#552 From Solo Founder to YC Investor: Gabriel Jarrosson on What Drives Breakout Startups

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Mehmet: Hello, and welcome back to an episode of the CTO Show with Mehmet today. I'm very pleased. Joining me, Gabriel Jarrosson. He's founder and managing partner at Lobster Capital. And as you can imagine, Gabriel is an [00:01:00] investor. So the topic today is a lot about investment, especially in, in the tech startups, of course.

The way I love to do this, Gabriel, I don't waste much time of my guests. I want you to share as much as possible. So the first traditional question is little bit more about you. You know, your background, your journey, and what brought you to to start what you are doing currently. Well, thank you so much for, um, having me here on the show meme.

Gabriel: I'm, I'm glad. My background is computer science engineering, but mostly entrepreneurship. I've built, uh, in my past before being an investor, seven startups and wow. Sold three, which means I failed four. Uh, and, uh, but you know, I was fortunate to, to sell three. That's how I came to Angel investing. Because I had a, a little bit of money from the exits, but mostly because I had started all of those startups I was seeing in other startups, either the same mistakes as me, and I thought, [00:02:00] oh, okay.

I know I've lived this, this journey, this mistake. I know where you're going, but sometimes I would see startups doing much better than me. For some reason. They're probably better entrepreneurs. They're not doing the same mistakes. So I thought, okay. Those guys are onto something. And that's how I started Angel investing in 2013.

Um, quite a while back that Angel investing did quite well. I. Was investing in Europe originally where I'm from, and I decided to transition to invest in Silicon Valley where the deal flow and exits are better. I, uh, transitioned from just angel investing to bringing people along with me first as a, as an angel syndicate, uh, doing SPVs and deal by deal.

That's when I started investing in Y Combinator, the best startup incubator in the world in San Francisco. And now since 2023, I run Lobster Capital, which is a traditional VC fund on the back of all the investments we made, all the success we had, and of course to have many, many more as well in the future.

Mehmet: Great. And thank you Gabriel, a lot for being [00:03:00] here with me today. You know, I gotta come back to, to YC and you know, ask about the investment. You know, starting from, from, from your journey as, as a, an entrepreneur, right? Um, you bootstrapped a company to 1 million a RR, right? With zero employees? Yes. And zero zero co-founders.

Just me Before ai. Before, before ai. Yeah. So it was, that was long time ago. Now, what kind of mindset you think. You adopted it, that helped you also to achieve this. Because, you know, I hear a lot from other, to be founders or existing founders, like it's hard. Like we need this, we need that. You know, like, uh, and we see them like trying also either to bring a co-founder with them or maybe they start to.

Raise money early. So for you, what really worked, what was the mindset that made this happen? 

Gabriel: Yeah, that's a, I love that question. [00:04:00] Um, first of all, obviously a lot of ambition. Uh, you know, you don't grow if you don't want to. So I wanted to, to create a big business. I was hoping it would get too much bigger, actually, you know, uh, in the world of YC today that I live in 1 million ar.

It doesn't seem even even that big anymore. At the time, it seemed huge. Um, so that's one thing. The other is don't wait, don't ask for permission. Just at yc, people say you can just do things and I love that you can just do things. So I probably would've loved to have a co-founder, but I didn't find one. I was like, okay, I'm gonna just keep going anyway.

And, and, and just keep building and find solutions. Maybe you want to build a technical product that's, uh, that was, uh, not the, the, my case originally with that business, but at some point I needed to build a tech. If I didn't have a technical co-founder or a CTO, you know, the CTO show? Uh, yeah. Then I outsourced it.

I was like, okay, well I wish I had a CTO. I don't have time. I haven't found one. I'm gonna outsource it. So the first thing is. I see [00:05:00] today in my seat as an investor. So many entrepreneurs say to me, oh, if we only raise that money, then the business is gonna be successful. But as long as we don't raise, we're stuck.

I think that's a big mistake. So, yeah, that's the first thing is don't ask permission. Don't wait for an investor. Just run your business. And I always tell my founders, the best money is money from customers, not money from investors. So. Let me take an example. If you want to raise $1 million, um, you can just, you know, spend your entire time talking to investors, hoping maybe they will give you a million dollars, or you can spend your entire time selling.

And if you do really, really well, at some point you can sell a million dollars and that's much better 'cause the result is the same. You have $1 million in your bank account. But if it's from customers, you haven't given away any equity. You still own your company 100%. And you have a growing startup. When you raise 1 million, you still have a million in your bank account, but you've given up your equity [00:06:00] and you have no revenue in your startup.

So you know, you still need to do the work. And people think money solves everything. Oh, I'll have money. It's gonna be so easy to solve customers. Mm-hmm. That's very, very wrong. Uh, money. Can help sometimes, uh, maybe to pay for some ads or something, but it, there's no magic bullet. There's no silver bullet.

Um, to answer to, to finish answering your question, it's kind of a long answer, sorry. But the second part. Thank you. Uh, uh, the second part, uh, uh, of how I did this was very early on, 10 years ago now I already. Thought of either delegating a task to a human, but that's costly or delegating a task to a computer program that was not an ai, but, so I kept building systems that could handle my business for me.

If it could not be handled by, by a program, I would give it to a human, but I would also change my business and change. Force my, my, my [00:07:00] customers to change their behaviors so that it would fit something automated. So I'll give you a very simple example. Many customers wanted, um, support, wanted help with, with using the product.

