达一个真正的决策会议，这是你真正需要的甲板。同样，这主要是针对专业投资者的。大多数天使不需要看到甲板。
It's not really that relevant.
没那么重要。
I kind of think that some people spend more time on their deck than they do working on product, which is usually a bad trade because customers don't generally buy decks. Some do, but that's just weird. You need to have your deck, and the deck doesn't have to be long. Actually, the simpler the deck, the better. This deck is really really long that I'm running through today. If you're a seed company, eight slides, maybe ten. Your opportunity, your team, what you're gonna build or what you've already built, and your early metrics. That's it.
我认为有些人花在甲板上的时间比他们在产品上工作的时间要多，这通常是一个糟糕的行业，因为顾客通常不买甲板。有些人有，但这很奇怪。你需要你的甲板，而甲板不需要太长。实际上，甲板越简单越好。这甲板真的很长，我今天要穿过。如果你是种子公司，八张幻灯片，也许十张。你的机会，你的团队，你要建立什么，或者你已经建立了什么，以及你早期的衡量标准。就这样
I actually put up a sample slide deck on the YC blog, go check it out.
实际上，我在YC博客上贴了一个幻灯片样本，去看看。
It's really short. You can actually just use that deck and replace your name with the Deck Company, I think is what it's called. At this point, if you have metrics, you need to know them cold.
真的很短。你可以用那个甲板把你的名字换成甲板公司，我想这就是它的名字。在这一点上，如果您有度量，您需要知道他们冷。
If someone asks you what six month or twelve month retention is, know it off the top of your head, don't have to pull up your computer and look for it. Obviously there are levels and layers of metrics underneath that you don't need, but any top level metric that's important, know that, and for your most important metrics, be able to dig in a couple layers. The critical part of a decision meeting, and again this is because this is for professional investors, is that you need to take where you are now and project what the biggest future actually is.
如果有人问你什么是六个月或十二个月，知道它在你的头顶，不需要拉起你的电脑和寻找它。显然，您不需要底层的度量级别和层，但是任何重要的顶级度量都要知道，对于您最重要的度量，能够挖掘几个层。决策会议的关键部分，也是因为这是对专业投资者来说的，你需要做好你现在所处的位置，预测最大的未来是什么。
I remember when I sat down and pitched Sequoia for my decision meeting, it was me and five partners in the room. The thing that they really dug in on was what my company could be in ten or fifteen years, and that was all they cared about at that point. They were already sold on the basics of the business at that point. They were sold mostly on me, but the thing that they wanted to understand I think, is how I thought about the future and whether or not they thought I could actually do that thing. Could we become a globe spanning company? Because again, that's the only thing they care about, and your ability to dig into that and explain it is the difference between whether or not you're just another company, or something with huge vision that they think you can achieve. After that comes the diligence meetings. These meetings aren't usually that hard on you if you've done your homework ahead of time, and again, this is later. The earlier in your life as a company, the less diligence you have. Make sure you have your legal docs in order, make sure your financials if you have them, make sense. We've seen some really insane things come up during diligence where a company has 50 percent less cash than they thought they did. Don't do that.
我记得当我坐下来为我的决定会议投红杉时，是我和房间里的五个合伙人。他们真正钻研的是我的公司在十到十五年后可能会成为什么样的公司，而这正是他们所关心的。在那时，他们已经在生意的基础上卖了。它们主要是卖给我的，但他们想了解的是我对未来的看法，以及他们是否认为我真的能做到这一点。我们能成为一家跨越全球的公司吗？因为，这是他们唯一关心的事情，你能深入了解并解释这一点的能力在于，你是仅仅是另一家公司，还是他们认为你能实现的远大愿景的公司之间的区别。之后是勤勉会议。如果你提前做完家庭作业，这些会议通常不会对你造成太大的压力，而且这也是以后的事情。你作为公司的时间越早，你的勤奋就越少。确保你的法律文件井然有序，确保你的财务状况，如果你有，那么就有意义了。我们已经看到一些非常疯狂的事情发生在勤奋过程中，一家公司的现金比他们想象的少了50%。别干那事
It's usually some other problems at work if that happens. Have a metrics dashboard. Again, if you have the metrics, be able to bring up your full dashboard so that people can really dig way down into everything that you're doing.
