- hello. i'm kat manalac and iam a partner at y combinator and i'm excited to see you allhere today and i'm also excited to introduce you to shana fisher.shana is the founder and managing partner of high line venture partners,which is based here in new york city, and she's also board partner at andreessenhorowitz. as an early stage investor, shana invested in companies like makerbot,pinterest, 53, refinery29, and even y. c. stripe. so investors know her as someonewho has this incredible ability to recognize greatness in early stageentrepreneurs, even before they have traction. but maybe more importantly, herportfolio companies know her as someone
who helps them realize that greatness. so,we're really lucky to have her here today, and i'm excited to welcome shana fisher.[applause] - [shana fisher] thank you so much.it's so great to be here. thank you so much to y combinator. i reallyam a big admirer of the program. i fund a lot of companies outof y. c.and it's really the main reason i'm here.one thing that's important for me to say before i start is i reallynever blog or tweet or say anything about what i do. um, so why am i here? i'm herereally because i love y combinator, one, and two, i love new york for startups. so,you know, when i was invited, i thought,
"ok, this will be fun. " um, there's avariety of reasons why i don't really talk about what i do, but the main reason is, ithink, really the companies are the most important thing about what i do. so it'sreally not important for me to talk. it's really more important for them to talk. sowhen i was invited here, i really had to think like, "do i really wanna do this?"and, you know, one of the main-- and what do i wanna say? and the main reason idecided to come, um, is because the reason i don't blog or tweet or talk about what ido is that i often am told i give the opposite advice of what peoplenormally hear. so i thought that's a great way to usethis time. um, i'm gonna just go through
the major areas that i hear over and overand over again that i'm giving people the opposite advice of what they normallyhear. and i thought that would be the best way to use this time. um, so first of all,i made this presentation with a lot of help. but one of the things is it's inthis beautiful format of paper, which i think is, you know, an amazingpresentation format. so if you're wondering what this is, it's one of mycompanies that i love very much, 53's paper. so, the first i'll cover is runway.and i'm just gonna like hit a couple of major topics and talk about my thoughts oneach one. so one of the first things i see when companies come to raise money isthat they're raising money for runway. so
they'll often say, "i'm raising a millionand a half dollars that's for 18 months and, um, that's what we're doing. " um,right there, i don't like that. so i like when people are raising money, um, to gettheir company done by any means necessary. it's not about having 18 months. it'sabout making whatever you raise last and whatever you're able to raise last,whether you're raising a lot or whether you're raising a little. and actually, oneof the things that i think is really great about y combinator, and i've known y.c.since it was a boston program. and if you meet companies from y. c.and you talkto them, even the ones that were in the boston program six, seven years ago, whatyou realize is that they don't think about
raising money as runway in the very earlystage. they think about it as, "how am i gonna get this done by any means necessaryand how long is this gonna last?" and that's the most important thing.it's not about, you know, having enough because runway reallyabout labor, it's about payroll, it's about rent. so what you often find incompanies that aren't thinking about runway, they think about, "how am i gonnasolve some of those problems in different ways? how am i gonna get not to pay rent?"so one of the things i try to do for my companies, especially if they don't raisea lot of money, is how to get them free space for as long as possible 'causethat's one of the-- that's just one of
the ways to get the money tickingdown. another way is, of course, thinking about labor. how many people doyou really need? who are you paying? why are you paying them? how much are youpaying them? and that's a big factor. so i think runway is sort of one ofthose things, it's often the thing in the beginning. that is like the most importantof how to get as far as you can because, you know, your valuation only goes upafter that, and hopefully, that's sort of my philosophy runway. um, founders,co-founders. um, common knowledge, i think, is that it's good to haveco-founders. um, for some people i think that's true. um, i have a lot of singlefounders in my portfolio i think--
i think it's not always right to haveco-founders. i think certain people, certain people that can take a companyreally far actually are not-- are not actually equipped to have co-founders.they're actually better being a single founder and so i don't make exceptionsto that. i like to see, i like to see people that can take the company thedistance and having a single founder might sometimes be the best way to do that. ifyou do have co-founders, i think it's really important not to have repeatskills. developer, designer, obviously incredibly important, um, product.sometimes that's inside a developer, sometimes that's outside.sometimes that's