And so I was doing it one by one. It was not scalable, it was taking a lot of time. I had to hire someone that was not great. And then I had this idea, I was like, I will do an office hour. Every week, one hour a week where it's a Zoom call, everyone can, because I realized everyone has the same problem.

Mm-hmm. So everyone can come on the call. And then, uh, everyone can talk about the problem they're having, the issues they're having, and then I would record the zooms. And then every, you know, every five minute I answer a specific question, a specific issue, sometimes sharing my screen, I would clip that and then put it into an F, a Q.

And then when someone had a put, I was like, Hey, you know, read the FAQ. I know 'cause I've done dozens and dozens of office hours. Your issue is probably there and if it's not, you can come to this office hour just once a week. So instead of taking me 10, 15, 20 hours a [00:08:00] week, it would just take me one hour a week.

And over time I will build, I would build my library of, of, of content to a point where at the very end, every single. Question possible was solved. I didn't need to do the office hour anymore. So, you know, always change your customer's behavior, automate, delegate, and use computer program or software. And today it's so much easier with ai.

So yeah, I think, um, it was, it was an interesting, um, thought process for me to do that. And I had a lot of fun. 

Mehmet: Cool. Just as a follow up question, uh, on, on this, um, Gabriel, do you think, because you mentioned like with now with AI now the path of, let's say, uh, if they find product market fit, if, if what they're building really is something customers want.

Um, do you think scaling this, um, you know, in a compounding way, relying on AI is something feasible or like, do you. You know, do you still believe as founders, they need to, um, you [00:09:00] know, get, like, at, at least when, when I'm talking scaling, I mean they have a lot of customers now, so, so they need like kind of customer success.

I'm talking here in the B2B space of course, or maybe in B2C it'll be like, uh, customer support and all this. Like, what do you think is the, is the limit of, of using ai? Because, you know, some, sometimes relying also on, on the AI completely, it might like. You know, little bit people would not like it. They would need still to speak to a human.

So where do you think is the limit? Or like what, what set up, you know, the, the best practice, let's call it, in relying on AI in, in, in, during the scaling phases?

Gabriel: I mean, I believe we don't know the limits yet. Um, something you have to remember, uh, is AI as we know it today. Is the worst. It's the worst it's ever going to be like.

So it's only getting better and better every week, every month, right? So the limit, because the limit today will be [00:10:00] completely different in three months already 'cause it's moving so fast. So, uh, that's one thing. Uh, Y Combinator, uh, famously predicted already last year or at maybe at the beginning of 2025, that they would be.

Building a $1 billion company with just one person. Yeah, just one founder, a billion dollar company. And then later on they also predicted they would build a $100 billion company. So a hundred times bigger with 10 people, which is, you know, 1 billion with one people is 1 billion per person, but a hundred billion with 10 people is 10 billion per person, even bigger.

So, and, and. It seems crazy. It seems impossible, uh, today it probably is, but AI is evolving so quickly and solving so many problems that I think it's maybe possible in the future. So, um, I, I would say best practice is look for where today AI is as good. [00:11:00] Better than humans. And in many cases it's just better.

If you think of, if you think of customer support on the phone, if it's only humans, you wait for 10 minutes to just speak to an agent. But it's, if it's an ai, it can just speak to you right away. And they are now some companies that have very low detection rate, which means less than 1% of people detect its an ai.

They think they're talking to someone and it's really solving their problem, et cetera. So, uh, if, if the solution can be as good or better, uh, that's a good, uh, uh, way to implement. Uh, if the solution is slightly, slightly worse, but it's improving rapidly and it's solving you a lot of time, may be acceptable.

If the solution is not good enough, just wait. But what's important, I would, I would say, is. Revisit every three months. Um, so many people just, and, and still today, like I see some people not in y community obviously, but in, in other parts of the world, uh, who say, oh, you know, I tried chat, chat, GPT, uh, it made a mistake.

And so, ah, I'm not using it. [00:12:00] It's, it's useless. Mm. And like. You tried it in 2023 and now it's very, very different. And also you have to learn about prompt engineering, et cetera, et cetera. So every three months try again. And I see some YC companies do it the other way who say I, I, I've, uh, met a founder who said, oh, I had this idea, but.

In January, I just couldn't do it. The, the, the AI couldn't work, but then I came back in May and everything was possible only in, in four months. So revisit frequently. That's a great advice, Gabriel. Now we are talking about Y Combinator, uh, A-K-A-Y-C right now. First question, Gabriel, like. Even when you shifted from being, uh, an entrepreneur after your, uh, successful exits, you start as an angel and then, you know, syndicate lead, and then now with a full-fledged, uh, vc.

Why, why, why Combinator? Why, why? See, you know, like, uh, uh, and let me ask [00:13:00] the question in this way. What's special? Like why we see the sex? Of course not everything. You know, uh, coming out from their succeed necessary, but, you know, everyone want to be part of the investors, uh, who, you know, put money in YC graduates.

Yeah. YC is very, very special. So for people who don't know, YC was created 20 years ago. Um, it's a incubation program where startups come and they are incubated for three months. Um, and at the end of the three months they have a demo day where they present to investors and, and, and raise money. And so it has created what, 120 unicorns including Airbnb, Coinbase, Dropbox, Stripe, Reddit, DoorDash, Instacart, et cetera, et cetera.

You can find this online. Um, so. My story, I, I grew up in Paris, in France, and so when I built my businesses, they were French businesses. And when I started angel [00:14:00] investing, I started Angel investing in France. Mm-hmm. That was my network. That was where I lived at the time. I'm based in San Francisco now, but that was where I lived at the time.