如果发生这种情况，通常是工作中的其他一些问题。有一个度量仪表板。同样，如果您有度量标准，则可以打开您的完整仪表板，以便人们能够深入了解您正在做的每一件事情。
If you walk through all of those things, if you understand the framework for your meetings, you'll get to the final step, which is that fancy dinner.
如果你经历了所有这些事情，如果你理解了会议的框架，你就会进入最后一步，那就是那顿丰盛的晚餐。
There is food and you'll need another reasonably clean shirt, but this is the end and doesn't even necessarily happen. Honestly, even if it doesn't, the thing that you are trying to get to is actually money in the bank. Whether or not an investor takes you out for a meal or an investor seems fancy or other people think the investor is cool, none of that matters. At the end of the day, the thing that you need as a company, if you need money to grow, is just money. Honestly, all of these meetings are irrelevant if you can get that money without them. Never put yourself in a position where an investor that you have researched is great, you know they're great, they email you and say, "Hey, I'm traveling this month but I really want to invest. Can I send you a quarter of a million dollars and we'll catch up afterwards?" Don't say no because you haven't met for coffee.
有食物，你需要另一个相当干净的衬衫，但这是结束，甚至不一定会发生。老实说，即使没有，你想要得到的实际上是银行里的钱。不管是投资者带你出去吃饭，还是投资者看上去很花哨，或者其他人认为投资者很酷，这些都不重要。归根结底，作为一个公司，如果你需要钱来成长，你需要的就是钱。老实说，如果你没有这些会议的话，所有这些会议都是无关紧要的。千万不要把自己放在一个你研究过的投资者很好的位置，你知道他们很棒，他们给你发电子邮件说：“嘿，我这个月要旅行，但我真的想投资。我能给你寄25万美元吗？然后我们会赶上你吗？”不要拒绝，因为你还没见过面喝咖啡。
I'd recommend getting on the phone with them and chatting with them and trying to do your own diligence. Check references, but don't turn people down just because they haven't fit into whatever we believe or you believe is the perfect process. A few things to remember about meetings, about investors. Most importantly, meetings do not equal progress.
我建议你和他们打个电话，和他们聊天，尽你自己的努力。检查推荐信，但不要仅仅因为人们不符合我们所相信的或你认为是完美的过程而拒绝他们。一些关于会议和投资者的事情要记住。最重要的是，会议并不等于取得进展。
I run into so many founders who tell me all about all of the different meetings that they're having and how they met with this person and that person and that famous person.
我遇到了很多创始人，他们告诉我他们正在举行的所有不同的会议，以及他们是如何与这个人、那个人和那个名人见面的。
It's irrelevant. The only thing that matters is building a big company, and if you are meeting with investors when you don't need to raise money, you are taking your time and focus away from the thing that matters, which is building the big company. Only start meeting with investors when you know that you need money. When you are in a fundraising process, the only thing that counts as a 'Yes, I will invest' is "Yes, I will invest", signed documents and wired money.
这无关紧要。唯一重要的是建立一家大公司，如果你在不需要筹集资金的情况下与投资者会面，你就会把时间和精力转移到重要的事情上，那就是建立一家大公司。只有当你知道你需要钱的时候，才开始和投资者见面。当你在筹资过程中，唯一可以算作‘是的，我会投资’的东西就是“是的，我会投资”，签名的文件和电汇。
Investors hate saying no because every time they say no, they close off the opportunity to invest in something that's going to make them a lot of money and they risk looking stupid for having said no. They will do everything they can not to. What I've actually found is the best investors are the ones who will say no fastest. Not say yes fastest, who will say no fastest, because they're the ones who understand what it is they're looking for and how to make decisions quickly.
投资者不喜欢说“不”，因为每次他们说“不”的时候，他们就会关闭投资于能让他们赚大钱的东西的机会，而且他们冒着说“不”的危险。他们会尽其所能。实际上，我发现最好的投资者是那些不会说得最快的人。不要说是最快，谁不会说最快，因为他们知道他们在寻找什么，以及如何快速做出决定。
If you find yourself in a situation and you're going out and meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting, nothing takes that long. This is a gamble, and at some point, someone has to make a decision, and indecisive investors usually don't make good decisions. When you're meeting with people, push to a close. The final piece is a warning for you to watch out for.
