9 ms·

Village Capital is ditching Demo Days

126 points by kjhughes 10y ago

phantarch 10y ago
This makes a lot of sense. If investors can get a real feel for who they're investing in rather than a lot of marketing/canned pizzaz, I think they'll make consistently better decisions and founders will get a much clearer understanding of where they fall short. Not to say that showing a proof of concept should be ditched entirely, but making a marketing pitch is not always the same as having a good idea.
spodek 10y ago
A related article I wrote as an entrepreneur and professor of entrepreneurship: "11 Reasons Why Business Plan Competitions Should Die": http://www.inc.com/joshua-spodek/11-reasons-why-business-plan-competitions-should-die.html http://www.inc.com/joshua-spodek/11-reasons-why-business-pla...
ptrptr 10y ago
So maybe solution is in changing optics for such events - Demo Days are primary for PR stage play helping humanizing startups and their creators and not for helping entrepreneurs raise money and meet investors?
ilamont 10y ago
I was prepared to skeptical--investors of course will dislike situations which set up competitive bidding scenarios. But the writer has some good points, including demo days favor men more than women, as well as extroverts: For entrepreneurs who don’t pitch well — or who don’t fit investors’ mental image of a successful entrepreneur — Demo Days may hurt more than they help. The preparation teaches entrepreneurs to focus on transactions more than relationships (when, in reality, an in-depth conversation after the pitch matters a lot more than the pitch itself). The Demo Day format is not ideal for investors, either. If you’re picking who pitches best, not who runs the best business, you’re not getting the best results. What I have seen happening at accelerators, universities, and startup events in the Boston area is this intense focus on pitching. It's all about showing off the team, presenting a problem, sharing market or usage stats, prepping a slick video, and getting the deck just right. This approach emphasizes superficial qualities over the product or service being built. Product demos are almost an afterthought, and information about build progress or actual discussions with customers are turned into a couple of bullets on slides 4 and 5. So yeah, by all means, ditch the demo days. But don't assume that focusing on "building relationships" will solve the problems of investors favoring certain types of people, or glossing over product and customer discussions. Extroverted founders and talented salespeople can project empathy, ask the right questions, and send other signals that are more likely to suggest a "good relationship" to investors. These qualities/skills will not determine who runs the best business.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Eerily similar to problems associated with tech interviews: favoring extroverts and smooth pitch-people over substance.
  - surement 10y ago
    How so?
    - monkmartinez 10y ago
      The guys/gals that can express themselves without anxiety are, more generally, going to make a better impression. Those with social anxiety or those with less social skills than those "extroverts" will, more generally, make worse impressions. Any interview/test/discussion without overwhelming objectivity will be subjective by nature and therefore subject to emotional bias.
      - surement 10y ago
        The parent mentioned favoring extroverts so I assume they meant hindering introverts, not people with anxiety.
        rhizome 10y ago
        I think they meant favoring extroverts, regardless of what prevents an extrovert-style presentation.
      - probablybanned 10y ago
        People with good social skills are more valuable to employers, other things equal.
  - vostok 10y ago
    I actually like tech interviews specifically because it's hard to BS your way through them. I've definitely seen smooth talkers with great resumes get through any other filter, but I've never seen a false positive with the technical interview.
sandGorgon 10y ago
Its funding criteria is very unusual - http://vilcap.com/method/ http://vilcap.com/method/ Did they ever have demo days in the first place ? At the end of each program, the entrepreneurs assess each other in an open and transparent process. The two highest-ranked ventures receive seed capital from VilCap Investments and co-investors. In 2013, this peer-selected investment model won the Harvard Business Review/McKinsey M-Prize for innovation. Is a survivor-style fundraising mechanism better than a demo day in front of investors, who are probably well experienced to look beyond stagefright?
- Danihan 10y ago
  Another overlooked aspect of this is simply debate experience and skills. Being able to defend any given perspective quickly and easily is just a learned skill. People who took years of debate have a massive advantage.
hobofan 10y ago
I think for someone that has gone through a startup program most that is written in the article are obvious truths. Yes, there might be a lucky few who benefit from a demo day, because that's one of the few chances where you might get the attention of investors that might usually not be that easy to reach. However most people will meet their investors during the program via some connections. To me, demo days feel like they are mostly PR events for the accelerator. It is a very easy way for an accelerator to get people to notice it, since it is one of the few events an accelerator is usually hosting, where they have significant presence and they can attract a lot of reports with the startups. Apart from that, it is very hard, especially for smaller accelerators, to even be mentioned in an article of one of the startups they funded.
