Garry Tan

President & CEO · Y Combinator

Check $125K–$500K

PRE SEED

SEED

Consumer

Devtools

SaaS

Quick profile

Investment thesis

Designers and engineers building fast, simple products. I look for taste, execution speed, and an instinct for what users love.

Communication style

Design-aware, fast, structured. Asks for the demo early.

Red flags

Slow execution

No design taste

Founder who doesn't ship

Signature questions

1.Show me the product right now. What would you change about it tomorrow?

2.What did you ship this week?

3.Tell me about your best user.

Fund facts

Fund size $3.2B

Vintage 2021

DEPLOYING

Coinbase · Seed '12

Instacart · Pre-seed

Flexport · Pre-seed

Poshmark

Eventbrite

Airtable

How to win Garry Tan

AI prep brief from persona data + real pitch history · first section free

What convinces them

•A working product he can click, not slides. He asks for the demo early, so the product is the pitch.

•Speed you can prove: what you shipped this week, not last quarter.

•Design taste. Simple, fast, obvious. He will judge the interface as hard as the business.

•A real user you know by name, with a specific story about what they love.

5 more sections in the full brief

Unlock the full tactical brief, benchmarks, and all discovery matches with Core.

See plans →

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