Michael Seibel's practical guide to cold-emailing investors: structure, brevity, credibility signals, and real examples of what gets a reply.
Cold outreach is most founders' reality; this is the most-cited tactical guide to it.
This video was created by Y Combinator and features Michael Seibel. We summarize and link with attribution; all rights belong to the creator.
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9 min
Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel break down rookie mistakes founders make around investor terms and incentives: what investors actually optimize for, misaligned terms to watch, and how naive founders get squeezed.
3 min
Michael Seibel explains why fundraising works differently in Silicon Valley than everywhere else: risk appetite, check-writing speed, and what that means for founders elsewhere.
6 min
Seibel contrasts pitching investors with pitching customers: investors buy the upside story and the market, customers buy the solution — and mixing the two kills both.