startupdiscuss 10y ago
Does this create an opportunity? Do investors who target women and unattractive men have less competition for the same product? Or does the effect last through all rounds of funding, customers, going public and so on? In that case the investor would be rational to mimic the preferences of the market. I suspect it lasts through a few rounds of funding but at the point the company is large and can afford PR, and so on, it no longer matters. This might mean that the smart investor should target the ignored company if the investor has enough money to get them to the point that they are self-sustaining.
- Danihan 10y ago
  UglyFounders.com?
  - Mangalor 10y ago
    What's ugly is only attractive men getting funding regardless of substance. Like a beauty pageant.
    - syllogism 10y ago
      Ah but this is a Keynesian beauty pageant. The solution is not so simple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest (What I'm saying here is that if an investor believes other investors won't fund the founders, even for stupid reasons, they should pass too.)
    - astrange 10y ago
      This is probably two categories "attractive people" and "men" being conflated, "attractive men" are who you meet on Grindr and not at a VC pitch.
rebootthesystem 10y ago
I don't think there's anything new here. This is real life, human nature --however one might care to put it. Startup demo's are not about demo's at all. From politics to selecting an air conditioning contractor and beyond, presentation and engagement matter a lot. It's not that people are stupid or superficial, these things (and others) create impressions and confidence. And, in some cases, they are crucial to the success of the venture. When I first launched into the world as an entrepreneur, decades ago, I was too much of an engineer. One key element that was missing is I sucked at selling. You can engineer an amazing product but, contrary to the popular saying, people won't beat a path to your door unless you are good at selling it. The history of business is paved with the carcasses of great products that never got off the ground because the people involved couldn't sell them. In my case I recognized this from the very start and actively sought help in the area where I was most deficient. The first few months after we started to sell our hardware product were terrible. I'd mess-up presentation after presentation. Yet, with constant coaching I eventually figured it out. Within about eight months or so I was so comfortable selling that I could actually sell a product without saying a single word about it during a demo. These presentations to potential investors have a far greater purpose than simple product demos. They serve to communicate to the audience a range of information about the entrepreneur. Important data points. One of them being whether or not the person can actually sell what they are making. If you can't sell and are going to hire someone to do so, you might be better off having them do the presentation. Folks who understand selling can sell anything, including a startup looking for funding. To paraphrase an observation made decades ago by Smokey Yunick, a famed race car designer: "When all the smoke and bullshit clears out you have to sell the damn thing".
- ilamont 10y ago
  One of them being whether or not the person can actually sell what they are making. If the founder is indeed going to be in a position of standing up to a group of potential customers and selling something to them, whether it's a car or an expensive software package, then I can see the importance of such a presentation. If, however, the sales takes place in a store, on a website, or in a catalog, then a different set of skills are needed--developing sales funnels, setting up distribution partnerships, converting online visitors, and writing stellar marketing copy. Yet I have never seen a demo day or investor pitch session that focuses on those skills, even though they will have a huge impact on the success or failure of many types of ventures. If you can't sell and are going to hire someone to do so, you might be better off having them do the presentation. That makes sense. Serious question, though: but do demo day organizers encourage it? How would investors or audiences react? Folks who understand selling can sell anything, including a startup looking for funding. I know this is true, yet I find this disappointing. It means that great salespeople can sell a turkey, which not only hurts investors but takes money away from more capable enterprises.
tommynicholas 10y ago
One thing to bear in mind is how different Village Capital is than YC. I think it makes a ton of sense for them to do it this way, I think Techstars (alum!) should consider it, but it does seem like it works for YC.
lebanon_tn 10y ago
Is this what Garry Tan was referring to on Twitter? https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/838101657107881984 https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/838101657107881984
- 2arrs2ells 10y ago
  No - Garry was talking about investors claiming to "skip" YC Demo Day who were never invited in the first place.
  - lebanon_tn 10y ago
    It's not clear to me from the article that Village Capital has attended a YC Demo Day. It only mentions that organizations like YC helped popularize the concept.