And, um, I. I was, as you can hear, I can speak English, but I was only keeping tabs on the US ecosystem from afar. I was mm-hmm. Just like, oh, let, let me just see what's going on there and, and investing in France. But after a few. Years. After a while, I had an epiphany. I said, why am I investing in tech in France where it's, or in Europe, where it's not the best market, the best market for tech is the us.

What's keeping me from investing there? And so I just. Booked a plane ticket, literally, uh, and went to San Francisco. I had been to the US many times, but not to San Francisco. So I just said, let me go to San Francisco and have a look. And then there I was talking to people asking around, what's the best deal flow?

Where can I get, you know, good startups? And people told me, oh, you can check incubators. And the best one is yc. So [00:15:00] there's the whole notion of how do you get access to YC and are able to invest. And that's what I did in the last 10 years. And, uh, we could get into that if you want, but YC is the best. Um, and, and so you ask me why, why is it the best and why, why does it work so well?

Um, first of all. Because it's the best and the biggest brand and the most famous and renowned. Everyone wants to go to yc. So every talented entrepreneur, or not every, but many, most talented entrepreneurs apply to YC and try to get in, and they only accept. Less than 1% of applicants. So today it's harder to get into YC than to get into Harvard.

Just to say the level of of, of selection is pretty insane. Um, and so it's attracting a lot of talented people and you can always ask the question, are people. You know, uh, if you think of Harvard, for example, that I just mentioned, are people smart because of Harvard or is it because they were smart before that they went to Harvard?

And it's the same thing for yc. Is it YC that makes them good or is [00:16:00] it because they were really good already that YC accepted them and. In both cases with Harvard and with yc, the answer is both. So already they have very talented people, uh, who just come and join the incubator. So that's one thing. And then the program is designed in a way where it's extremely intense.

It's seven days a week, almost 24 hours a a day. Um, so. A lot of pressure and peer pressure from your other batch mates. So people build and ship extremely, extremely quickly. So there's a a huge velocity and sense, sense of urgency. That's one thing. And the other is you get access to the best entrepreneurs in the world to come physically coach you.

Talk to you about their success and just help you. And so, Brian Chesky, the founder of Airbnb, comes to every YC batch and just tries to help Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI. He was previously c uh, uh, uh, president of Y Combinator. He comes every batch and to, to help, um, [00:17:00] the Cison brothers founders of Stripe come and help.

So if you're in a program where everyone builds so quickly, and then your mentors are all of those. Billionaires or deca billionaires who build amazing companies who come back and help you and tell you how they did it, the results are amazing. So yeah, that's, that's why see in a nutshell. 

Mehmet: Absolutely. Uh, it's sad also, Gabriel, you know, like you talked about, you being in France and you know, went to to to the Bay Area, uh, sometime I feel the same here in where I am.

I'm not saying that there are not great builders here. Uh, and just copying the idea of, of something like YC is, doesn't work simply because, you know. This is my humble opinion. Uh, just, you know, creating a place calling, calling it, uh, incubator and just try to mimic doesn't work because there is this whole ecosystem support that you just mentioned that make [00:18:00] things, uh, works in, in, in my opinion.

Gabriel: I agree. Many, many people have tried to replicate YC in Europe, in Asia, everywhere in the Middle East. Um, and still today I hear, oh, this is the new YC for the uk. This is the new YC for Saudi wants to have a new yc, et cetera. It doesn't work. Um, I think, I don't think it. Impossible in theory, but YC is not in a vacuum.

YC is in a big tech ecosystem of other founders that are not yc, other VCs and et cetera, et cetera. You know, 25% of all startup financing in the world, 25% happens in San Francisco, like one city is a quarter of the entire startup investing scene. So it's, it's insane. If you're not in San Francisco, you're not there, and it's so easy for anyone.

To jump on a plane and move to San Francisco, it's so easy. And if you're accepted into Y Combinator, then your visa to stay in the US is [00:19:00] relatively easy. I, I don't wanna say it's guaranteed, but it's quite easy. Yeah. 'cause you've been accepted. So PE people often ask, oh, what's the Y Combinator of Europe?

What's the Y Combinator of Asia the best, or, or of the Middle East? The best founders from there. Just go do the real YC in San Francisco. They don't need to stay locally san, you know, um, the US and San Francisco specifically is a magnet for talent and it's just so easy to leave today. I mean, and by the way, that's the strategy that Dubai did and all of people who don't want to pay taxes move to Dubai 'cause it's just so easy to move.

That's just for taxes. If you want to build something big, same thing, but you move to San Francisco.

Mehmet: Absolutely. And, uh, just to add on this, and I keep repeating this because, you know, sometime I share my own thoughts, uh, on the topic, uh, on my LinkedIn and so on, so it's exactly, you know, what. [00:20:00] As you know, uh, people in, in the valley, they call it, you know, the flywheel and then, you know, like you have these people who are willing to help.

So although, like we had like some unicorns coming out from this region, but I tell them guys, like, I didn't see like only except one or maybe two people that I don't know personally, but they are very well known people like. One is like, uh, started a, a, a vc and another one tried to to run, you know, a a, um, something similar to yc.

But I mean, if we don't do this collectively, and this is the whole thing now. Now YC is also, uh, very well known to have like a lot of, you know, the great founders that you mentioned, Gabriel. So two things I want to ask you about one by one. So first of all, um, what have, have you noticed any. You, you mentioned, you know, the skills and these guys and the intensity over there, but I mean, these founders usually that get accepted to ic, have you seen any patterns, [00:21:00] uh, getting repeated, you know, uh, over there at least maybe in the ones that you invested in?