inside the designer, sometimes that'soutside. i think it's really important when you're looking at whoyou're starting a company with. i can't, i'm not going to make ageneralization. sometimes, you know, people who have known each other forever.they may have overlapping skills. they may have known each other growing up and maybe the right person to start a company with. but a lot of times what i'm seeingare people they're like they just met the person a couple of weeks ago or months agobecause they wanted to start a company. now that starting a company is so-- it'sjust something people do when they graduate. there're so many companies,people feel like that's the only way to do
it. and i think that some people are justbetter to be single founders and you should structure the company around yourown skills. um, time. that's time to launch. that's what this means to me. um,common knowledge i think is you should get product out quick, you should iterate, andit should be live. um, actually, i often take the opposite view on this. i thinkfour years ago i might have said, "launch quick. that's actually important. " today,there's thousands of startups and it's a thing that many, many people are doing; iactually think you should take as much time as possible to make your productperfect. and because there is so much competition, you have to really thinkdifferently about what space you're in and
how much time you're taking to launch.it's actually possible today to have smaller groups of users. it doesn't haveto be live, but i actually don't think it's good to rush products out. i think ifit takes you a year to make your product perfect, then you should take a year. it'snot about getting it out. because i think you have to have like the hooks in it anda couple of traps that are gonna be the reason why consumers love yourproduct and it can a while to craft that. and it's not so important, i think, todayto just get something out there a minimum viable product. i think actually what isimportant to do today is to try to figure how you're gonna raise above and levelabove all of the competitors. and that's
something that timelines, and it kindagoes back to the runway, are really important to think about initially.location. um, new york versus san francisco versus everywhere else. um, ireally like-- i love new york to create companies. i think new york is a verycreative city. i think it gives people a lot of inspiration. there's certainly alot of a lot of input you get your product that you don't get in a community whereeverybody is doing tech. there's a lot of money in the early stage in new york, so ithink that's excellent. what there isn't is a lot of money in the middle stage.it's still california, i think, primarily that has a huge advantage with thetrajectory companies are able to get. and
doing things like y combinator, actuallyif you're gonna be located in new york is extremely strategic. you might not eventhink about the relationships that you're forming there, how valuable they're gonnabe two years from now, you're just thinking about, "how do i get my thingfunded? how do i get my startup to be separated from everybody else?" which y.c.is excellent in that. but what it's also good at is really putting down roots incalifornia so if you're gonna in new york, you have to have some roots there. ifyou're ever gonna-- if you're gonna wanna go back there. and having investors inboth cities, i think, is also really important because you get very differentperspectives and that's why i think
location has to be thought about verystrategically. certain companies, i think, have real advantages to be in a city andan urban environment like new york or other cities. others have real advantageswith the amount of people you can hire and the talent that you find in california,northern california. so i think, um, that's my view on location and i sometimeshear... i sometimes hear the opposite or not an honest evaluation of what arereally the pros and cons. so this like my favorite one. um, nobodyknows anything especially when it comes to investors. and i think about that all thetime myself and i find actually it's very liberating. it's very liberating 'cause iknow many of the great companies that i
found, when i found them, absolutelynobody else was looking at them. most people didn't like them and it was verydifficult to tell that what they were going to become was gonna be as big asthey did become. and i think it's important for all of you startingcompanies to really remember when you're talking to investors, it's very personal,it's very subjective. so, if you hear negative comments, if you hear like, "thisdoesn't make any sense, " nine times out of 10, that might be true. but one time,it maybe that what you're doing it so new that like nobody can evaluate it. andthat's when really great things happen. you also might be talking to an investorthat have just in 10 investments