如果你发现自己处于一种情况下，你会在一次又一次的会面中出去，没有什么需要花那么长时间。这是一场赌博，在某一时刻，必须有人做出决定，优柔寡断的投资者通常不会做出好的决定。当你和人见面的时候，把它推到最后。最后一段是对你的警告。
I hate having to talk about these things because I wish they didn't happen, but they do. The first piece of bad behavior is what I just mentioned, investors who just waste your time. This is honestly kind of harmless, but just watch out for it. The next thing is investors who are jerks. This takes lots of different forms. There are investors who will try to impress you with how much money they have, who will try to impress you with the people they know, who will talk down to you because you're new and they're old. There are investors who will try to make you feel as if your idea is stupid without giving you any help or understanding of where their thought process is coming from. Don't take it.
我讨厌谈论这些事情，因为我希望它们没有发生，但它们确实发生了。第一个不好的行为就是我刚才提到的，就是那些浪费你时间的投资者。老实说，这是无害的，但要小心。下一件事是那些胆小鬼的投资者。这需要很多不同的形式。有些投资者会试图用他们有多少钱来给你留下深刻印象，他们会试图用他们认识的人给你留下深刻的印象，他们会因为你是新的和他们的老而对你说话。有些投资者会试图让你觉得你的想法是愚蠢的，而不给你任何帮助或理解他们的思维过程从何而来。别拿。
If someone's a jerk, leave or say, "Hey, you're being an asshole.
如果某人是个混蛋，离开或说，“嘿，你是个混蛋。
I have a lot of people that I can talk to and I'd rather not talk to you. Thanks." Don't be a jerk yourself, but be honest, be forthright, and leave a meeting if you have to if someone's being a jerk. Don't take another meeting with them and then tell your friends that this person was a jerk to you. This behavior corrects itself pretty quickly. Now sometimes, people are being jerks without realizing it. They just think that's what they're supposed to do or they're not so good in social interactions. Try giving feedback if that happens, and see what happens. There are investors who will meet with you just to do diligence on you for one of their portfolio companies. This is usually pretty obvious because they'll just ask you question after question after question after question about process and metrics and who your suppliers are and who your special relationships are and what are their phone numbers and when can they go see them and can they introduce you to someone else who seems to be working on a competitive product, but no, don't worry, it's not really a competitive product. Oh wait, wait a second. Before you meet with someone, just check to see if they are already invested in competitors and talk to them about it ahead of time. For a lot of investors, they explicitly say we're happy to invest in competitors over time and we compartmentalize information. Actually, YC does this. We are happy to invest in competitors. We sometimes do it in the same batch. We tell both companies we're doing it, but we'll do it in the same batch and we'll do it across batches. We've developed a system whereby we're very careful about what information can or would be shared, and keeping that trust sacred is something that we are very serious about. The last thing and this has importantly become an issue, is harassment. This could be sexual harassment, it could be racism, it could be any kind of bigotry. Unfortunately, wealth has absolutely no relationship to morality, and investors, some of them are not good people.
我有很多人可以和我说话，我不想和你说话。谢谢。“不要做你自己的混蛋，但要诚实，直率，如果某人是个混蛋，你必须离开会议。不要再和他们见面，然后告诉你的朋友，这个人对你来说是个混蛋。这种行为很快就纠正了自己。现在，有时候，人们在不知不觉中变成了混蛋。他们只是认为这是他们应该做的，或者他们在社会交往中不是很好。如果发生这种情况，试着给出反馈，看看会发生什么。有些投资者会与你会面，只是为了为他们的一家投资组合公司对你进行调查。这通常是很明显的，因为他们会问你一个又一个问题，关于过程和指标，你的供应商是谁，你的特殊关系是谁，他们的电话号码是什么，他们什么时候能看到他们，他们能把你介绍给其他似乎在开发有竞争力的产品的人，但不，别担心，这不是真正有竞争力的产品。哦，等等，等一下。在你和某个人见面之前，先看看他们是否已经在竞争对手身上投资了，并提前和他们谈一谈。对于许多投资者来说，他们明确表示，随着时间的推移，我们很乐意投资于竞争对手，我们把信息分成几部分。实际上是YC干的。我们很乐意投资于竞争对手。我们有时是在同一批做的。我们告诉两家公司我们正在做这件事，但是我们会在同一批中做，我们会分批做。我们已经开发了一个系统，在这个系统中，我们非常小心信息可以或将要被共享，并且我们非常认真地对待这种信任的神圣性。最后一件事-这已经成为一个重要的问题-是骚扰。这可能是性骚扰，可能是种族主义，也可能是任何一种偏见。不幸的是，财富与道德毫无关系，投资者，其中一些人不是好人。
I'll say most of the investors that I interact with regularly are great, but there are some bad apples and we just released a report this week talking about just how many YC founders have experienced sexual harassment and the numbers were way higher than I would have possibly imagined.
