Kat Manalac
Partner, Convective Capital · 10 appearances on the record.
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investorexecutivehostoperator@katmanalac ↗LinkedIn ↗convectivecapital.com ↗
Kat Mañalac spent over a decade as a Partner at Y Combinator, where she advised early-stage founders on PR and branding while co-hosting YC podcasts. She is now a Partner at Convective Capital, focusing on platform and community initiatives for climate resilience technologies.
37statements → 11claims → 1claims resolved → 4.03/5average certainty → 1.65/5average debate potential → 28said about them ↓
1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 10 not checkable as stated how the 11 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
11 assertions · 18 insights · 8 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 11 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 10 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.
The record, in short
What the tape says about how Kat argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
Everything Kat Manalac said on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Manalac: Press is not a sustainable user acquisition strategy
“I think, you know, not to stress about press too much because press is not a sustainable user acquisition strategy, not even for You know, consumer companies, so it's not something to spend too much time thinking about.”
Mañalac: Do not hire PR help until inbound exceeds founder capacity
“You shouldn't bother thinking about hiring a firm or someone in-house until you have more funding and so much inbound that the founders can't deal with it themselves.”
Mañalac: Early-stage founders must treat pitching press like core business development
“So like BD or sales, which you wouldn't outsource early in your company's life, you shouldn't outsource pitching to press in the very early stages of your company.”
Mañalac: Viral startup stories must be easy for others to repeat
“You will need to tell it clearly and succinctly because the goal is to tell it in a way where other people, it makes it easy for other people to repeat that story for you and help you spread the word. That's how anything becomes viral.”
Mañalac: Most media outlets no longer cover very early-stage startups
“Most media outlets don't cover very early stage startups anymore.”
Mañalac: Seed and Series A startups generally cannot afford PR firm retainers
“PR firms are way too expensive. Typically you have to keep them on a monthly retainer, and, you know, most companies, even through Seed, Series A, they don't have the budget for that.”
Mañalac: Early-stage startups should offer press exclusives to secure reporter interest
“A reporter is more likely to pick up your story and write it if they get an exclusive, if they can break the news, if they can get that scoop. So I recommend offering that one publication at exclusive, and once you're a bigger company, and more of a household …”
Mañalac: Warm PR introductions yield 50% response rates versus 10% for cold
“Cold emailing will get you, maybe if you're lucky, a one in 10 response, and warm introductions will get, you know, at least half the time you'll get someone to respond to you.”
Mañalac: Asking reporters to review article drafts severely offends their journalistic integrity
“Reporters get incredibly offended. They think you're questioning their journalistic integrity if you ask Ask to see what they're writing before they publish it.”
Mañalac: Paid influencer marketing is rarely cost-effective for early-stage startups
“A big problem is that influencers often charge you and are expensive. Like, if you get some huge influencer who just loves what you're doing and wants to tweet about you, and that's great, but more often than not, they're gonna charge you and it's not worth, a…”
Manalac: YC ran Female Founders Conference for years without a mother's room
“At YC we run the Female Founders Conference, and we are in our fifth year, you know, it's a conference where over a thousand women come, and we made it about three or four years, and realized we never had a mother's room.”
Manalac: Regional Incubators Succeed Best When Led by Experienced Founders
“I think the best chance that a lot of these regional incubators or places have is being fueled by folks that have built big companies and have that, you know, kind of skill set and advice that they can pass on.”
Manalac: Fundraising Outside Silicon Valley Stalls Without Local Angel Ecosystems
“In most places outside Silicon Valley, it's really hard to fundraise. And that's because, ah, there doesn't exist a local angel, you know, investing ecosystem.”
Manalac: Most funded YC founders never contacted YC alumni or staff
“The vast majority of people we fund have never touched base with YC alumni or staff.”
Manalac: Being a Solo Founder Beats a Fraught Co-Founder Relationship
“Honestly, being, you know a solo founder is, is better and less distracting than having a complicated or, you know, fraught co-founder relationship.”
Manalac: YC prefers funding startups with equal co-founder equity splits
“Ideally we like to fund things that have a 50, 50% split or, you know, equal among all the co-founders.”
Manalac: YC Funds Solo Founders but Sees Consistent Hardship
“So we funded solo founders you know, and some of them have done really well, but overall we've seen this pattern where it's just so hard as a solo founder.”
