Insight
Mañalac: Founders should pitch 'what' their startup does before 'why'
“So first, we recommend leading with what, not with why.”
Insight
Founders Risk Killing Their Startups By Taking Six Months to Launch
“But if you're like most startups, you'll launch something and no one will care. And if it takes you six months to get the first version of your product in front of anyone, Your startup may be dead before you get another chance to launch. So in the same spirit …”
Insight
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.”
Insight
Mañalac: Potential Customers Care About Tangible Benefits Over ML Buzzwords
“If you're showing this to potential customers, I think they'll care less about the fact that the product is ML-driven and more about the fact that it's personalized digital therapy.”
Insight
Mañalac: 'X for Y' pitches require household name, clear need, and huge market
“If you go with this construction, you need three ingredients. First of all, X should be a household name. Second, it should be reasonably clear why Y might want X. And third, Y should be a huge market.”
Insight
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.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Mañalac: US startups raising under $1M struggle to get press
“These days, if you are an early stage company that hasn't raised, you know, say a million or more, it's going to be incredibly hard to land press stories, at least in the US.”
Insight
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…”
Assertion Supported
Mañalac: Airbnb launched three times before getting traction
“Airbnb launched three times before they really started to get users.”
Insight
Mañalac: Startup pitches must convey what someone would build to reproduce the product
“When you're describing your company, the person you're talking to should have some idea of, you know, what they'd have to build to reproduce what you're talking about.”
Assertion Supported
Airbnb's YC Application Description Explained Its Marketplace Directly Without Jargon
“Here's the actual description Airbnb used on their YC application. We built the first online marketplace that lets travelers book rooms with locals instead of hotels.”
Insight
Founders Should Not Linger in the Friends-and-Family Phase of Launching
“Don't stay in this phase for too long, because your friends and family might not be the ideal users for what you're building, and sometimes their feedback isn't going to be as helpful as a real user's.”
Assertion Supported
Mañalac: DoorDash founders interviewed over 200 Bay Area small businesses
“Over the course of the next few weeks, the founders interviewed over 200 small business owners across the Bay Area, and they kept hearing the same issue. Deliveries are painful.”
Assertion Supported
Mañalac: Robinhood gained 50k+ waitlist signups after Hacker News post
“Someone totally random posted them on HN, and boom, they got to number one on HN, and ended up getting 10,000 signups the first day, and then over 50,000 over the next week.”
Assertion Partly supported
Mañalac: Over 3,500 startups launched through YC during her nine-year tenure
“So I've been at YC for about nine years now, and that means I've seen over 3500 companies go through the program and launch.”
Insight
Mañalac: Multi-channel launches help identify whether founders target the right audience
“Launching on different channels will also help you determine whether you're even talking to the right users. Different channels will naturally reach different audiences.”
