- Y Combinator's Startup Investor School is being taught for the first time
- The course is a MOOC, with live streaming and in-person sessions
- The course structure includes lectures, Q&A sessions, and breaks
- Accredited investors will receive an invite to YC's Winter 2018 Demo Days
- The goal of the course is to educate and improve angel and seed investors
- The course covers the fundamentals of startup investing and includes insights from experienced investors
- The course will also discuss the future of startup investing
- Feedback is encouraged and a permanent repository of the course information will be created.

Startup Investor School is a free, 4-day course designed to educate early stage investors interested in investing in startups. We'll cover the fundamentals of investing, from investing instruments to legal and accounting basics to evaluating startups and managing deal flow. Our hope is that more people, from a wide range of backgrounds will consider investing in startups and that those who do will be better at it.

Learn more at https://investor.startupschool.org/

Welcome everyone to Y Combinator's Startup Investor School.

If you think you're at a different class, you should leave now.

I'm Jeff Ralston, and I'm going to act kind of as the master of ceremonies.

I'll be introducing the various sessions and the great instructors that we have, both from within YC and externally.

This is our first time teaching startup investor school.

I guess we've already had some coffee kinks this morning and as I mentioned Caltrain was a little bit late.

So we're a little bit late getting started.

I will ask that in general we get started promptly.

Let me just start by talking about the course structure.

This is a sort of a MOOC, a massively open online course.

We're live streaming as well as with an in-person group here in Mountain View.

The live stream will take place in case any of you aren't here in future days at investor.startupschool.org.

The course description, the curriculum, the syllabus will all be there along with resources that we deem relevant to the course each day.

The doors are going to open here at 930 every morning.

Some of you came earlier than that the doors were open They may be they may not be but we're gonna try to be fairly prompt there And we'll have some snacks out as you'll see for people here, and we'll have some lukewarm coffee for you The classes will begin as promptly as possible at 10 a.m.

I know you're all very busy so we're going to try to be on time as much as possible.

There's going to be a, I'll show you what this looks like, there's going to be a brief 10 minute break.

I'm sure that's not going to work because any time I've ever seen a 10 minute break it ends up being a little bit longer.

But we'll try to keep it to around 10 minutes at 10.50, and then we'll have the second part of the course at 11.

Most of the courses will actually run until 12.30.

Today, We're going to end closer to 12, even though we started a little late, so it'll be a little bit afterwards.

So, each day, except today, apparently, we'll begin promptly at 10 a.m.

The way the course is organized is there's a lecture and then there's a Q&A afterwards, so please hold your questions until the Q&A session at the end, unless an instructor explicitly says they want questions during their talk.

I will also take questions from the streaming audience.

To ask a question, please use the Twitter hashtag poundycsis.

And we'll take as many of those questions as we can, time willing.

So there's a mixture here of watching the class of accredited and non-accredited investors.

For the accredited investors, as most of you know, we are going to be extending an invite to YC's Winter 2018 Demo Days, which are March 19th and 20th.

It's a virtual invite, and you can watch it online.

But also, as a cool little kicker, we're going to invite randomly 10 of you to come in person to YCDemo Day, which is kind of a special occasion, and I hope whoever comes enjoys it a lot.

So this is our first time teaching this class, hopefully not the last.

We do ask you guys to give us feedback for what worked, what didn't work, what was too obvious or too subtle, what was missing.

At the end of the class, there'll be a survey.

I'll say this again at the end, but please do give us feedback.

You can also give us feedback real time as you like.

You can email me at jeff, G-E-O-F-F at ycombinator.com anytime you like.

I wanna start off also by pointing out, I won't be up here very much.

It's mostly a bunch of instructors from inside and outside YC.

They're all volunteers and they're very busy people and they've been gracious enough to donate their incredible experience and time to us.

I'm very grateful for everyone who agreed to do this.

Before we get started, I wanted to spend a couple of minutes talking about why we're doing this.

How many of you have made angel investments before?

But we're doing this for mainly 2 reasons.

1 is that angel and seed investors are a critical part of the startup ecosystem.

It's what allows companies to actually take flight and become real, big, interesting, scalable companies.

We think that more great angel investors, great seed investors are great for YC companies and we hope you will invest in YC companies.

We also think it's good for you for people people who have all of you who have invested you know, it's an amazing way to get a window into the to the future to be part of this future that That founders are really creating to get a window into what's going to happen.

