ITR #009: Your Fundraising Backbone

Welcome to the latest edition of “Into the Ring” - my biweekly newsletter on how to successfully plan & execute on your startup fundraise. As a reminder, I’m Jorian Hoover and I’m a Startup Fundraising Sparring Partner. I guide Pre-Seed thru Series A founders through their fundraising process, and you can check out how to work with me here.

Before we get to today’s topic on fundraising vertebrae, a quick plug for any employers looking to hire a Harvard Business School MBA grad. Many HBS students are excited to work in startups & tech, and are ready to be a scrappy hire for your business. They’re typically strong in areas such as project management, customer discovery, new product launches, business development, strategy creation, etc

If you’re an employer, HBS is holding an on-campus recruiting fair on Friday, March 28, and you can register here. As a bonus, you’ll get to do an in-person case discussion with Prof. Mitch Weiss before the recruiting day begins.

Now on to today’s newsletter topic: how to build your fundraising vertebrae like a Y Combinator startup.

Introduction: Why Some Pitches Resonate and Others Fall Flat

If you’ve ever found yourself tweaking your pitch based on who you’re talking to, struggling to articulate why your startup is a must-invest opportunity, or getting mixed responses from investors, you’re not alone. Many founders enter fundraising without a structured, repeatable investment narrative—and that’s a problem.

Y Combinator (YC), the most renowned startup accelerator in the world, teaches its founders a crucial fundraising principle: the fundraising vertebrae. This concept provides the backbone of a strong fundraise, ensuring that investors walk away with an unshakable belief in your company’s inevitability. Without it, your fundraising narrative risks being scattered, unconvincing, and forgettable.

Investors make fast decisions. If you don’t have a clear, structured approach, you’ll get lost in the noise. The best founders build their fundraising vertebrae before stepping into investor meetings, giving them a powerful advantage in securing funding quickly and efficiently.

Let’s break down what fundraising vertebrae are, why they matter, and how you can develop your own to raise capital like a YC startup.

What Are Fundraising Vertebrae?

Your fundraising vertebrae are the 3-5 core truths that make investing in your startup a no-brainer. These truths serve as the structural foundation of your fundraising pitch, guiding your deck, investor conversations, and responses to tough questions.

Why YC Emphasizes Fundraising Vertebrae

YC teaches founders that a great fundraise is built on clarity, conviction, and consistency—and your vertebrae ensure all three. When your key fundraising points are rock-solid, you can:

• Deliver a pitch that is memorable and repeatable.

• Make it easy for investors to pitch you to their partners.

• Handle investor pushback with confidence, rather than scrambling for answers.

• Maintain a consistent narrative throughout your entire fundraising process.

The Risks of Raising Without Strong Vertebrae

Founders who lack strong fundraising vertebrae face serious challenges, including:

• Lack of investor conviction – If you don’t have clear reasons why your startup will win, investors won’t either.

• Scattered storytelling – Without a clear backbone, founders end up shifting their pitch too much, leading to confusion.

• Weak competitive positioning – Without strong vertebrae, it’s hard to answer "Why you?" in a crowded market.

• Ineffective follow-ups – When investors push back, strong vertebrae help founders stay consistent rather than scrambling to answer differently each time.

How to Define Your Fundraising Vertebrae

YC advises founders to start by answering one fundamental question: “Why is this startup inevitable?” The answer usually falls into one (or more) of five key categories:

1) Team – Why is this the right team to win?

• Do you have a unique insight, technical expertise, or an unfair advantage?

• Are you the world’s best team to solve this specific problem?

• Example: “Our team built the core recommendation algorithm at TikTok—no one understands viral engagement better than we do.”

2) Market – Why is this a massive opportunity, and why now?

• Is your market large enough to support a venture-scale business?

• Is there a structural shift happening that makes now the perfect time?

• Example: “This is a $10B market that’s being disrupted by a generational shift in consumer behavior.”

3) Product – What makes your product fundamentally better?

• Do you have a technological breakthrough or a unique wedge into the market?

• Why can’t someone else just copy what you’re doing?

• Example: “We’re the first company to automate X process, reducing costs by 90%.”

4) Growth – What traction proves this is working?

• Do you have strong revenue, user growth, or engagement metrics?

• What numbers demonstrate product-market fit?

• Example: “We’re already doing $200K MRR with 30% MoM growth, entirely bootstrapped.”

5) Defensibility – What prevents someone else from winning?

• Do you have network effects, data moats, or a distribution advantage?

• What makes your startup sustainable in the long run?

• Example: “Our dataset is 10x larger than anyone else’s, giving us an insurmountable lead.”

By identifying your top 3-5 vertebrae from these categories, you create a fundraising narrative that is simple, clear, and deeply compelling to investors.

How to Test and Refine Your Fundraising Vertebrae

Once you’ve drafted your vertebrae, it’s time to pressure-test them. YC recommends using these two key methods:

1) The Investor Repeatability Test

• Would an investor remember your key points well enough to pitch them to their partners?

• Are your vertebrae concise, differentiated, and compelling?

• If an investor can’t repeat your core strengths, your message isn’t clear enough.

2) Iterating Based on Investor Feedback

• Take notes on how investors respond—where do they push back?

• If multiple investors misunderstand a key point, reframe or simplify it.

• Strong vertebrae evolve over time, becoming sharper with each conversation.

Final Thoughts: Why Strong Fundraising Vertebrae Lead to Faster Fundraises

The best YC-backed startups don’t just wing their fundraising narrative—they construct a rock-solid backbone that makes their startup easy to understand, easy to believe in, and easy to fund.

Before you go into your next investor conversation, ask yourself:

• Do I have 3-5 clear, defensible fundraising vertebrae?

• Can I state each one in a single, compelling sentence?

• Would an investor remember and repeat these reasons to their partners?

If the answer isn’t a confident “yes,” go back and refine. Your fundraising success depends on it.

Mastering your fundraising vertebrae isn’t just about raising capital—it’s about building a clear, scalable narrative that will serve your startup far beyond this round.

YC founders do it. You should too.

👉Need help defining vertebrae for your upcoming fundraise? I would love to help.

Every other week, I’ll be reaching out to my network to get their take on important questions on every aspect of fundraising. Got a question you’d like me to ask? Let me know.

Q: What’s the most creative way you’ve found investors?

Thanks for stepping Into the Ring 🙏

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👉 I’ve helped 30+ founders raise over $130M. Curious to work with me? You can learn more about what that looks like on my website.

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