and they're not even in the head space todo yours. so i think it's really important to, you know, when you sit down withinvestors, talk about it like, "what are the last couple of deals you did?" look,if you get someone that hasn't done a deal in a while, they're actually maybe moreopen-minded to you. and i think you have to be more strategic about-- you can bemore strategic about the people you're talking to, not just closing your round.you can close people that are really gonna spend the time and actually have an openmind on what you're doing and give you good feedback. so it's really importantwhen you're talking to investors to realize, look, they probably aren't in anybetter position to evaluate what you're
doing in a weird way, then you knowthe next person sitting next to you. there is a lot of patterns.people get stuck in patterns. i don't actually believe in patterns.i think patterns actually can trap you into wanting to seethe same thing that worked before. but, you know, the river is always flowingand the markets are very different. what worked today is not gonna be working, youknow, it's not gonna be something that worked four years ago. so personally, itry not to look for patterns. i'm also known i contradict myself a lot so i'mtalking about patterns. but, i'm talking about, you know, my advice. but ithink when you're starting or
crafting your company, just thinking aboutthe role that investors play and who you're talking to and where they're comingfrom, kind of do some research when you sit down with them before you just launchinto your presentation, and you'll get a sense, "hey, is this person even like acandidate or are they probably, you know, kind of like is their plate already full?"a lot of investors can't even really-- you know, if they're a lead or a boardmember, you know, if they're on more than 12 boards, that's like a lot. so if you'retalking on someone on 12 boards or someone who's new, you're much more likely to getthe results you want with someone who is very open-minded to what you're building.and these are some of the things to look
for. um, product development. i have acouple of things on product development that i find myself going over a lot.um, one actually-- i got this advice from paper. i was with the paperteam this morning and i asked them like what, you know, "how do you guys thinkabout product development as a startup? what are some of the things you did thatyou think are valuable and what are the things that you think you wish you knew?"and one of the things that's really important, and i really believe this goesback to the number of people on the team, i think it's really important build fortoday. if you read development blogs and many people that have worked at biggercompanies leave those companies with the
same disciplines and a lot of thosedisciplines you might read about in development blogs like art, you know,you're gonna spend a lot of time on infrastructure, but you're not gonnaspend a lot of time on the product you're trying to build for today. and prioritizing what actually is buildingfor today, having a big vision. 'cause when you start a company, you often have abig vision like, "this is what we're gonna do. this is our business. this is an areawe're trying to disrupt. " but from a real product development standpoint like what'stoday's problem you're actually gonna solve. and i often advice companies thatare also going to y. c. , "go to y. c.to
grow. " because some of the connectionsand the relationships you're making have really been incredible difference makersfor companies to either get other startups using their product or take advantage ofthe mentors there to teach them like really how to craft growth when you havethat solid product. and i think that's one of the best things to remember aboutbuilding. another thing i like to think about, again, time. i think you wanna asmuch time as possible to build the perfect product. one thing that's related to thisis design. um, i think today design is really becoming-- it's like all the same.great design is all the same. there's the same css templates a lot of people areusing. and so the designs kind of bleed
into each other. you know kind of whatmakes great design today. it's like flat, it's whatever serve apple is also, um,bringing forward, which is great, but you don't have any breakthroughs. so ifeverybody is using the same templates, the same full bleed photos, the samesans-serif font, the same saturated colors, which are all beautiful. andtoday, we're trained, especially investors are trained to look at the design and belike, "oh that's clean, that's beautiful. that looks like it's supposed to look, butit looks like everything else. " so what i actually like to look for, and i funded alot of stuff that did not look good, 'cause i knew like all you have to do islike a tip of the iceberg, you have to put
some design onto that. but if you havesomething really breakthrough, don't worry about how it looks because how it looks isoften gonna be something you can do, use one of those css templates that everybodyelse is gonna judge you by. but i think if there's any designers inthe room, i think it's time to push past what everybody is starting to look like.and that's something that i look for. i know that, you know, we got to this designbecause there, you know, this kind of pervasive design because, you know, therewas another pervasive design that kind of got overtaken by this one, and i thinkwe're ready to have a new look. i don't know what it is, of course. that's what ilook for everyday. but i'd really like to
