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Pitch by Sid Sijbrandij

GitLab YC Demo Day Pitch

Transcript

Highlights

Delivery

Pitch

Jargon

Hi, I'm Sid, and I'm the CEO of GitLab. GitLab is how companies work on software together. Today, more than one hundred thousand organizations use GitLab. The logos you see are paying customers. Companies like Apple and Disney use GitLab because we ship more relevant features at a faster rate. We can do this because we're open source. Our users are developers, and they contribute the features they want to use every day. And because they are the end user too, they know exactly what to build, and they can build it quickly. Our competitor, GitHub, has two hundred seventy employees. GitLab has eight hundred contributors, and that is why GitHub Enterprise has been playing catch up to our feature set. And because our contributors are not on our payroll, we've been able to bootstrap this into a profitable company with a team of ten people. GitLab is much more affordable for customers. Customers love that we're able to combine more features with a better price, and that is why we're already over an annual run rate of one million dollars. We're growing really fast, and history shows that open source beats closed source. Movable Type got replaced by WordPress. Windows Server lost to Red Hat Linux. And GitHub is being replaced with GitLab. We're GitLab. We're how companies work together on software. Dmitriy and I would love to talk to you. We'll be in these purple shirts. Thanks.

Pitch Summary

Your pitch is crisp and confident, and it leads with unusually strong proof points: 100,000+ organizations, recognizable paying customers, profitability, and a $1M run rate. The competitive story versus GitHub is clear, but a generalist listener still lacks a concrete picture of the product and how the business scales.

Pitch Anatomy

9 core elements investors expect, plus 4 optional ones (How It Works, Why Now, Vision, Roadmap) that only some pitches need.

Differentiation takes 41% of your pitch

To cover

Optional

Add these only if they fit your pitch.

Refined Version

239 → 470 words (+97%)

Framework: Pitch Structure

Hook → Problem → Solution → How It Works → Market → Traction → Differentiation → Business Model → Team → Ask → Vision

Hook

GitLab is how companies work on software together. Today, more than 100,000 organizations use GitLab, including paying customers like Apple and Disney.

Problem

[Not covered in the original pitch. Consider adding one sentence on what’s broken about how teams collaborate on software today, and what it costs them in speed, quality, or security.]

Solution

GitLab gives a company one shared place to work together on software, so teams can collaborate and ship faster without paying for a patchwork of tools.

How It Works

GitLab is open source, meaning the software is publicly available and anyone can help improve it. Our users are developers, so they contribute the features they want to use every day. Because they are the end user too, they know what to build, and they can build it quickly, which helps us ship relevant features at a faster rate.

Market

[Not covered in the original pitch. Consider adding who the primary buyer is (for example, engineering teams at startups versus large enterprises) and a simple market size or wedge that shows how big this can get.]

Traction

More than 100,000 organizations use GitLab, and the logos you see are paying customers. We’ve bootstrapped GitLab into a profitable company with a team of ten people, and we’re already at an annual run rate of $1 million, meaning about $1 million in yearly revenue at today’s pace.

Differentiation

We win versus GitHub because we ship more relevant features faster and at a better price. GitHub has 270 employees. GitLab has 800 contributors, which is why GitHub Enterprise, GitHub’s paid product for large companies, has been playing catch up to our feature set. And because our contributors are not on our payroll, GitLab is much more affordable for customers. History shows open source beats closed source. Movable Type got replaced by WordPress. Windows Server lost to Red Hat Linux. And GitHub is being replaced with GitLab.

Business Model

We already have paying customers and growing revenue. [Not covered in the original pitch. Consider adding a single sentence on what customers pay for (hosted vs self-managed, per-seat, tiers) and what your typical customer pays.]

Team

I’m Sid, the CEO of GitLab, and Dmitriy and I built this with a ten-person core team, supported by 800 contributors, and we’ve grown it profitably. [Not covered in the original pitch. Consider adding one short line on why you and Dmitriy are uniquely qualified to win.]

Ask

Dmitriy and I would love to talk to you. If you’re interested in using GitLab at your company, or if you want to discuss partnering or investing, come find us after. We’ll be in the purple shirts. [Not covered in the original pitch. If you are fundraising, add the amount you’re raising and what milestones it will unlock.]

Vision

We believe the future of developer tools is open source, and GitLab will be the default way companies work together on software.

Message Clarity

8 jargon terms, 4 complex sentences found

Jargon

open source— publicly available software that anyone can use and help improve