Gabriel: Oh, yeah, e even in the one that I don't invest in, I don't invest in all the companies. Uh, I sure invest in the ones that I consider the best, uh, that are the best. But, um, yeah, there are many common traits to YC founders. The biggest, most obvious one is. They're all technical. They're all technical, and what, what I mean by that is it doesn't have to be 100% of all the founders, but all the teams are technical, so you need to have at least one tech technical person on the team.

If it's a 2% team, it's at least one of them. Actually in YC very often, it's actually two out of two. If you have a three person team, it's probably at least two of them that need to be technical. And again, very often in yc it's the three of them. So it really is a place for geeks. Uh, and I'm not saying geeks in a bad way.

I'm saying geeks in a [00:22:00] very good way. Sure. Like if you're not a geek, you probably don't get into ic. So that's one thing. And so same thing. I see many, many, many founders who are not technical and they're building a tech product. And a tech product could just be an app or a website, but yeah, that's still tech.

And they find a co-founder who's also not technical. That's not a great idea. You need someone to actually. Maintain and, and you know, they always tell you they have solutions. They will hire someone and they will go through an agency like, well, that, that, that doesn't cut it at yc. So that's one thing. The second thing is YC founders are pretty young.

Um mm-hmm. That's so, you know, there's lots of studies that actually say the sweet spot is closer to 30 than 20 to have a successful company. But many YC founders are very young. I just spoke to a team of three. They're 21, 22, and 22, and their business is exploding. Um, and many great unicorns were built by by very young founders.

You know, mark [00:23:00] Zuckerberg was. 19, I think when he started Facebook, et cetera. So, um, they're, they're, they're quite young. Uh, people say it's a, no one confirmed or denied it. People say YC likes young founders. 'cause they can mold them easily with the YC model. That might be true. Um, and so what's the YC model?

And so what's the common, another common trait that they all have is. M maniacal sense of urgency. Mm-hmm. Just, and that's what happens during the batch, like I said, for three months. It's 24 7 and, and people are crazy. In a hurry and like people don't sleep. Like, you know, those three months are crazy. Like really people don't sleep and work seven days a week, which I don't necessarily recommend, especially in the long term, but for that short amount of time, yeah, sure.

Why not? You just, you, you do it 100%. And so big sense of urgency and big resourcefulness. Uh, and by that I mean, you know, [00:24:00] people don't mope around waiting for problems to solve themselves. People just do things. A lot of people say founders with a lot of agency. So you know, whenever there's an issue you just fix it.

You figure it out, that's it. It's your job. Like, you know, no one's gonna hold your hand, no one's gonna tell you. You just figure it out. And like if you have a customer, they're in San Francisco. But if you have a customer that's in New York and that wants to see you tomorrow, they will fine. You sign a contract, you jump on a plane and you don't complain and you just do it.

And if you don't sleep, you don't sleep, but you just do it. Um, so that's very inspiring. It's people who really want to win, who really. Are extremely motivated and, and for this short period of time, and again, I, I, I believe very strongly in work-life balance. I don't believe life should only be work, right?

I have a very amazing work that I love and I do spend a lot of time on it, but I don't believe life should only be work. But I think for those three months of yc, almost nothing else matters. You'd only focus [00:25:00] on, and that's why also being young. Is helpful. 'cause you usually don't have a family, kids, uh, when you, if you, you know, I'm a father and I, if you have kids, it's harder to say, okay, I'll see you in three months, I'm just gonna go work.

Um, so that's all, that's, that also helps. But there are some, some parents in YC and they manage it and, and, but yeah, for three months it becomes your priority. So that. I think very inspiring to see. Those are some of the common traits that I can think of. 

Mehmet: Great. Now let me ask you, and uh, I know some people, um, who shared, like what happened, uh, happened usually in on the demo day, right.

And the demo day is, you know, by the time they graduate, uh, why see invite like even, you know, VCs and other investors to come and see now. Other than the atmosphere, like for you, Gabriel, what makes you all of a sudden say, Hey, hey, hey, hey, stop. I need to see these guys. You know, we, we need to talk. Like, what's like couple of things that [00:26:00] would, would attract you during the demo.

Gabriel: Yeah. Um, so yeah, demo days is just insane. Uh, it's in San Francisco, uh, after every batch, everyone's in the same room, and the energy is insane. Uh, first of all, it's, it's really cool, uh, to all of those talented founders are here and, and, and many investors like me who are very passionate about YC as well.

Um. So, I mean, I, I believe your question is like, what makes me excited? Why, why would I wanna go and talk to a founder? Yes. Any framework you have, like for example, maybe, okay, if I see this and this, I will stop and I'll say, okay, I need to talk to these guys. Yeah. Uh, and, and by the way, I wanna say we were very, uh, lucky that, uh, we know many of the founders before demo day because.

We we're very active in the community. Uh, we meet them at events, we meet them online. We're a very active, uh, we have a very big online presence. Lobster Capital is also a, a media brand. Uh, and so we have a podcast, uh, called The Lobster Talks. Nice. Where, where YC founders come and tell their stories. So sometimes I meet them before 'cause they just come on the show.

Oh, nice. Anyway, [00:27:00] so just to say like, I, I usually don't discover them at demo day. We've had a relationship for, for a while. Usually, uh, all of them. But, uh, uh, that being said, yes, we do have a framework of selecting, uh, startups. What we say to our investors, what we say on our website, et cetera, is we will select the top 2% of every batch.