hugs 10y ago
This is why I enjoyed the Indie.vc program - No demo day. Instead, stay where you are and focus on building your business. Since the goal is growing a business, not prepping for another funding round, there's no need for a demo day.
- jkaljundi 10y ago
  Can you tell more about the experience? Indie.vc otherwise sounds fantastic. Good option to other debt and loan options for startups.
  - hugs 10y ago
    That's a very open ended question which is hard to answer. Do you have a more specific question? My company (Tapster Robotics) was part of the first Inde.vc "batch" of 8 companies. We were the guinea pigs as we figured out what worked and didn't. But I liked that we didn't have to move (I'm in Chicago), though we did meet up once a quarter in different cities to catch-up for a few days. With no demo day (and no expectation to raise another round) all our discussions revolved around building the business, not grooming ourselves for the perfect investor pitch. My previous startup followed the "traditional" Silicon Valley model of being in forever-VC-pitching mode. This time around, I'm happy to be off that treadmill.
sethbannon 10y ago
"When we surveyed our companies and asked them where they met investors, it was rarely at an actual pitch event." Seems like the author might be learning a lesson based on Village Capital's apparently unsuccessful demo days and applying it to all demo days. As someone who's gone through YC's demo day and who's attended it a few times since, I can tell you that startups meet a lot of great investors there. That some demo days add no value to either startups or investors is not in doubt. That doesn't mean the structure of a demo day makes no sense. One thing YC recently did to address some of the concerns he has is introduce "Investor Day" immediately after their demo day. Will be interesting to see how that experiment plays out. https://blog.ycombinator.com/investor-day/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/investor-day/ All that said, his points about pitch day formats exacerbating existing biases is quite interesting. Would love to see more data on that.
- georgeglue1 10y ago
  That’s why we made the decision to ditch the Demo Day — and why I encourage others to rethink how they support innovation. Notably, the article doesn't call for others to abandon Demo Days. They're just giving a case study on their logic and their startups.
paulcole 10y ago
"Because we were sick of idlewords mocking them incessantly"
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
paulsutter 10y ago
"You desperately need a good pitch when you have a bad company. When you have a great company, you don’t need a great pitch." -Peter Thiel (Maureen Dowd interview NYT)
salimmadjd 10y ago
Former Village Capital graduate here. I consider it one of the biggest waste of my time ever! I'm hoping the program has grown more and I know Ross works hard and I congratulate him on keeping the program going. If you're an international company, perhaps their programs outside of US are more valuable since there are no other options for you. But if you're US based, I would do my homework before joining them. Why? 1 - the program was so disorganized. We were forced to follow this automated Powerpoint slide progression. If you needed it more time on one of your slides you copied the slide twice, to give yourself double the time. So basically we spent 3 months optimizing our pitches around this auto powerpoint process. 2 - we were used to build credibility for Village Capital. They would shuttle us around to their potential LPs to show it was a viable program. That's not bad in itself, however, it felt like we were providing more value to Village Capital, than Village Capital to us. 3 - Very founder-unfriendly terms. As I said we were one of the two top finishers. However, their financing term (which we only learned the details pass the half-way into the program) was nothing short of usury. We were forced to do a down round (by 4x) OR do the revenue share financing, where we would pay back 3X the money they loaned us. I decided not to write about our experience, but given the reach of HN, I decided for the first time to publicly speak about it to warn other founders who might be interested in their program.
- saycheese 10y ago
  Why would you join a program not knowing the terms of doing so?
  - salimmadjd 10y ago
    Lack of experience, probably the #1 reason. I think I just assumed every accelerator more or less followed the standards set by YC or very close to it. Your question made me search my email to see if I missed something. I had't it just mentioned the amount and no details. Other reason was, in their interview they did a great job selling us on how they have a network of investors as well as the largest hospital system in the world (partnering with them) where it will give us access to so much more than just their capital. At the halfway point, we had a Webex call when their finance person took us through their financial terms. We still thought we were okay, since they indicated they would follow up on our existing seed terms. Well, they renegade that when the time came! Telling us, this would be a new term since our old term closed a while back. Afterwards, I remember arguing with them when it came to their term sheet and using YC as the benchmark. It didn't persuade them. So, the learning lesson for young founders who read this. Do your due diligence for the lessor known accelerators. Not just on financial terms. But overall benefits of the program.

