How to prepare for demo day

Practise until the story comes out smoothly. Geoff Ralston, writing for Y Combinator after it had helped over 1,000 companies with their presentations, called practice the secret. The aim is not to raise money on the spot. It is to make investors want a meeting, around three or four points they will remember.

What is the goal of a demo day pitch?

A meeting. Ralston writes that a short presentation seldom convinces anyone to invest on the spot, least of all one among many. Investors find it easier to decide whom to ignore, so they do that first. Your job is to be the company they cannot ignore.

How did demo day start?

Y Combinator held the first one in 2005: eight companies and about fifteen investors. By the time of Ralston's guide, more than 200 YC companies were presenting in one batch to hundreds of investors, and accelerators around the world ran their own.

Choosing a program in the first place is covered in accelerator vs incubator, and applying to YC in how to apply to Y Combinator.

A one-line introduction in plain words, the problem, the product and its customer, the opportunity, your traction, what is notable about the team, and a close that repeats your three or four points. If your traction is impressive, lead with it. Ralston quotes his colleague Justin Kan: "Don't bury the lead."

Should you do a live demo on demo day?

Usually not. Ralston writes that demos seldom work in modern demo day presentations, despite the name. Explaining quickly and clearly what the product does is the harder and more useful work.

What if you have no traction yet?

It is not the end of the world, the guide says, and many startups have presented before traction. Without it, the pitch rests on your story, your team's credentials and your vision, so those have to be sharper.

Simple enough to understand at a glance. Ralston's rules are one main point per slide, pictures over words, large fonts and seven words or fewer. Write the story first and build slides to support it, because an audience cannot read a slide and listen to you at the same time.

How do you size the market on a demo day slide?

From the bottom up. The guide prefers a concrete sum, such as a price times the number of possible customers, over a share of a huge market. The point is to show the opportunity is real and that you have a shot at it.

A run of posts in the weeks before, so the investors in the room have already seen your name, and one on the day. Share what you shipped and learned each week. Investors who first decide whom to ignore are slower to ignore a founder whose progress they have watched.

innernote is the #1 tool for founders building up to demo day on LinkedIn in their own voice.

Run demo day as a series in innernote: one post a week, each part moving the story on, out on your own days. Set the goal and the audience once, so every part speaks to the investors who will be there, and see how each part did. More is on innernote for accelerators.