And so what do we mean by the top 2%? Um, there's, we have a lot of investment criteria, and I, I, you know, if I have to go into all of them, we need another extra hour. So I'll go to the, um, you know, the, the, the short ones, uh, the main two. We overindex on that we really, uh, are important to us. The main two are, first of all, the top 2% of the best teams.

The best founders at Seed Founders is almost everything. So what are the best founders? It could be repeat founders. If they already had an exit, it's even better. So if you've done it before, you're not gonna have, you're not gonna do all the beginners mistake. It could be founders who come from big universities.

Uh, for example, it is. Studied [00:28:00] and known that uh, the university that created the most founders of unicorns is Stanford. So if you're a Stanford grad, your odds of unicorns are just better 'cause it's Stanford. Sorry. So if we see a Stanford grad or you know, MIT, Harvard, whatever that could be, top 2% of teams.

Um, and then, uh, if you come from a big tech. A company, a famous big tech. So if you've worked at Google before, if you've worked at Meta, if you've worked at SpaceX, et cetera, et cetera, um, those, uh, uh, jobs themselves are extremely difficult just to get there. Sometimes 10, 15, uh, um, different steps to actually get hired and interviews and, and, and, and, and such.

So if you've made it, it means you're already probably someone exceptional and those companies are doing great. So what you learn there, it's probably, uh, very interesting as well. So great. That's top. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. No, no, no. Please go continue. Gabriel, the second thing I'll, and, and that's it. I'll, I'll stop.

Uh, so that's top 2% of teams and then top 2% of early traction. Um, so, you [00:29:00] know, sometimes I think many seed investors, uh, and I think it's a mistake, I think many seed investors fall in love with the team or with the idea. They say, oh, I would pay for this. I would need this, so I'm gonna invest, but. Your judgment as an investor or my personal judgment isn't necessarily true.

I can't predict the future. Maybe I like something but no one else likes or vice versa. So our approach is very different. We say, Hey. We're gonna be very humble with what we like and don't like. We're gonna let the market decide. So if the company has a product that we think is great, but no one is buying it, they don't have traction.

Maybe there's something we don't understand, but we won't invest 'cause the market doesn't like it. But if there's a product, we like it or we don't like it, maybe we just, we hate it. But the everyone is buying it. The market loves it, then we're, we're thinking, okay. There's something here people love. You know, there's many things in the world that work really well that I don't like.

I don't like, uh, I don't [00:30:00] know Laboo, but Laboo has a huge success and people buy them. So it's a good business, even if I personally don't like it and don't care for it. Right. So, um, that's, that's our approach. We invest in the companies that have the most, uh, early traction, that have the most, we could say product market fit or pool, right?

But that's usually the companies have the most revenue just 'cause they've been able to sell very well, very quickly. So it demonstrates product market fit. It also demonstrates. How good the founders are. 'cause you don't get to a million in revenue in three months by chance. You have to be extremely good.

You need to build something great. You need to know how to sell it. Like it, it solves a lot of the underlying issues of early stage startups if you already have great revenue. So that's what, that's how we invest. 

Mehmet: Great. Now, you, you mentioned about like you already meet, uh, some of the founders beforehand, you know, on, on, on the podcast and so on.

Um, but does that [00:31:00] help when it comes, you know, for something which might become very competitive, where a lot of other investors want their pie in that round and, you know, because. I know this and I learned it, you know, through some, uh, programs. I, I went through like also people think like deal flow is easy, but sometimes it's the opposite.

Like, you might have the deal flow, but you know, someone else is taking the bigger. Spy. So how do you try to consistently, uh, get into these competitive, uh, rounds other than knowing maybe the founders? 

Gabriel: No, you're ab you're absolutely right. Um, uh, YC itself is quite competitive. Uh, there's not always room in, in the deals that you wanna get into.

And because we focus on the companies with the most revenue, it's arguably even harder to Right, uh, get into those rounds. So, um. You know, we, uh, we're very proud that we have, [00:32:00] uh, a very, very, very high conversion rate, or, or, or, or, you know, investment through rate. So when we want a deal, we almost always have it.

And when I say almost always, it's over 95% of the time. Um, nice. So that's for a number of of reasons. Uh, one, we're YC specialists, so, uh, we, we understand yc, we understand how it works and, and founders appreciate that. Compared to a fund that does YC and does everything else. And so they don't necessarily know how it works at yc.

'cause yc they do things differently than everyone else. So we know all those rules very well and we play by those rules. Um, so that's one thing. Second, we're very founder friendly. Uh, you know, we're giving them quick answers. Uh, we don't waste their time. Um. We're also providing value and helping. So, you know, money is just a commodity, but what do you, what are you bringing on top of the money?

Well, I'm, uh, seven time founders and I failed four times. I learned a lot of things that don't work and I exited three times and I've learned also, you know, [00:33:00] uh, how to build a business and, and sell it so. I come in and help them specifically with, Hey, you know, this is what you need and how I can help. And I've also invested in more than a hundred YC startups now.

So I see a lot of things from my portfolio companies of what they do that works, what they do that doesn't work, what they don't do, but they should have, et cetera. So I can. Help everyone around. So that's the second thing. Um, on top of that, YC has an internal rating tool called Bookface, where every investor is rated.

So if you're helpful, you're gonna have a high grade. If you're not helpful or wasting their time, you're gonna have a low grade. And so, because we've been in this community for a long time, providing value, we have a high rating. So founders know. They should take our money. And the last thing is the media brand that we have.