我会说，我经常接触的大多数投资者都是伟大的，但也有一些坏消息。本周，我们刚刚发布了一份报告，谈到有多少YC创始人遭受过性骚扰，而且人数远高于我的想象。
If you encounter anything like this, this is absolutely grounds to walk right out. No one should ever be allowed to make you feel as if you have to do anything for them to get their money other than build a big company. No one should ever be allowed to violate your personal space or make you feel uncomfortable.
如果你遇到这样的事情，这绝对是你走出去的理由。任何人都不应被允许让你觉得你必须为他们做任何事情来获得他们的钱，除了建立一家大公司。任何人都不应被允许侵犯你的私人空间或使你感到不舒服。
If it happens, walk away and tell us. We are starting to get better at dealing with this, and we would much prefer a situation in which no investor meeting ever goes in a way where someone ends up feeling uncomfortable. That's how to think about investor meetings, how to think about when you need them, how to get them, who to do them with, and how to do them.
如果发生了，就走开告诉我们。我们正开始更好地处理这一问题，我们更希望在这样一种情况下，投资者会议不会以一种让人感到不舒服的方式进行。这就是如何思考投资者会议，如何思考何时需要它们，如何获得它们，与谁一起进行，以及如何进行。
I really think that if you follow these steps, everything will always go perfectly for you, at least I hope it does. Thank you all so much and I think we have time for questions. Yeah.
我真的认为，如果你遵循这些步骤，一切都会完美地为你，至少我希望它。非常感谢大家，我想我们还有时间提问。嗯
Speaker 2: So it is wise to go approach a VC that's already invested in a competitor?
演讲者2：那么去接近一个已经投资于竞争对手的风投公司是明智的吗？
Aaron Harris: Is it wise to approach a VC who is already invested in a competitor? It's incredibly case-dependent.
亚伦·哈里斯：接近一个已经投资于竞争对手的风投公司是明智的吗？它非常依赖于病例。
If they invested in a competitor ten years ago and that company is public, they might actually be a perfect investor for you because they know the play book and they'll help you IPO. But you need to just look at the specific situation and decide whether or not it makes sense.
如果他们十年前投资了一家竞争对手，而那家公司是上市公司，那么他们可能是一个完美的投资者，因为他们知道剧本，他们会帮你IPO。但你只需要看一看具体的情况，并决定它是否有意义。
Speaker 3: Between the seed, angels, and micro VCs, what is better to manage [inaudible] . There's a lot of information on the web, but [inaudible] .
演讲者3：在种子、天使和微型风投之间，什么是更好的管理[听不见的]。网络上有很多信息，但是(听不见)。
Aaron Harris: Between the seed funds, the angel funds, and the micro VCs ...
亚伦·哈里斯：在种子基金、天使基金和微型风投之间.
I didn't even talk about micro VCs, I'm never sure what they are. What's the average check size and round size? It's dependent not just on ... There's so many variables. The investors, the market, the geography, the company and what it needs.
我甚至没有谈论过微型风投，我从来不知道它们是什么。支票的平均尺寸和圆的尺寸是多少？它不仅依赖于.。变量太多了。投资者、市场、地理、公司以及它所需要的东西。
I mean, there are seed rounds that get done for 50 thousand dollars and seed rounds that get done for 10 million dollars, so it's really dependent.
我的意思是，有些种子轮花了5万美元，种子轮花了1000万美元，所以这是非常依赖的。
I think the way to think about it is more what do I need? Smaller funds and angels are most likely to write small checks, somewhere between I don't know, 10 and 100 thousand dollars and larger funds are beyond that.
