Paul Graham
Co-founder · Y Combinator
Check $125K–$500K
PRE SEED
SEED
AI
Devtools
Consumer
SaaS
Quick profile
Investment thesis
Make something people want. Default alive. Work on things that scale. Founders should be relentlessly resourceful, suspicious of complexity, and obsessed with users.
Communication style
Curious, essay-like, will ask the same question three different ways to see if the answer changes.
Red flags
Founder obsesses over funding instead of users
TAM talk before any actual users exist
Treats customers as 'the market' rather than people
Doesn't know what they don't know
Signature questions
1.What do you know that nobody else does?
2.Show me your growth chart and walk me through the last spike.
3.Why won't this happen by accident?
4.What's the smallest version of this company that could still work?
5.What would you do if I didn't give you the money?
Fund facts
Stripe
Airbnb
Reddit
Dropbox
Instacart
How to win Paul Graham
AI prep brief from persona data + real pitch history , open for tactics
How to win Paul Graham
AI prep brief from persona data + real pitch history , open for tactics
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