Venture investing has been around for, depending on how you look, hundreds of years, But really the kind of venture investing that we think of in Silicon Valley for the last 50 years.

This guy named George Doreo made, he was a VC, he was an early VC, this firm called ARDC, and he made what we'd consider a seed investment of $70,000 in 1957 until this new tiny computer company called digital equipment corporation sometimes called digital often called deck and that $70,000 turned into 35 million dollars which a lot of people found pretty interesting.

That led to, kick started an incredible flowering of innovation and a lot of wealth creation that has never seen the like in the world.

And we hope that some of you all have that same experience, hopefully investing in YC companies.

And there's lots of examples, and if we're lucky, some of the folks who are gonna talk to you will give you some of those examples.

So we also hope that you all are going to be better, smarter investors after this course.

I'm sure that's why some of you are here.

Some of you are here to get some of those insights, and I'm sure also that you will tell us if we achieve that goal.

And lastly, we want to create a permanent repository of this information so anyone can make use of it in future years.

So we hope to make the repository better and better.

And in fact, if there's anything that you all, you can look at this online at investors.startupschool.org.

And if there's anything you think we should add, just mail it to startupschool at ycombinator.com.

And we'll look at it, and if we like it, we'll add it.

We have 4 days, about 10 hours, so we can only cover so much.

This is going to be about the fundamentals of startup investing.

There will be a few deeper dives, but not that many.

We will start off with fundamental questions of why, how, and which companies.

And that's today, and then we'll talk about the mechanics of startup investing.

Clearly, many of you know these mechanics, but I think we'll cover it perhaps in ways you haven't seen before Then we're gonna walk through some of the dance that you have to do to make your decisions and to talk with entrepreneurs and founders and and figure out which are the companies that are going to be part of your investing future.

We're going to hear from a bunch of extraordinarily experienced and talented, at least by the results investors, during the course.

And then we're going to complete with a little bit of context and a little bit of a look towards the future of startup investing.

Startup investing has changed radically over the last decade.

And I think most of us expect a lot more changes in the next decade as well.

And in the end, we'll finish up with a conversation about the role that you all can and may want to play as you think about your role as an investor and what that means.

I think it's gonna be really useful and I think we have a pretty great lineup of instructors that'll be very relevant and useful to everyone.


Speaker 0: Welcome everyone to Y Combinator's Startup Investor School. If you think you're at a different class, you should leave now. So it's great to see you all here. I'm Jeff Ralston, and I'm going to act kind of as the master of ceremonies. I'll be introducing the various sessions and the great instructors that we have, both from within YC and externally.

This is our first time teaching startup investor school. I think I have a welcome slide. So please excuse any kinks. I guess we've already had some coffee kinks this morning and as I mentioned Caltrain was a little bit late. So we're a little bit late getting started.

I will ask that in general we get started promptly. Let me just start by talking about the course structure. This is a sort of a MOOC, a massively open online course. We're live streaming as well as with an in-person group here in Mountain View. The live stream will take place in case any of you aren't here in future days at investor.startupschool.org.

The course description, the curriculum, the syllabus will all be there along with resources that we deem relevant to the course each day. The doors are going to open here at 930 every morning. Some of you came earlier than that the doors were open They may be they may not be but we're gonna try to be fairly prompt there And we'll have some snacks out as you'll see for people here, and we'll have some lukewarm coffee for you The classes will begin as promptly as possible at 10 a.m. I know you're all very busy so we're going to try to be on time as much as possible. There's going to be a, I'll show you what this looks like, there's going to be a brief 10 minute break.

I'm sure that's not going to work because any time I've ever seen a 10 minute break it ends up being a little bit longer. But we'll try to keep it to around 10 minutes at 10.50, and then we'll have the second part of the course at 11. Most of the courses will actually run until 12.30. Today, We're going to end closer to 12, even though we started a little late, so it'll be a little bit afterwards. So, each day, except today, apparently, we'll begin promptly at 10 a.m.

The way the course is organized is there's a lecture and then there's a Q&A afterwards, so please hold your questions until the Q&A session at the end, unless an instructor explicitly says they want questions during their talk. I will also take questions from the streaming audience. To ask a question, please use the Twitter hashtag poundycsis. And we'll take as many of those questions as we can, time willing. So there's a mixture here of watching the class of accredited and non-accredited investors.