see products not be so skin deep because ithink that you can trapped in the skin deep-ness of a product and not worry aboutlike what you really trying to do that's breakthrough underneath, how hard is it,how much time does it take to get perfect. and often design is last. um, and i hopethere are breakthroughs there, but i really would focus on sort of the icebergof the product versus the surface. people. so related to runway, you know,people race money and they say, "we're gonna go hire five people. we're gonnahire seven people. we're gonna hire four developers 'cause we need four developersto get this done by three months. " and what i found is that most people that arestarting startups don't know how to manage
people. and you know you're gonna findyourself overwhelmed. and it's really important to perfect how you manage peopleone by one. so if you say, "have a single founder, " you should hire one person andperfect it with that person. if you have two founders, hire one person, perfect howyou're gonna manage that person and build the team that way. um, i think anotherthing is, um, this is gonna sound really cheesy, i guess, but diversity is reallyimportant. and you know, if you look around and you founded yourcompany all of the same, you're just not gonna haveenough views of your user. and a lot of founders-- i don't know ifthis sounds controversial but most
founders are male. i have certainly fundeda lot of female founders. i funded a lot of products that are for women created bymales, but they prioritize hiring women pretty early on. so it's sort of a, youknow, equal opportunity thing. i mean, you wanna find the best person for the job butyou really should think about bringing other people into the company, not justbeing female founders, but bring women into the company either in design roles,development roles. you know, there's a lot of times in my companies.they probably gettired of me doing this but i meet a young female developer who i think has promisedand i was like, "just tell a company you have to hire her. you have to train her. "because there is no way are gonna get
opportunities unless founders, founderswho really in the position of taking their companies forward do that. and you'regonna find those people are so valuable. you're not even gonna-- and partly it'skarma, but i actually believe it's one of those things that if you bring thesepeople into your company whether it's, you know, racial diversity or gender diversityor just people that don't think like you, you know, mental diversity, however youwanna say it. i just think it's so critical to building great companies. andi think when i look back at my companies that have succeeded, this is what they'vedone. they didn't always know how to do it, but they did it. and i think it'sactually indisputably a great thing to do.
um, we're not gonna have female foundersunless they get more experience. they're not gonna get experience unless they getgreat experiences in other startups. so sometimes, i think it's really importantto prioritize these things. that's just my view. um, can i talk toyou for a minute? this is a big one. back to people. you think you'rebuilding a startup to create a product. you think you're gonna launch yourproduct and you're building technology. you're actually building people, you'rebuilding a team. and if you don't take care of managing that team, it's gonnacome over you like a tidal wave. you're gonna have people coming up to you, "can italk to you for a minute?" that's kind of
like what the symbol is. people want totake aside, people wanna know, "where am i? what's my standing in the company?what's my position in the company? what's my role? why is this person getting thatrole?" here's an idea i have. that will happen if you don't work on managing thepeople. there's a really great paper called the scarf method. one of the thingsi do is i love c. e. o.coaches who really help founders grow as managers. the scarfmethod is something that he recommends. i read it's sort of a neurological approachto how to manage people, what people need to be managed. if you just types-c-a-r_f...you'll find the paper. if you don't, you can e-mail me. i'll send it toyou. it's just about what people need and
you'll find if you take time to thinkabout how you're managing the people on your team, and you are actually nowmanaging a group of humans. let's say you raise more money, you take your company alittle further, um, you're gonna hire people. i do advice not to hire peoplevery quickly especially if you've never managed anyone. i think you're gonnaperfect it and you'll mistakes and those mistakes will become part of you asanother manager, as a good manager, and you'll be able to hire someone else andretain someone else. so you'll make mistakes. i think you should make mistakesearly so that you go and then you can correct that. and it's not at a missioncritical time. so that's a big one. if you
see yourself surrounded with "can i talkto you for a minute?" out of your work, then you realize, "ok, i need to step backand i need to figure out am i a managing the people around me? what's happening?"because, you know, the startup can be such an intense, some very empathetic. it's very intense environment. you feellike, you know, what you're doing is extremely important. you lose perspectivealmost for everything else around you, and that's actually really important. it'sreally important to be in that no perspective place because that's how youcan, i think, execute and do super human and great things. but it's reallyimportant to step back and realize like,
