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SF Y Demo Practice
For those of you flying to Cambridge (we didn't make it) and those who did not but have an application that they need practice demoing and would like feedback, I propose having 2 practice demo runs prior to the YC deadline. The first one to find the glaring problems, and the second to polish the presentation. We are going to demo for other investors, so we need the practice too. We have an office right across from Cnet.com with a large conference room perfect for demoing. Let me know if you're interested.
- brk 19y agoA good suggestion. Multiple real-life runs through your demo can help you get comfortable with it, and weed out the rough spots. If anyone is interested, I work in Cambridge (not YC related), and have a fair bit of startup experience in many areas (biz dev, operations, sales, etc) and would be happy to preview demos and give pointers and honest feedback.
- danielha 19y agoRegarding the interview, there's not much of a presentation to practice, really. It may just be generally helpful to receive solid feedback along the way, but practicing a scripted demonstration for YC is largely unnecessary.
- gibsonf1 19y agoI'm thinking more along the lines of brk's comment in getting comfortable with the demo part of the interview and the pitch - similar to what any startup (ourselves included) needs to practice constantly to get really good and essentialize the message based on how it is understood by others. Removing as much of the stress element for interviewing is key for the founders to be able to focus on communicating about their team and plans - and getting comfortable in front of an audience is pretty important to prevent angst from interfering with the message. It is no accident that Jobs practices for his presentations :) We've decided that in addition to launching soon, we want to raise some money to build out our application faster - so we need the practice ourselves.
- pg 19y agoThere are no presentations at YC. We just talk.