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hopefully this arrives in time to help some people out this weekend :) my #1 piece of advice to anybody that asked me about interviews: have a demo! even if it

hopefully this arrives in time to help some people out this weekend :) my #1 piece of advice to anybody that asked me about interviews: have a demo! even if it's something that you whipped up in 2 days, let them know that, but have a demo!

mlinsey 18y ago
Generally this is true, but keep in mind that a non-technical audience will often have strong negative reaction to a demo based on what seem to hackers as the silliest, most trivial things: a rough-around-the-edges design, links that don't work yet, minor UI glitches, etc. Bear in mind that this audience can't distinguish between your application and your application's UI, so the most important part of the linked article is probably "It has to look really, really cool." Of course, it sounds like you're giving advice on one event specifically, so the above may not apply. What's happening this weekend, anyway?
- drusenko 18y ago
  that's a good way to explain what I was trying to capture in the "looking really cool" point. a demo is a visual thing, and people don't distinguish between the UI and the application, so make sure everything looks smooth. i wrote this post about all technical demos, but released it today as the YC interviews are coming up this weekend.
- jrockway 18y ago
  > ... links that don't work yet ... Personally, I've found that clients react fine to broken links when there's something at the other end like a message that says "this doesn't work yet." But this is in the case where they're trying out their software halfway through on their own... not a demo up on stage or them trying out the complete project. The basic idea to take away is that non-technical types don't like to be surprised. If they know something isn't going to work, and they click on it and it says "this isn't quite ready yet", everyone will be OK with that :)

mlinsey 18y ago

Generally this is true, but keep in mind that a non-technical audience will often have strong negative reaction to a demo based on what seem to hackers as the silliest, most trivial things: a rough-around-the-edges design, links that don't work yet, minor UI glitches, etc. Bear in mind that this audience can't distinguish between your application and your application's UI, so the most important part of the linked article is probably "It has to look really, really cool." Of course, it sounds like you're giving advice on one event specifically, so the above may not apply. What's happening this weekend, anyway?

drusenko 18y ago
that's a good way to explain what I was trying to capture in the "looking really cool" point. a demo is a visual thing, and people don't distinguish between the UI and the application, so make sure everything looks smooth. i wrote this post about all technical demos, but released it today as the YC interviews are coming up this weekend.
jrockway 18y ago
> ... links that don't work yet ... Personally, I've found that clients react fine to broken links when there's something at the other end like a message that says "this doesn't work yet." But this is in the case where they're trying out their software halfway through on their own... not a demo up on stage or them trying out the complete project. The basic idea to take away is that non-technical types don't like to be surprised. If they know something isn't going to work, and they click on it and it says "this isn't quite ready yet", everyone will be OK with that :)