The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 37 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
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.”
Mañalac: Most YC startups wait for product launch before pitching press
“Most companies who go through YC wait until they have a launched product and some very early users before they bother pitching to press.”
Mañalac: A startup's one-sentence pitch must only cover product and target customer
“So one sentence pitch should go over two things, what you're building and who you're building it for. And you should be able to say this in jargon free terms that anyone can understand and repeat.”
Mañalac: Y Combinator uses three-to-five sentence email pitches for startup press launches
“So usually when we are pitching, ah, companies at YC, when we're pitching to press about their launches or fundraising, this is the pitch that we send to reporters.”
Mañalac: Outline three to five key points rather than over-rehearsing press interviews
“What I typically tell founders to do is have answers to all those questions and then what I recommend doing before talking to press is bullet pointing the three to five points that you want to make sure to talk about in an interview, and then let the rest of t…”
Mañalac: PR announcements require an absolute minimum of two weeks lead time
“Say you want to announce something two or three weeks from now, give it at the very least two weeks for the whole process of warm introductions and making, you know, a, you know, meeting with that reporter and then having the piece come out. So two weeks is th…”
True Link has 35 employees with diverse leadership across all teams
“Claire, you're at 35 employees now, and they, one impressive thing is that they have a woman or person of color who is leading each of the teams there.”
Manalac: Y Combinator frequently re-funds alumni after startup failures
“We funded so many alumni at this point multiple times. You know, we just recently had Dennis Mars from Proxy who is coming through a second time. You know, YC, former YC partner Harge went through with, you know, Triple Byte for a second time. So it, you know,…”
Manalac: YC evaluates pre-launch startups on execution ability and user insights
“So if you're pre-launch, we like to see a few things. We like to see your team's ability to execute. We like to see that you've talked to users and gained some insights into the space based on your own experiences and the experiences of your potential users.”
Manalac: Selecting an RFS category does not impact YC acceptance chances
“So when we're reading applications for startups, we don't worry or focus too much on category. So choose whichever category you think fits best. It's not going to help you or hurt you know, whether you're an AI or mass media. I, it's basically something that w…”
Manalac: YC offers only standard deal terms of $120K for 7%
“Our standard deal is a 120 K for seven percent. So we have not done any of those other deals, other types of deals.”
Manalac: Cold emails to reporters get no response 90% of the time
“So if you shoot cold emails to reporters, I would say, you know, nine out of 10 times you're gonna get no response at all.”
Manalac: YC is seeing many women apply in biotech and hardware
“In the past, you know, batch reading through applications, we've, we saw a lot of women applying with biotech companies and hardware, and you're seeing a pretty diverse range of companies come through”
Manalac: The average age of YC founders in this batch is 30
“I actually just crunched the numbers on this batch, and the average age of YC founders in this batch currently is around 30.”