
Pitching Your Startup - gk1
https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/pitching
======
allthenews
I feel like this only applies to a very specific kind of tech investor
demographic.

I'm working on my own idea, and pitching directly to members of the industry
that I've chosen to apply programming to. Surely this isn't a rare thing? It
seems much less stressful, and given that you are speaking to the very people
who are likely to use your software, I feel like it is substantially easier to
communicate your value. You're much less subject to the Brownian motion of a
two minute speech in a massive candidate pool.

I don't think I've ever come across a guide for startups in such a situation.

~~~
domparise
Sounds like you’re pitching to customers rather than investors.

~~~
mhluongo
... who are often the best early investors :)

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patio11
I wrote much of this (in collaboration with YC partners and alumni for the YC-
specific bits), and am happy to answer questions if you have them.

~~~
atlas_q
(Slightly off topic) Please add LLC support in Stripe Atlas! It's a much
better fit for most businesses and if companies decide to raise money from
investors, converting to a C-corp is easy. Not sure if you can answer, but
what's taking Stripe so long to add LLC support? LLC support was planned from
launch day and it's been 2 years since then.

LLCs also have better privacy than C-corps. No information is in the public
domain if everything is done through an agent. For C-corps, name and address
of the owners are part of the public domain and can be obtained by anyone by
contacting the relevant authorities.

Also looking forward to the "Payouts only" feature in Stripe connect.

Another question : how many members are in the private Atlas community forum?

In the mean time is there something like Stripe Atlas for LLCs?

~~~
patio11
Our desired end state for LLC support is that it feels like you're just making
a radio selection between C corp and LLC, and Everything Else Just Works. A
core thing Stripe does is abstract away complexity. Unfortunately, this
doesn't make complexity _go away_ , it just means we have to have
systems/processes/relationships/etc ready to deal with it. [+]

Making everything else work is substantially more complicated than
implementing the radio button. We eagerly await when we're able to show it
off.

There exist a spectrum of options within the United States for how public the
owners of LLCs are. In many states, for example, the owners are a matter of
public record. (Feel free to search Nevada for Kalzumeus Software, LLC.) I'd
love to hear in more detail about what specifically you want regarding
privacy; feel free to drop me an email. There are some points on the spectrum
which are easier to offer (e.g. "I don't want my home address on the public
records for my company.") and there are some which we are very unlikely to
offer.

We've incorporated thousands of companies. All of them have access to the
forum. We probably won't comment more specifically than that.

[+] An example which is near and dear to my heart: any Stripe user anywhere
can trivially price a product in Japanese yen; you just change the currency
parameter in your API call and your customer gets charged JPY instead of e.g.
USD. There is _no small amount_ of technical, legal, and organizational
plumbing that makes that possible. You'll never need to think about it.

For example, to charge a Japanese bank's credit cards, one will need to staff
a phone number which rings an office in e.g. Tokyo such that a bank's customer
service representative can call to look up a transaction that the bank's
customer had a question about. You don't have to be able to take that call. We
do.

There's a _lot_ of things like that in the world. (If you want a job with a
very, very high rate of learning about how messy global financial
infrastructure is and how its towering achievements can be improved upon,
we're hiring aggressively HN.)

~~~
atlas_q
Thank you for the detailed response.

Re privacy: At least in Delaware, I can have an LLC without having my name and
address in the public domain, so such a setup would be ideal and it's
perfectly legal. Like you said, it varies by state, so here's hoping that
Stripe chooses a state which at least lets owners keep their address out of
the public domain if not their name.

Another suggestion : setup an email capture form for people interested in LLC
support, I suspect the interest would be far greater than what Stripe ever had
for C-corps. As a bootstrapper, you know that there are far more lifestyle
business owners who will never consider setting up a C-corp, but will jump at
the chance of setting up an LLC though Atlas.

------
jph
Pitch deck notes I use with clients:
[https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/pitch_deck](https://github.com/joelparkerhenderson/pitch_deck)

IMHO the Stripe notes and YC perspectives are especially useful when the pitch
deck has a first draft. Founders and teams write the first draft faster (and
better) when they use the notes above.

~~~
gupir
It's interesting that the 6-slide pitch deck doesn't have a "team" slide.
Maybe was it used in the idea phase? PS: Thank you. I was looking for
something like this.

~~~
jph
You're welcome. You're correct the 6-slide pitch deck doesn't have a "team"
slide. It's deliberate. This is because it's higher priority to focus on the
product and customer; the concept is still touched on by slide 6 and the
"teammates" item. The 6-slide pitch deck can take an hour or so for a first
draft.

In practice I use the 6-slide as a first step, akin to a simple sketch,
suitable mostly for internal discussion. Then I work with the founders to
expand the 6-slide deck into the 12-slide, which gets sent to external people.
The 12-slide pitch deck can take a week or so for the first few drafts.

------
dogas
Sidenote: The "Heroku for PowerPoint decks" bit is exactly what I am working
on as a side project, and I'm very close to launching a private beta. Patio11
- has someone else launched that already? It's scarily close to my idea and
value prop!

~~~
patio11
Suppose, hypothetically, that this product existed in the world, but that it
was so poorly distributed that even a person who wanted this product so much
they _went out and built it_ hadn't even heard of it.

What would that set of facts change about how you executed on your idea and
value prop? My guess is that the correct answer is "That should change my
plans not one iota."

------
blitzo
I'm interested about this bit:

 _If you are too early-stage to have functioning software, mockups will at
least let you show that you have good design and product sense._

I want to know if this is really the case here. I have a feeling that YC only
accept established working prototype, not just mere interactive mockup that
look plausible.

Can somebody vouch in a mere mockup application that has been accepted?

~~~
patio11
It is my impression that I've accurately captured the sentiment of YC on that
issue. Previous public expressions include e.g. Sam Altman here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12594615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12594615)

and here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10361530](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10361530)

and here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238968](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9238968)