我认为思考它的方式更多的是我需要什么？较小的基金和天使最有可能写小支票，在我不知道，10到10万美元之间，更大的基金超过了这一点。
Speaker 4: It's pretty easy to figure out which VCs are credible, but how do you figure out which angels are?
演讲者4：很容易找出哪些风投是可信的，但你如何确定哪些天使是可靠的？
Aaron Harris: How do you figure out which angels are credible? Ask them for references. Look at their portfolios. AngelList usually, if someone's an active angel, AngelList usually records what they do and what they've invested in. Again, angels who are really active tend to talk about it a lot, not for a bad reason actually, by talking about it that's how they get deal flow.
亚伦·哈里斯：你怎么知道哪些天使是可信的？请他们提供推荐信。看看他们的投资组合。天使通常，如果某人是一个活跃的天使，安杰利斯特通常记录他们做什么，他们投资了什么。同样，真正活跃的天使们往往会谈论很多次，而不是因为一个糟糕的原因-事实上，通过谈论它-他们就是这样得到交易流程的。
If you know someone's an active angel, you're gonna approach them, so you should be able to do some amount of diligence. Obviously, this is harder in emerging markets where there isn't as large of an investor ecosystem, but you just have to do the footwork to figure it out.
如果你知道某人是一个活跃的天使，你会接近他们，所以你应该能够做一些努力。显然，在新兴市场，没有那么大的投资者生态系统，这就更难了，但你只需做足准备就可以找到答案。
Speaker 5: Can you talk about the mechanics of investor FOMO?
演讲者5：你能谈谈投资者FOMO的机制吗？
Aaron Harris: Can I talk about the mechanics of investor FOMO, or fear of missing out? That would be a whole hour's worth of conversation. The basic idea though, is investors want to invest in the largest companies they possibly can, and get as much ownership as they possibly can. But at the early stages of a startup, there's very little data to say whether or not this company is likely to succeed.
亚伦·哈里斯：我能谈谈投资者FOMO的机制吗？还是担心错过？那可是整整一个小时的谈话。不过，最基本的想法是，投资者希望投资于他们可能拥有的最大公司，并尽可能多地获得所有权。但在初创企业的早期阶段，几乎没有数据可以说明这家公司是否会成功。
Investors are always looking for other pieces of confirmatory data, essentially. One of the most powerful pieces of that data set is whether or not other smart people seem to think this is a good idea. The reason FOMO exists is because if you see other smart investors getting in on something, you infer that that company is good and likely to be big, and you don't want to miss out on that. That's why a lot of investors sit back and wait for someone else to make the move.
基本上，投资者总是在寻找其他证实性数据。数据集中最强大的部分之一是其他聪明人是否认为这是个好主意。FOMO之所以存在，是因为如果你看到其他聪明的投资者参与其中，你就会推断出公司是个好公司，而且很可能是大公司，你不想错过这个机会。这就是为什么许多投资者袖手旁观，等待其他人采取行动的原因。
I think those are generally the less good investors. Again, the best investors really are the ones who make their own decisions faster than anyone else, and actually, the best investors are the ones who have incredibly fast diligence processes so they are the ones way out ahead of everyone. You can still pressure them a little bit by having other investors lined up behind, so they know that they have to move quickly, but that's the shortest possible answer I could give you on it.
我认为这些投资者通常都不是很好的投资者。再一次，最好的投资者确实是那些比其他人更快地做出自己决定的人，而实际上，最好的投资者是那些拥有惊人的快速调查过程的人，所以他们是那些远远领先于所有人的投资者。你仍然可以给他们一点压力，让其他投资者排在后面，这样他们就知道他们必须迅速行动，但这是我能给你的最短的答案。
Speaker 6: Do you see founders making any common mistakes when they're communicating their vision to investors?
演讲者6：你看到创始人在向投资者传达他们的愿景时犯了什么常见的错误吗？
Aaron Harris: Mistakes that founders often make while communicating vision. Some go too big in a way that makes them seem scattered, so if I were to pitch you on a company that is well, we're a search engine. We also have self-driving cars, we make phones, speakers, we built this crazy balloon that beams the internet down. Ooh, we have ads, and display ads, and artificial intelligence and ooh, a whole department that just works on crazy ideas. You'd say, "Oh, well this is a lot, even for me." That's kind of going too big, it'll make you seem scattered. On the other side, sometimes people go too small and they say, "Well, we're gonna conquer ten percent of our market that's worth 50 million dollars and we're getting 100 percent of it. Okay, then what? There has to be a there there that isn't too wild. Those I think are sort of the two extremes to think about.