For the accredited investors, as most of you know, we are going to be extending an invite to YC's Winter 2018 Demo Days, which are March 19th and 20th. It's a virtual invite, and you can watch it online. But also, as a cool little kicker, we're going to invite randomly 10 of you to come in person to YCDemo Day, which is kind of a special occasion, and I hope whoever comes enjoys it a lot. So this is our first time teaching this class, hopefully not the last. We do ask you guys to give us feedback for what worked, what didn't work, what was too obvious or too subtle, what was missing.

At the end of the class, there'll be a survey. I'll say this again at the end, but please do give us feedback. You can also give us feedback real time as you like. You can email me at jeff, G-E-O-F-F at ycombinator.com anytime you like. Honest opinions are great.

I wanna start off also by pointing out, I won't be up here very much. It's mostly a bunch of instructors from inside and outside YC. They're all volunteers and they're very busy people and they've been gracious enough to donate their incredible experience and time to us. I'm very grateful for everyone who agreed to do this. Before we get started, I wanted to spend a couple of minutes talking about why we're doing this.

How many of you have made angel investments before? Could you raise your hands? So you don't need any of this crap. You guys have already done this. OK, so there's a lot of experience.

And we know there's a lot of experience. But we're doing this for mainly 2 reasons. 1 is that angel and seed investors are a critical part of the startup ecosystem. It's the first money in, usually. It's what allows companies to actually take flight and become real, big, interesting, scalable companies.

It's also a little self-serving. We think that more great angel investors, great seed investors are great for YC companies and we hope you will invest in YC companies. We also think it's good for you for people people who have all of you who have invested you know, it's an amazing way to get a window into the to the future to be part of this future that That founders are really creating to get a window into what's going to happen. So it's all good. What are we hoping the outcomes will be?

Venture investing has been around for, depending on how you look, hundreds of years, But really the kind of venture investing that we think of in Silicon Valley for the last 50 years. This guy named George Doreo made, he was a VC, he was an early VC, this firm called ARDC, and he made what we'd consider a seed investment of $70,000 in 1957 until this new tiny computer company called digital equipment corporation sometimes called digital often called deck and that $70,000 turned into 35 million dollars which a lot of people found pretty interesting. That led to, kick started an incredible flowering of innovation and a lot of wealth creation that has never seen the like in the world. And we hope that some of you all have that same experience, hopefully investing in YC companies. It's still possible.

And there's lots of examples, and if we're lucky, some of the folks who are gonna talk to you will give you some of those examples. So we also hope that you all are going to be better, smarter investors after this course. I'm sure that's why some of you are here. Some of you are here to get some of those insights, and I'm sure also that you will tell us if we achieve that goal. And lastly, we want to create a permanent repository of this information so anyone can make use of it in future years.

So we hope to make the repository better and better. And in fact, if there's anything that you all, you can look at this online at investors.startupschool.org. And if there's anything you think we should add, just mail it to startupschool at ycombinator.com. And we'll look at it, and if we like it, we'll add it. Okay, very briefly now.

We have 4 days, about 10 hours, so we can only cover so much. This is going to be about the fundamentals of startup investing. There will be a few deeper dives, but not that many. We want to hit the major points. Kind of like an investing 101, I guess.

We will start off with fundamental questions of why, how, and which companies. And that's today, and then we'll talk about the mechanics of startup investing. Clearly, many of you know these mechanics, but I think we'll cover it perhaps in ways you haven't seen before Then we're gonna walk through some of the dance that you have to do to make your decisions and to talk with entrepreneurs and founders and and figure out which are the companies that are going to be part of your investing future. We're going to hear from a bunch of extraordinarily experienced and talented, at least by the results investors, during the course. And then we're going to complete with a little bit of context and a little bit of a look towards the future of startup investing.

Startup investing has changed radically over the last decade. And I think most of us expect a lot more changes in the next decade as well. And in the end, we'll finish up with a conversation about the role that you all can and may want to play as you think about your role as an investor and what that means. I hope you all make it to the end. I think it's gonna be really useful and I think we have a pretty great lineup of instructors that'll be very relevant and useful to everyone.

You

See all Y Combinator transcripts on Youtube

Geoff Ralston's Intro - Startup Investor School Day 1