126 points by kjhughes 10y ago

This makes a lot of sense. If investors can get a real feel for who they're investing in rather than a lot of marketing/canned pizzaz, I think they'll make consistently better decisions and founders will get a much clearer understanding of where they fall short. Not to say that showing a proof of concept should be ditched entirely, but making a marketing pitch is not always the same as having a good idea.

spodek 10y ago

A related article I wrote as an entrepreneur and professor of entrepreneurship: "11 Reasons Why Business Plan Competitions Should Die": http://www.inc.com/joshua-spodek/11-reasons-why-business-plan-competitions-should-die.html http://www.inc.com/joshua-spodek/11-reasons-why-business-pla...

ptrptr 10y ago

So maybe solution is in changing optics for such events - Demo Days are primary for PR stage play helping humanizing startups and their creators and not for helping entrepreneurs raise money and meet investors?

ilamont 10y ago

I was prepared to skeptical--investors of course will dislike situations which set up competitive bidding scenarios. But the writer has some good points, including demo days favor men more than women, as well as extroverts: For entrepreneurs who don’t pitch well — or who don’t fit investors’ mental image of a successful entrepreneur — Demo Days may hurt more than they help. The preparation teaches entrepreneurs to focus on transactions more than relationships (when, in reality, an in-depth conversation after the pitch matters a lot more than the pitch itself). The Demo Day format is not ideal for investors, either. If you’re picking who pitches best, not who runs the best business, you’re not getting the best results. What I have seen happening at accelerators, universities, and startup events in the Boston area is this intense focus on pitching. It's all about showing off the team, presenting a problem, sharing market or usage stats, prepping a slick video, and getting the deck just right. This approach emphasizes superficial qualities over the product or service being built. Product demos are almost an afterthought, and information about build progress or actual discussions with customers are turned into a couple of bullets on slides 4 and 5. So yeah, by all means, ditch the demo days. But don't assume that focusing on "building relationships" will solve the problems of investors favoring certain types of people, or glossing over product and customer discussions. Extroverted founders and talented salespeople can project empathy, ask the right questions, and send other signals that are more likely to suggest a "good relationship" to investors. These qualities/skills will not determine who runs the best business.

ryandrake 10y ago
Eerily similar to problems associated with tech interviews: favoring extroverts and smooth pitch-people over substance.
- surement 10y ago
  How so?
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    The guys/gals that can express themselves without anxiety are, more generally, going to make a better impression. Those with social anxiety or those with less social skills than those "extroverts" will, more generally, make worse impressions. Any interview/test/discussion without overwhelming objectivity will be subjective by nature and therefore subject to emotional bias.
    - surement 10y ago
      The parent mentioned favoring extroverts so I assume they meant hindering introverts, not people with anxiety.
      - rhizome 10y ago
        I think they meant favoring extroverts, regardless of what prevents an extrovert-style presentation.
    - probablybanned 10y ago
      People with good social skills are more valuable to employers, other things equal.
- vostok 10y ago
  I actually like tech interviews specifically because it's hard to BS your way through them. I've definitely seen smooth talkers with great resumes get through any other filter, but I've never seen a false positive with the technical interview.

sandGorgon 10y ago

Its funding criteria is very unusual - http://vilcap.com/method/ http://vilcap.com/method/ Did they ever have demo days in the first place ? At the end of each program, the entrepreneurs assess each other in an open and transparent process. The two highest-ranked ventures receive seed capital from VilCap Investments and co-investors. In 2013, this peer-selected investment model won the Harvard Business Review/McKinsey M-Prize for innovation. Is a survivor-style fundraising mechanism better than a demo day in front of investors, who are probably well experienced to look beyond stagefright?

