Video · ~15 min

The 5 things that kill startups after their seed rounds

Michael Seibel · Y Combinator (YouTube) Free Beginner

Michael Seibel ran Y Combinator and has watched roughly 70 percent of companies that raise on demo day never find real product-market fit, so his list of what kills them is postmortem-grade and concrete. He names the quiet ones first: fake product-market fit and building the company (hiring, offices, process) before you have built a product people want. Treat it as a checklist to run against your own startup, not a set of rules.

• Fake product-market fit, convincing yourself demand exists when it does not, is the most common early killer.
• Building the company before the product (premature hiring, spending, process) burns the runway you needed to find the model.
• Slow product iteration quietly kills you: fewer shots on goal means fewer chances to find what works before the cash runs out.