"i'm managing people, not just theproduct. " and many of my founders, many founders i meet or engineers, it's justnot something that they've done. but if you can do that, you'll be great and noone will be able to kick out of the c. e. o.spot. um, the equinox. so the equinox issomething i like to think of is like that time horizon, the line between when youdon't have to make money and when you do. so personally, i like companies that makemoney. i like companies that have business models. i like companies that like tothink about the business model ahead of time even if, i think there's no greatervalue in what you do than if somebody is willing to pay. so i like companies withbusiness models. however, i have
definitely funded things without businessmodels and they've even had a really good idea, a clear idea of what they're gonnado. even if they don't do in the first year, they may not do it till the thirdyear, but they have a very clear idea of what they're gonna do. and i know there'sa lot of examples out there of companies that don't have that. but i think you'llfind, you really control your destiny when you do control the money, either youcontrol raising the money, some people are really good at raising money, or you're incontrol of making money. so the equinox is like that time between it's likeacceptable to not make any money and when it is. and i think that's really importantto recognize. many founders don't
recognize with enough time when thatequinox has passed. so there is a certain amount of time where it's all potential.and investors invest in potential. you know, a very rare... i mean, they like tolook for what they like to look for. but a lot of that is what's potentially, youknow, what's potentially gonna be valuable and they project on to a company. now, there's a certain time when you cando and a time when you need to stop. and as founder, you need to say like, "this isthe time we need to cross over 'cause we wanna control our destiny. " and i thinkthat's how i think of the equinox. i think it's a very important concept that i tryto help my companies with. so, i'm
wrapping up. cosmos. um, this is reallymeant to be about inspiration. so i don't know if anybody is watching cosmos on tv.it's so good, you know. it's so good. and i went back and watch the old cosmos. iremember growing up how much i love the old, the original cosmos, and that reallyhad a profound impact on me. and if you're watching cosmos, and i really recommendeverybody do it, it's on fox. it's just... the head of the planetarium is a narrator.and i recommend going to the dark matter show, actually at the hayden planetarium.it's really extraordinary. and what i think of when i'm inspired by cosmos isjust the big problems that aren't solved, and how, you know, on earth, we're...wedon't really understand the edge of the
absorbable universe yet, and how deeplyinteresting that is to me, and the problems of carbon and all the kind ofthings that are outlined through the narrative of that show. and i don't knowwhat-- that inspires me. that inspires me, so if i see like lots of little apps,i sort of like, "what is this? this is lots of the same stuff. " i really love tosee breakthrough things, i think people really truly are. you really only aregoing to achieve as you big as you do dream, and that's very corny. but i thinka lot of what i do is look for people that have really big dreams and they know howto build for today to get there and they know how to look at and say like, "i justdon't wanna do another app. i actually
want to do something that is meaningful. "whether it's maybe thinking about design and breakthrough ware, whatever you viewas meaningful, whatever you view as inspirational. it's really important, i think, when youstarting your company to have that spark. because if you don't have that, it's goingto show. the authenticity shows. it takes pixar five years to make a movie. why arethey the best movies? 'cause they took five years and they're made with a lot ofheart, a lot people, and a lot of ideas. and there are so many companies right now.to level up, you have to do that. it's going to be very hard to level up if morepeople aren't doing that. so whether
you're watching cosmos or you're findingsome other way to inspire you, you know, i really encourage everybody to dream bigbecause you could get jobs and jobs would be a lot easier, a lot easier. startupsare really hard. so if you're gonna do it, you gotta go for it and that's what iwanna see. so that's all. i just wanna say thanks. e-mail me if you have anyquestions on what i said. i hope you don't quote me though 'cause that would, youknow, i don't wanna debate it, you know. i just wanna put my shoot out there and seewhat happens. but, you know, if anything i said interests you, i'd love to talk toanybody. thank you, y. c. thank you, 53, for helping me and this wonderfulillustrator named julia lu who just put
together these incredible visuals. thanksagain.
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