Danihan 10y ago
Another overlooked aspect of this is simply debate experience and skills. Being able to defend any given perspective quickly and easily is just a learned skill. People who took years of debate have a massive advantage.

hobofan 10y ago

I think for someone that has gone through a startup program most that is written in the article are obvious truths. Yes, there might be a lucky few who benefit from a demo day, because that's one of the few chances where you might get the attention of investors that might usually not be that easy to reach. However most people will meet their investors during the program via some connections. To me, demo days feel like they are mostly PR events for the accelerator. It is a very easy way for an accelerator to get people to notice it, since it is one of the few events an accelerator is usually hosting, where they have significant presence and they can attract a lot of reports with the startups. Apart from that, it is very hard, especially for smaller accelerators, to even be mentioned in an article of one of the startups they funded.

startupdiscuss 10y ago

Does this create an opportunity? Do investors who target women and unattractive men have less competition for the same product? Or does the effect last through all rounds of funding, customers, going public and so on? In that case the investor would be rational to mimic the preferences of the market. I suspect it lasts through a few rounds of funding but at the point the company is large and can afford PR, and so on, it no longer matters. This might mean that the smart investor should target the ignored company if the investor has enough money to get them to the point that they are self-sustaining.

Danihan 10y ago
UglyFounders.com?
- Mangalor 10y ago
  What's ugly is only attractive men getting funding regardless of substance. Like a beauty pageant.
  - syllogism 10y ago
    Ah but this is a Keynesian beauty pageant. The solution is not so simple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest (What I'm saying here is that if an investor believes other investors won't fund the founders, even for stupid reasons, they should pass too.)
  - astrange 10y ago
    This is probably two categories "attractive people" and "men" being conflated, "attractive men" are who you meet on Grindr and not at a VC pitch.

rebootthesystem 10y ago

I don't think there's anything new here. This is real life, human nature --however one might care to put it. Startup demo's are not about demo's at all. From politics to selecting an air conditioning contractor and beyond, presentation and engagement matter a lot. It's not that people are stupid or superficial, these things (and others) create impressions and confidence. And, in some cases, they are crucial to the success of the venture. When I first launched into the world as an entrepreneur, decades ago, I was too much of an engineer. One key element that was missing is I sucked at selling. You can engineer an amazing product but, contrary to the popular saying, people won't beat a path to your door unless you are good at selling it. The history of business is paved with the carcasses of great products that never got off the ground because the people involved couldn't sell them. In my case I recognized this from the very start and actively sought help in the area where I was most deficient. The first few months after we started to sell our hardware product were terrible. I'd mess-up presentation after presentation. Yet, with constant coaching I eventually figured it out. Within about eight months or so I was so comfortable selling that I could actually sell a product without saying a single word about it during a demo. These presentations to potential investors have a far greater purpose than simple product demos. They serve to communicate to the audience a range of information about the entrepreneur. Important data points. One of them being whether or not the person can actually sell what they are making. If you can't sell and are going to hire someone to do so, you might be better off having them do the presentation. Folks who understand selling can sell anything, including a startup looking for funding. To paraphrase an observation made decades ago by Smokey Yunick, a famed race car designer: "When all the smoke and bullshit clears out you have to sell the damn thing".

ilamont 10y ago
One of them being whether or not the person can actually sell what they are making. If the founder is indeed going to be in a position of standing up to a group of potential customers and selling something to them, whether it's a car or an expensive software package, then I can see the importance of such a presentation. If, however, the sales takes place in a store, on a website, or in a catalog, then a different set of skills are needed--developing sales funnels, setting up distribution partnerships, converting online visitors, and writing stellar marketing copy. Yet I have never seen a demo day or investor pitch session that focuses on those skills, even though they will have a huge impact on the success or failure of many types of ventures. If you can't sell and are going to hire someone to do so, you might be better off having them do the presentation. That makes sense. Serious question, though: but do demo day organizers encourage it? How would investors or audiences react? Folks who understand selling can sell anything, including a startup looking for funding. I know this is true, yet I find this disappointing. It means that great salespeople can sell a turkey, which not only hurts investors but takes money away from more capable enterprises.

tommynicholas 10y ago

One thing to bear in mind is how different Village Capital is than YC. I think it makes a ton of sense for them to do it this way, I think Techstars (alum!) should consider it, but it does seem like it works for YC.

lebanon_tn 10y ago

Is this what Garry Tan was referring to on Twitter? https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/838101657107881984 https://twitter.com/garrytan/status/838101657107881984

2arrs2ells 10y ago
No - Garry was talking about investors claiming to "skip" YC Demo Day who were never invited in the first place.
- lebanon_tn 10y ago
  It's not clear to me from the article that Village Capital has attended a YC Demo Day. It only mentions that organizations like YC helped popularize the concept.