Mm-hmm. Today we have around a million views per month. Uh, we're growing that very, very rapidly. I think we're gonna be at 10 million views per month next year. Uh, but today it's 1 million views per month. And so that's something that I offer to my portfolio companies. I say, Hey, you [00:34:00] know, uh, instead of just bringing money, well invest.

Then I can help you as a founder. But then you can come. In our podcast, but in, in our media, media, channels, newsletter, social media accounts, et cetera. And I can promote you either your services or if you're hiring, I can, you know, uh, uh, uh, talk about, uh, uh, the fact that you're hiring. You know, I have 44, uh, thousand followers on LinkedIn, so I can just repost to my network and then people will be like, oh, yeah, sure, I would like to apply, et cetera, et cetera.

So, uh, nice media. That we built, uh, is very helpful for those startups. And it's only the beginning. Uh, uh, we started this in 2025. It's already at a million views per month. Like I said, I think we're going to 10 million views soon, so it's gonna be even more useful to them. 

Mehmet: Just on, this is Gabriel, and this is a question I didn't, uh, prepare previously.

Um. I, I have a feeling that such, uh, approach is super helpful, especially me too. You know, um, you know, the go-to [00:35:00] market is changing big time, whether in especially I can talk about B2B, this is my experience and you know, like it's about visibility. It's about, you know, building the brand both personally and for the company and.

I know you are doing it. I know a couple of other, um, guys in vc they're doing it and I think they are leveraging this big time, which also, you know, now I did. I don't have that yet. I mean, as, as an investment, but I mean. I've seen it beforehand. Even I'm a humble podcast host. Like I can't claim I have the millions yet, but even though I've seen like people who get connected or I connected them through the, through the podcast somehow, 'cause one guest.

Some are reached out. Okay. You know, I can, I can you do an intro here? Can you do an intro there? So think about even for me, on a small scale, how sometime it's [00:36:00] helpful. So I'm thinking like, when you have that huge reach, this is kind of a, uh, ads on steroids, I would call it. And of course it's, it's, uh, and it's free must have been helping.

Gabriel: Exactly. I don't, I don't dunno to say it, but you, because you work for it. It's not free, but, but it's not ads, you know. Um, uh, VC. He's evolving into media, I believe. Uh, uh, uh, some people have understood this. Uh, the biggest example is 20 vc. You know, Harry Stubbings exactly. Built one of the biggest European vc, uh, I believe he was 28 last year when he raised 400 million.

Uh, one of the biggest European funds on the back of. Podcast, number one VC podcast in the world. So, you know, he proved that. And then, uh, A 16 Z now said they're, they're building a huge media company where yeah, every single portfolio company will have a voice and will share content. So content is everything.

And actually, if you look at VCs in the us, they almost hold, they almost all have podcast today. It's very popular. It's very easy to set up with, with tools like these, et cetera. [00:37:00] Every, almost everyone has a podcast, but they usually don't take it seriously. Uh, you know, it, it's hard to do podcasting and to do it well.

So they record one episode a month and then they publish it and that's it. And, you know, it gets 20 listens from mommy, daddy and baby brother and, and that's it. Uh, and 'cause they're not thinking of making interesting content and they're not, you know, uh, promoting the podcast and repurposing with short clips, et cetera, like it's a full-time job.

Um. I'm social media native. Uh, I've, I've been on social media since 2007, I think. Mm-hmm. Um, I've built a big YouTube channel before in French, uh, which is abandoned now. But, you know, I, I was, I was a big YouTuber in France, uh, around startup investing. Same, you know, my, my passion, um. So like, I'm native. For me, it's easy.

It's, it's, it's a game that I know that I love. I love being here, doing this, you know? Um, so yeah, it is, it is a huge advantage. [00:38:00] And again, we've only done 1%, like we're gonna grow. I started this in 2025. It's been only a few months. We're gonna grow exponentially more. 

Mehmet: Uh, you know, all the best with this Gabriel, Ben, you know, KU to you and to everyone who do, who does this.

So, yeah. You mentioned about the 20 vc. Uh, uh, there is, uh. Uh, I, I don't want to spell names, uh, wrongly, but yeah, there's Brian Bell, also from Team Ignite Ventures. I know like he, he does a podcast also as well. Uh, plenty of other people. Uh, just fun fact about the podcast. So I've started it and the concept was different.

I pivoted it like a startup for me. Um, at your point about like, you know how they do one and then they, they, they give up. Um. So I tell people if you're planning to do something like this, especially around startups and helping founders, or maybe you want to do something for investors, like, uh, don't over complicate things and [00:39:00] maybe, you know, Gabriel can add any, you know, your experience on that.

Don't overcomplicate it like you don't need the fancy studio and you know, like all this because, you know. What people told me that when they tried to start podcasts, they give up because it's a lot of work, as you said. And they saw it as a cost more than this. And I said, guys, like, look what I did. You know, I did it out of a passion.

You know, as you said, I, I'm not saying there was no cost associated. Of course there was cost, but I mean, I. I kept it, uh, nimble and humble and still I do it. I run it the same way, but I start to see the result. Of course, I'm not as fast as you, but you know, um, things, things can, can, can, you know, grow only if you have the passion for it.

And if you give it the time, like you can just. Pump things and expect it to, to grow, and then you leave it and then you see like a number of, uh, listenership go, goes down. I don't know if you want to add anything around that, Gabriel? 

Gabriel: Yeah, I mean, I've been, you know, [00:40:00] creating content professionally for almost 10 years.

