Aaron Harris

Everything Aaron Harris said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.

20VC Insight

One percent weekly growth is not venture startup scale

“If you think you have fit in your market, and it's just growing one percent a week, you might have a great business on your hands, but it's probably not startup scale.”

Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 15:01 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC

20VC Prediction Held up

Y Combinator will expand funding into biotech, aerospace, and nuclear power

“Over the last year or two, we've expanded the kinds of companies we fund, you know, we're doing, we funded aerospace companies and nuclear power companies and biotech, and I think we'll continue to expand that universe as sort of the cycles of software continu…”

Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 18:43 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC

20VC Disclosure

Tutorspree failed after a Google algorithm change destroyed its SEO

“We raised money from Sequoia, among others, and built the business for, I think, two and a half years. Until we ran smack into a, an algorithm change at Google and we were reliant on search engine optimization, and it sort of killed our vision of what the busi…”

Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 4:22 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC

20VC Insight

Consumer social product success cannot be predicted before viral growth

“And I've watched our attempts to invest in social products, and I've watched my friends try to build Social things and stuff that works, you never realize it's going to work until it really does.”

Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 13:31 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC

20VC Insight

Growth is a byproduct of product-market fit, not the primary goal

“Growth isn't the goal. And I think this is something that people sometimes get a little backwards. Growth is the result of having the right product and the right market, right? It's because you did the other things right that you get growth. You can't invent g…”

Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 14:23 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC

20VC Assertion Not checkable as stated

YC does not try to control portfolio company valuations post-Demo Day

“I don't think we expressly think about, hey, we want to keep this valuation level or that valuation level. I think we just want to make sure that companies are setting the groundwork to build long-term businesses.”

Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 16:26 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC

20VC Disclosure

Y Combinator does not plan to raise outside funding to grow

“You know, I don't think about steps for YC in terms of us raising funding again. It's just not really how we think about what YC becomes.”

Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 18:17 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC

20VC Prediction Not checkable as stated

A massive fintech company will be built in underlying infrastructure

“I work a lot with fintech companies and I'll tell you the thing that I want to fund right now. I think it's one of these things where there's just not nearly enough innovation happening except on the customer acquisition side. And I think that someone is going…”

Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 21:53 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC

20VC Assertion Supported

YC Tuesday dinners are the only mandatory event for founders

“And so the way YC is structured is that during the course of the three month program, every Tuesday night we have a dinner where we have a guest speaker and people like Mark Zuckerberg or Brian Chesky Really inspirational founders who have done really cool thi…”

Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 5:36 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC

20VC Insight

YC acts as a forcing function for founders to focus entirely

“And then the three months of YC itself is such a great time for founders to be able to push off everything else, right? It's this great excuse to focus. Anyone who wants to talk to you that isn't a customer who you need to talk to or a user you need to talk to…”

Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 8:55 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC

20VC Opinion

Photo sharing may be overhyped, but market interest is cooling

“Maybe, maybe photo sharing might be a little overhyped, but I think that's started to die down a little bit in the winter, so are already emerged or are emerging.”

Aaron Harris Sep 30, 2015 ▶ 22:35 20 VC 076: Y COMBINATOR WEEK: Aaron Harris, Partner @ YC

The other half of the tape: Aaron Harris's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 12 times in 5 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Paul Erlang 7Harry Stebbings 5

Every mention by year

One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Aaron's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.

Show	Role there	Eps	Statements	Record
20VCLEDGER	Partner, Y Combinator	1	11	100% 2/2	full record on 20VC →