How to Convince Investors
August 2013When people hurt themselves lifting heavy things, it's usually because they try to lift with their back. The right way to lift heavy things is to let your legs do the work. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake when trying to convince investors.
- ▪August 2013When people hurt themselves lifting heavy things, it's usually because they try to lift with their back.
- ▪The right way to lift heavy things is to let your legs do the work.
- ▪Inexperienced founders make the same mistake when trying to convince investors.
Paul Graham — Essays files mainly under blogs. We currently carry 219 of its stories.
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| Original publisher | Paul Graham — Essays |
| Canonical URL | http://www.paulgraham.com/convince.html |
| Publication time | Not provided by source |
| Retrieval time | 2026-07-26T08:49:07.854Z |
| Last seen | 2026-07-26T08:49:31.704Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
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| Summary source text | contentText |
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| Cluster | WOoyEqlDYtMH · 3 stories |
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| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
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| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Want to start a startup? Get funded by Y Combinator. August 2013When people hurt themselves lifting heavy things, it's usually because they try to lift with their back. The right way to lift heavy things is to let your legs do the work. Inexperienced founders make the same mistake when trying to convince investors. They try to convince with their pitch. Most would be better off if they let their startup do the work — if they started by understanding why their startup is worth investing in, then simply explained this well to investors.Investors are looking for startups that will be very successful. But that test is not as simple as it sounds. In startups, as in a lot of other domains, the distribution of outcomes follows a power law, but in startups the curve is startlingly steep.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Paul Graham — Essays.