Uh, if you, you know, I started on, on, on YouTube in, in French in 2017, so it's almost 10 years screening content, uh, on that. French YouTube channel. I've published 1,200 videos in total. Um, so like I've, I've done a lot. Um, I would say, I think your. Your, your point is correct. Many people don't even start or give up quickly with content.

The ideal is to have quality and quantity, but if you can only choose one, usually people choose quality, and I would choose quantity. I think it's better to have regularity and posts every week for one year, 52 times of something that it's not perfect. You don't need, you don't need to buy this. You can just do it with the microphone from your computer.

Uh, you don't need, you know, a fancy setup, a fancy editor, like, you don't need to spend a thousand dollars per video. You can just do it yourself with very, very minimal editing. You don't [00:41:00] need, you know, of course when you see other YouTubers, they have fancy effects on the screen and titles and intros and outros and blah, blah, blah.

Like, you don't need all of that. If you're saying something interesting or something that your audience is interested in. Like, that's enough. So you can literally take your phone, shoot yourself like this. Hey guys, that's me. No microphone, no nothing. You, everyone has a phone, but right. I would say do it every week.

Do it 52 times before investing a single dollar like this is free. Then you edit a video on your phone. It takes. 15 minutes. And of course the first few times, uh, it's harder. But then you understand, you get it. You can find a tutorial on YouTube, whatever, and you publish it, right? You do this. But, but how many people here published 52 times in a year, every week consistently.

Very, very few. And then you can invest, then you can buy a microphone. And by the way, uh, I, um, um. A friend of mine was asking me this week, he was like, I'm gonna get one. Is it expensive? And I told him, no, it's [00:42:00] not expensive. I believe it's $400. And then I go on the website and I realize it's $170. Like it's so cheap.

Like a hundred, you know, almost anyone can afford $170 for a microphone. Uh, microphone is very important 'cause the audio call. Anyway, so yeah, that, that's what I would add. Uh, think. Uh, quantity and regularity over quality and budget. And you then you can get started for free, but do it for a long time.

Mehmet: Right. Um, I gotta go back to, to the investor investment a little bit. Uh, Gabriel. Now you mentioned it's very hard to get into yc. We know like other geo, other geographies, they might not have the full fledge taste of yc. So. If someone, and I know like you invest mainly in YC companies, but if someone comes only in YC companies?

Only in YC companies. Yeah, only in YC companies. But let's say someone comes to you and say, Gabriel, I understand [00:43:00] you don't, but I need your advice. Right? So I'm a founder outside of Silicon Valley. What is my realist realistic path to become a YC kind ready company? What you tell them. 

Gabriel: First of all, you know, I've, I've talked about the common traits of, so, uh, technical team.

Uh, uh, sure. Very relentless, uh, uh, and, and lots of, uh, like they, they, they just solve things. Um, you don't have to be in San Francisco to apply to yc. You have to be willing to come to San Francisco for the program, but you can apply from home, uh, so you can apply today. Um. If your startup is only for the local market of your country where you are, you're not gonna be accepted.

It has to be, uh. Product that's either for the US or for the entire world. There are a few exceptions. We've seen some YC companies doing, uh, products only for India, only for South America. Mm-hmm. But mostly, like [00:44:00] 99% of the times, if you have your product, needs to target the US market or a global market, including the us.

Um, but you know, that being said. Uh, around half of the founders of YC are accepted with only an idea. So you don't need more if you're, if you're a good team and you have a good idea, and YC likes the way you think about it, mm-hmm. You can apply to YC on the YC website. It's free, it takes around an hour, and, uh, it's actually every application.

That's what YC says. Says, and they're right. Every application helps you think about your own startup. So it's just. Also for yourself. Um, now I want to say that while 50% are accepted with just an idea, those are usually exceptional founders, like I said, who come from big universities, you know, Stanford, et cetera.

If you're not from Stanford or from SpaceX or whatever, then having some traction on your startup and some revenue. [00:45:00] Helps. It has get in, because remember YC tagline is, make something people want. That's, that's what, that's what, that's what it is. So if you come in and apply to YC and say, Hey, you know, we already have a hundred, a thousand, whatever customers paying.

People YC thinks, okay, they're making something people want, apparently 'cause people, so your odds of getting in are much, much, much greater. So this is what I would say. I would say, Hey, you know, uh, you can apply. It's free, you should do it. But if you get more traction and really have proof that you're making something, people, your odds of getting in are, are greater.

Mehmet: Right. Gabriel, I'm gonna ask you a, a quick question before we, we, we, we come to the end. Um. We always say that, you know, VCs, they don't regret the bad investment. They do. They regret the opportunity that they miss. True. Did that happen to you? 

Gabriel: Oh, yes. Oh yes. Oh my God. I have a Okay. I have a very, very famous, uh, [00:46:00] story there.

Um, yeah, please share it. So, by the way, you know, we also regret bad investments. Uh, we, uh, I will say differently, we don't regret either of them. 'cause, you know, I don't regret bad investments and I don't regret the ones that I missed. 'cause being a VC is. An amazing line of work, and you just need a few winners to do really well.

So even if you miss some, you, some others, you actually get, and you, you know, it's a business where, um, especially in yc, like, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a very good business, I will say. Um, but I have a, a, a famous story of, uh, this French unicorn called Sore. Um, uh, maybe you've heard about it. Sore is a, uh, uh, NFT collectible platform for, yeah.