Manalac: YC diversity RFS targets inclusion startups, not founder demographics
“So we are focused with diversity, not on whether the founder is diverse. We're looking for companies that are, you know, I think that the wording in the RFS is, you know, we want to fund nonprofits and startups that are working on making technology a place tha…”
Manalac: YC prefers startups enter unincorporated for clean legal setup
“We actually almost prefer companies not to be incorporated because then we, you know, it's a clean slate and we can help you do it right from the very beginning.”
Kat Manalac: YC considers self-taught developers to be technical co-founders
“We've funded so many people that are self-taught, you know, developers and engineers. And I think that's super impressive. That's like potentially just seeing that you had, you know, The will and gumption to like go out there and learn and build yourself is, i…”
Manalac: Startups cannot achieve word-of-mouth growth without a simple one-sentence pitch
“The answer to, you know, what do you do should really be, you should be able to answer that in one sentence, and it should be a sentence that, you know, your grandparents could understand, because that, I think that's important for any company who wants to, yo…”
Mañalac: PR provides early visibility and SEO, not scalable user acquisition
“As I mentioned, it's not a scalable user acquisition, but it can get you some early adopting users, it can give you, ah, you know, your investors or potential employees a heads up that you exist, and it can help with SEO.”
The other half of the tape: Kat Manalac's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 23 times in 10 episodes on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast. 5 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Craig Cannon 9Avni Patel Thompson 5Ryan Hoover 2Kat Mignalek 1David Hua 1Alexandria Lafci 1
Statements about Kat Manalac, by other people (5)
Mañalac: Longer delays onboarding waitlist users makes conversion harder
“The longer you wait to launch an actual product, And the longer you wait to onboard people, the harder it is to convert people from your waitlist.”
Mañalac: Press is not scalable and will not create product-market fit
“Even if you do land press, it's not a silver bullet. It's not a scalable way to get users. It might help you get in front of some early users and investors, but as you see, press can't be counted on for sustained growth. It will not get you to product market f…”
Mañalac: Early unpolished launches test if problems are worth paying for
“Putting your product out there, even in its earliest state, will help you determine whether you're solving a big enough problem that someone is willing to pay for you or use you even in the product's really unpolished state.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
2023 1 mention in 1 episode
2018 12 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- PR + Content for Growth by Kat Mañalac and Craig Cannon · Y Combinator
- Leah Culver of Breaker and Tom Sparks of YC Answer Your Questions About Security and Podcasting · Y Combinator
- Cannabis Startup Founders David Hua and Vincent Ning on Legalization, Banking, and Industry Trends · Y Combinator
- Mathilde Collin on Feature Prioritization and Employee Retention at Front · Y Combinator
- 3D Home Printing for the Developing World – Alexandria Lafci and Brett Hagler of New Story Charity · Y Combinator
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 10 mentions in 4 episodes 3 per episode
- Building a Startup is About Solving a Problem - Avni Patel Thompson of Poppy · Y Combinator
- Experiments in Art and Technology with Artforum Editor Michelle Kuo · Y Combinator
- Communicate with Users, Build Something They Want - Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt · Y Combinator
- Rick and Morty Writer: Ryan Ridley · Y Combinator
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
Appearances (10)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Tracy Young on Scaling PlanGrid to 400+ People with YC Partner Kat Manalac · Y Combinator | Jun 12, 2019 | 2m |
| What Shutting Down Your Startup Feels Like - Avni Patel Thompson of Poppy with Kat Manalac | Jan 30, 2019 | 1m |
| PR + Content for Growth by Kat Mañalac and Craig Cannon · Y Combinator | Sep 19, 2018 | 26m |
| Claire McDonnell and Jennifer Kim on Building an Inclusive Company Culture · Y Combinator | Apr 20, 2018 | 10m |
| Microbes, Robots, and Ambition - Robin Sloan on His Novel Sourdough · Y Combinator | Nov 29, 2017 | 2m |
| Founders of Science Exchange, Goldbely, and The Flex Company Discuss Fundraising · Y Combi | Aug 16, 2017 | 5m |
| Morgan DeBaun on Reaching 20M Millennials - With Kat Manalac at the Female Founders Confer | Aug 2, 2017 | 3m |
| Office Hours with Kat Manalac · Y Combinator | Feb 15, 2017 | 20m |
| Q&A with YC at the Female Founders Conference 2016 · Y Combinator | May 31, 2016 | 3m |
| YC Panel at Female Founders Conference 2015 · Y Combinator | Feb 23, 2015 | 5m |