What do investors look for in a startup?

“I score every pitch across five T's: Team, Traction, Thesis, Terms, and Target Market. Team matters most to me, because a lovable, obsessive, first-principles founder makes money, talent, and customers flock.”

“I look for early signs of product-market fit first, then whether customers could love the product for decades, and whether the founders are clear-eyed enough to tell me what's actually not working. When I ask a founder what's keeping them up at night, the best ones don't deflect, they diagnose.”

“Investors look for a 10x edge in at least one dimension, not competence across the board. Marc Andreessen and I used to frame it as market, product, and team; the strongest startups are exceptional on one and messy on the others, because de-risked investments have no upside.”

“I look for three things: a massive new user and business opportunity, whether a startup can compound into owning it rather than big companies, and whether this is the best team and approach to get there. I also want to see that a small group of users already loves the product, because 100 people who use it religiously tell me more than 10,000 who touch it lightly.”

“I look for formidable founders first, because the product will change and the market will surprise you. Then I want evidence of a real problem, traction that shows customers pay and stay, and a business model that can scale without costs rising in lockstep. The investor's fit with you matters too: their risk appetite and their track record for bridge funding can make or break a startup when things get hard.”

“I look for outlier founders in an interesting neighborhood of an idea with a unique insight into the customer or space, and I care less about the stage than about whether that spark is real. At Sequoia we have written the first check into founders with just an idea and zero lines of code, because the founder and the insight matter more than the deck.”

“At seed, I'm looking for the founder more than the company: the obsession, the speed of learning, and whether I'd bet on them when the idea changes. We backed Vlad and Baiju at Robinhood pre-launch because the person was right, not because the product was finished.”

“People want a rubric, but after 500 pitch meetings in one year I can tell you it’s gut: within five minutes you feel whether this founder is vibrant and differentiated or just aping the Uber-for-X playbook. I’m hunting for the weird ones, the people who don’t need peer validation and will do the thing everyone else thinks is stupid.”

“I look for founders who make a problem that looks tiny today feel inevitable tomorrow, the way Whatnot turned Funko Pops into a category and Kindred made house swapping a real travel option.”

“I look for three things: the caliber of the founder and team, a real secret or anomaly the company is predicated on, and genuine upside. Everything else is secondary.”

“I look for a learning flywheel: every action the founders take should de-risk something or teach them something about their customer. If that loop is moving, the rest tends to follow; if it's not, I usually lean away regardless of how polished the pitch is.”