hugs 10y ago

This is why I enjoyed the Indie.vc program - No demo day. Instead, stay where you are and focus on building your business. Since the goal is growing a business, not prepping for another funding round, there's no need for a demo day.

jkaljundi 10y ago
Can you tell more about the experience? Indie.vc otherwise sounds fantastic. Good option to other debt and loan options for startups.
- hugs 10y ago
  That's a very open ended question which is hard to answer. Do you have a more specific question? My company (Tapster Robotics) was part of the first Inde.vc "batch" of 8 companies. We were the guinea pigs as we figured out what worked and didn't. But I liked that we didn't have to move (I'm in Chicago), though we did meet up once a quarter in different cities to catch-up for a few days. With no demo day (and no expectation to raise another round) all our discussions revolved around building the business, not grooming ourselves for the perfect investor pitch. My previous startup followed the "traditional" Silicon Valley model of being in forever-VC-pitching mode. This time around, I'm happy to be off that treadmill.

sethbannon 10y ago

"When we surveyed our companies and asked them where they met investors, it was rarely at an actual pitch event." Seems like the author might be learning a lesson based on Village Capital's apparently unsuccessful demo days and applying it to all demo days. As someone who's gone through YC's demo day and who's attended it a few times since, I can tell you that startups meet a lot of great investors there. That some demo days add no value to either startups or investors is not in doubt. That doesn't mean the structure of a demo day makes no sense. One thing YC recently did to address some of the concerns he has is introduce "Investor Day" immediately after their demo day. Will be interesting to see how that experiment plays out. https://blog.ycombinator.com/investor-day/ https://blog.ycombinator.com/investor-day/ All that said, his points about pitch day formats exacerbating existing biases is quite interesting. Would love to see more data on that.

georgeglue1 10y ago
That’s why we made the decision to ditch the Demo Day — and why I encourage others to rethink how they support innovation. Notably, the article doesn't call for others to abandon Demo Days. They're just giving a case study on their logic and their startups.

paulcole 10y ago

"Because we were sick of idlewords mocking them incessantly"

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

paulsutter 10y ago

"You desperately need a good pitch when you have a bad company. When you have a great company, you don’t need a great pitch." -Peter Thiel (Maureen Dowd interview NYT)

salimmadjd 10y ago

Former Village Capital graduate here. I consider it one of the biggest waste of my time ever! I'm hoping the program has grown more and I know Ross works hard and I congratulate him on keeping the program going. If you're an international company, perhaps their programs outside of US are more valuable since there are no other options for you. But if you're US based, I would do my homework before joining them. Why? 1 - the program was so disorganized. We were forced to follow this automated Powerpoint slide progression. If you needed it more time on one of your slides you copied the slide twice, to give yourself double the time. So basically we spent 3 months optimizing our pitches around this auto powerpoint process. 2 - we were used to build credibility for Village Capital. They would shuttle us around to their potential LPs to show it was a viable program. That's not bad in itself, however, it felt like we were providing more value to Village Capital, than Village Capital to us. 3 - Very founder-unfriendly terms. As I said we were one of the two top finishers. However, their financing term (which we only learned the details pass the half-way into the program) was nothing short of usury. We were forced to do a down round (by 4x) OR do the revenue share financing, where we would pay back 3X the money they loaned us. I decided not to write about our experience, but given the reach of HN, I decided for the first time to publicly speak about it to warn other founders who might be interested in their program.

saycheese 10y ago
Why would you join a program not knowing the terms of doing so?
- salimmadjd 10y ago
  Lack of experience, probably the #1 reason. I think I just assumed every accelerator more or less followed the standards set by YC or very close to it. Your question made me search my email to see if I missed something. I had't it just mentioned the amount and no details. Other reason was, in their interview they did a great job selling us on how they have a network of investors as well as the largest hospital system in the world (partnering with them) where it will give us access to so much more than just their capital. At the halfway point, we had a Webex call when their finance person took us through their financial terms. We still thought we were okay, since they indicated they would follow up on our existing seed terms. Well, they renegade that when the time came! Telling us, this would be a new term since our old term closed a while back. Afterwards, I remember arguing with them when it came to their term sheet and using YC as the benchmark. It didn't persuade them. So, the learning lesson for young founders who read this. Do your due diligence for the lessor known accelerators. Not just on financial terms. But overall benefits of the program.