艾伦·哈里斯：创始人在交流愿景时经常犯的错误。有些公司规模太大，让他们看起来很分散，所以如果我向你推销一家很好的公司，我们就是搜索引擎。我们也有自动驾驶的汽车，我们制造手机，扬声器，我们制造了这个疯狂的气球，它可以将互联网传输下去。哦，我们有广告，展示广告，人工智能，还有，整个部门都在研究疯狂的想法。你会说，“哦，这是很多，甚至对我来说。”有点太大了，会让你看起来很分散。另一方面，有时人们太小，他们会说，“好吧，我们要占领价值5000万美元的10%的市场，我们将获得100%的市场份额。”好吧，然后呢？一定有一个不太狂野的地方。我认为这是两个极端的想法。
Speaker 7: Within family and friends, after that family or friend member meets the criteria and can afford to lose that money, any other advice you'd give in terms of taking it seriously and going in the right order with family and friends who after that criteria is the next thing to look at?
演讲者7：在家人和朋友内部，在该家庭或朋友达到标准并有能力损失这笔钱之后，你会给出的任何其他建议都要认真对待，并与家人和朋友保持正确的顺序，而这些人是接下来要考虑的问题。
Aaron Harris: How do you pitch family and friends who can afford to lose money? No, I think that's very dependent on your relationship with those friends and family.
亚伦·哈里斯：你怎么推销那些有能力赔钱的家人和朋友？不，我认为这很大程度上取决于你和那些朋友和家人的关系。
If I wanted Jeff to give me money, I'd camp out outside of his house and show up every morning with donuts and coffee.
如果我想让杰夫给我钱，我会在他的房子外面露营，每天早上带着甜甜圈和咖啡出现。
I think that would get to him pretty well. No but seriously, I think it really depends on who it is.
我觉得这对他会很有好处的。不，但说真的，我认为这真的取决于谁。
I'd recommend working on an elevator pitch, maybe even a deck, just for practice. That's the friendliest audience you're ever going to get. Now this is different by the way, if your friends and family happen to be incredibly successful founders who know what they're doing or are venture investors. Then you can use them as real practice and say, "Hey, here's how I'm planning on building my business. You built a business. Does this make sense?" Ask for advice as much as you're asking for money in that case, and really just treat it like a professional interaction.
我建议在电梯场地，甚至甲板上工作，只是为了练习一下。这是你能得到的最友好的观众。顺便说一句，如果你的朋友和家人碰巧是非常成功的创始人，他们知道自己在做什么，或者是风险投资者，这就不一样了。然后你可以用它们作为真正的练习，然后说，“嘿，这是我计划建立我的企业的方式。你建立了一个企业。这有意义吗？”在这种情况下，尽可能多地征求意见，并把它当作一种专业的互动来对待。
Speaker 7: Thanks.
发言者7：谢谢。
Speaker 8: Do we have to drop everything that we're doing to do fundraising? If so, how long?
演讲者8：我们是否必须放弃我们所做的一切来筹集资金？如果是，多久？
Aaron Harris: Do we have to drop everything we're doing for fundraising, and if so, how long? Pretty much, yes. You're either fundraising or you're working on your company, which is why you shouldn't try to fundraise unless you need it. And for how long is however long it takes.
亚伦·哈里斯：我们是否必须放弃我们为筹款所做的每一件事，如果是的话，我们要花多长时间？差不多，是的。你要么是在筹款，要么是在为你的公司工作，这就是为什么除非你需要，否则你不应该尝试筹款。不管花多长时间。
Speaker 8: Like how much?
演讲者8：大概多少钱？
Aaron Harris: I mean-
亚伦·哈里斯：我是说-
Speaker 8: Should you be prepared to take ten months or should you [inaudible] more?
演讲者8：你是应该准备花十个月的时间，还是应该(听不到)更多？
Aaron Harris: I mean, you should be prepared to take six months, a year.