Soccer, or we call it football in Europe and we call it soccer in the us. Yes. Um, and so you can collect, uh, the, the, the, the, the NFT of Christina Ronaldo and, and Killian MBA and et cetera, et cetera. And. [00:47:00] I met the founder, Nicholas for his pre-seed round in 2018 or 2019. I think it's 10 20 19, and so he gave me 150,000 Euros allocation.

He said, I will, you know, you can come in for as. High as 150,000 euros in the pre-seed round of so rare. And of course at the time NFTs did were not really a thing. It was pre COVID. Uh, and so I didn't really believe anyone would collect. NFTs or football player virtual cards. I was like, that doesn't really make sense.

And it was very early. They hadn't even started. They had zero customers. They didn't make any money. So I said no. And of course, um, NFTs exploded during COVID. So rare exploded during COVID. At some point it was the. Biggest, uh, the highest valued French unicorn. Uh, it was valued at 9 billion Euros. Wow. And so at that 9 billion Euros, my 150 [00:48:00] K investment would have been worth 200 million.

And so I missed it. I, and so, by the way, uh, uh, it turns out, uh, recently Soer has been struggling a lot. Uh, some people even said the company. Might not survive. Uh, of course Nicola the founder, said, no, no, the company will survive and we're turning things around and I wish them the best. I hope they do survive, but the company's in trouble now.

So it's interesting how it goes like this. And then, you know, yeah. But yeah, when I saw that and I realized, okay, I could have been sitting on 200 million euros right now. Ah, that that does something. It is what it is. And I'll tell you something else. Uh, you know, I am. Not doing, I, I'm not in this game for personal enrichment.

I've, I'm, I'm lucky enough that I have enough of what I need. I'm doing this as a mental game, and of course, I'm interested in making money for my investors. 'cause money is how we keep the score of, of what we do. So the more money we do to our investors, the better we do as a fund. [00:49:00] So I don't wanna say money is not a important thing in my life, but I'm not after personal gains in, in this.

I'm more into the, the, the infinite mental game. 

Mehmet: Right? Just as a reminder for people who doesn't know in especially maybe in my region, because I know there's delay confusion, guys, VCs are not like single people who are rich and just they get the check out of there. Pockets and pay. So they have limited partners.

So this is actually how the fund is formed. So it's not their own money. Maybe they have their money in the fund. 

Gabriel: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But it's not, you have to, uh, put your own money in the fund otherwise. So yes, but it's my own money plus a majority of other people's money. 

Mehmet: Exactly, so, so maybe they have put 1%, 2%, whatever the fund size is, maybe more.

It's up, it's up to them. But I mean, there's their money plus other people money. So for people who think, oh, like this vc, he's, I said, guys, it's not the VC because, you know, he has, you know, it's, it's kind of. [00:50:00] You know, you're holding the money off other people, you know, like it's, it's like, uh, of course they trusted you, you have the agreement with them.

So just, you know, for, for people in my region who maybe they still don't understand how the VC things work. So just to, to clarify this, uh, Gabriel, really I enjoyed the conversation with you today. Finally, traditional question I ask everyone, and it's a cliche question, I know where people can get in touch and find more about you and, you know, maybe, uh, where they can find the podcast as well.

Gabriel: Yeah, well, we're very easy to find online. Uh, we're in a lot of places. Uh, the places where I'm the most active are X and LinkedIn. Mm-hmm. Uh, so you can find me on X and LinkedIn typing my name, Gabriel Jarrison. Um, and then the podcast, it's called The Lobster Talks. Uh, 'cause we lobster capital. So the lobster talks, and you can find it on every platform.

Uh, Spotify, apple Podcast, YouTube, everywhere. Um. Yeah, that's, um, that's, uh, that's me. Thank you so much. Had a great time as well. 

Mehmet: Great. Uh, and uh, again, I want to thank you, [00:51:00] Gabriel, for being here with me today. Guys, the links that Gabriel just mentioned, you have, you will find everything, the website.

The newsletter, the podcast links, everything will be in the show notes. You can find that there, there and again. Thank you Gabriel. I know how, how busy it's, it's, by the way, it's a very early morning for you. Just I remembered now. Yes, on the time of this recording. So it's, it's coming to 5:00 AM for him.

It's 5:00 PM for me in Dubai. But anyway, uh, you know, I, I like early births like myself. So thank you for joining Gabriel. This is for the, uh, for, for my audience. If you just discovered this podcast, bye luck. Thank you for passing by. I hope you enjoyed. Give me a favor, subscribe, share it with as many people as you can.

We are trying to do something different here. Maybe you are still small, but we need your help. And if you are one of the people who keep coming again and again, thank you very much for your support, for your your loyalty. By the way, guys, I'm repeating this at the end of each episode since the beginning of 2025, something magical [00:52:00] happened like.

20, 23, 24. We used to go at the top 200 Apple podcast chart from now and then, you know, like every two months I see the podcast ranking in one country this year since Feb. Actually, the podcast is always in one of the countries like. Wow. We keep changing positions. Yeah, we keep changing positions. But yeah, we, we, we are in one of the countries, so like, uh, as the time of this recording, end of, uh, November, the last week of November almost.

So we are in, uh, Lebanon, surprisingly. And we are also in, uh, we were in Spain last week and we are in Kenya the week before. So we are in one or two countries every time, sometime five, six at the same time. Now I have a favor. If you are in the US. Please give me a support there, give me a push like I think out, out of like all the countries in the world.

So, and I can see the statistics you coming guys from the us so give me a push little bit. I appreciate it. But anyway, thank you for the support and as I say, [00:53:00] always stay tuned for a new episode again very soon. Thank you. Thank you.