亚伦·哈里斯：我是说，你应该准备花六个月，一年。
I mean, it really depends. Now if you are a very early stage company and it's taking you a year to fundraise and you're not working on your product for a year, that's probably pretty bad. That means you're not making any progress.
我是说，这真的取决于。现在，如果你是一家非常早期的公司，而且你花了一年的时间来筹集资金，而且你在一年内没有在你的产品上工作，那可能是相当糟糕的。这意味着你没有取得任何进展。
I wouldn't do that, but again, this is the question of figuring out whether or not you really need money. If you're just starting out, you try to raise money for I don't know, a month or two and no one's giving you money, I'd say try to figure out how to grow without raising anything, and then come back later.
我不会那么做，但这还是一个问题，你是否真的需要钱。如果你刚开始工作，你会努力筹集资金，因为我不知道，一两个月后没有人给你钱，我会说，试着找出如何在不筹集任何东西的情况下成长，然后再回来。
Speaker 9: Some VCs I work with only fund person, women founders, what do you think of that?
演讲者9：有些风投，我只与基金的人，女创始人，你怎么看？
Aaron Harris: Sorry, some investors only fund women founders, what do I think of that?
亚伦·哈里斯：对不起，有些投资者只为女性创始人提供资金，我对此有何看法？
Speaker 9: [inaudible] . Only person, women founders.
演讲者9：[听不见]。只有个人女性创始人。
Aaron Harris: I think that's great. The way that I think about fundraising and company building in general is press every unfair advantage that you have. This is a corrective narrative where there's investors who are specifically trying to fund female founders because investors have been pretty bad at that in the past, and if you can use that to your advantage, you absolutely should.
亚伦.哈里斯：我认为这很好。总的来说，我认为筹资和公司建设的方式是利用你所拥有的每一个不公平的优势。这是一种纠正性的说法，有些投资者专门试图为女性创始人提供资金，因为过去投资者在这方面做得很差，如果你能利用这一点，你绝对应该这么做。
I think it's great.
我觉得很棒。
Speaker 11: We are good for one more.
演讲者11：我们可以再来一次。
Aaron Harris: One more?
亚伦·哈里斯：再来一次？
Speaker 10: Should all founders be included in the fundraising process? Should you say that one specific founder should be focused on that?
演讲者10：是否应该让所有创始人都参与筹资过程？你应该说一位特定的创始人应该专注于此吗？
Aaron Harris: Should all founders be focused on the fundraising process? No. This is the CEO's job. If you are lucky enough to have co-founders who can do other things, have them do other things. Again, that will help you not completely stop progress on the business while you're fundraising.
艾伦·哈里斯：所有创始人都应该专注于筹资过程吗？否这是首席执行官的工作。如果你很幸运，有联合创始人谁可以做其他事情，让他们做其他事情。再一次，这将帮助你不完全停止在业务上的进展，而你正在筹资。
If you can, you want to keep pushing the business forward while the CEO goes and fund raises. With the professional investors, the venture investors for larger later rounds, they're eventually going to want to meet the entire team, but they don't need it at the beginning.
如果可以的话，你想在首席执行官离开并筹集资金的时候继续推动业务的发展。有了专业的投资者，更大的风险投资者以后，他们最终会想要会见整个团队，但他们不需要在一开始。
In fact, you shouldn't bring the entire team to meetings for the following reason.
事实上，你不应该带整个团队参加会议，原因如下。
If you are in an investor meeting and someone makes you an offer, if the entire team is there, you have to make a decision on the spot. But you're in a severe disadvantage there because professional investors professionally negotiate and make offers. You've probably never done this before.
如果你在一个投资者会议上，有人给你一个提议，如果整个团队都在那里，你必须当场作出决定。但你在那里处于非常不利的地位，因为专业投资者会进行专业谈判并提供报价。你以前可能从没这么做过。
If the rest of your team is back home, you can say, "Thank you so much for that offer.
如果你的团队的其他成员都回家了，你可以说：“非常感谢你的提议。
It's really interesting. I need to talk about it with my co-founders." And then you can go back and talk to your co-founders and buy yourself some time to really think through the pluses and minuses. Thank you all.
真的很有趣。我需要和我的联合创始人谈谈这件事。“然后你可以回去和你的联合创始人谈谈，给自己争取一些时间来认真考虑利弊。谢谢大家。