Article · 12 min read

A Guide to Demo Day Presentations

Y Combinator Free Intermediate

This is the canonical source on the highest-stakes 30 seconds in startups, from the people who coach hundreds of founders through it each batch. Its hard rule matters for your opening: say plainly what you do and why, immediately, because 'a common error is to avoid describing what you do until far into the presentation, and that is always a mistake.' It kills the pretty-but-vague opener before you write it.

  • Lead with your single clearest sentence: 'We deliver groceries to customers in their homes' beats 'next generation AI resolver of grocery needs.'
  • The best pitches are clear, exciting, informative, and memorable, in that order; pizzazz without clarity loses the room.
  • You earn every extra minute of attention, so front-load whatever is most impressive rather than following a template top to bottom.
Open on ycombinator.com ↗

It answers 2 questions

  1. How do I open a pitch in the first 30 seconds so the room actually pays attention?
  2. How do I run demo day so it actually converts to investor meetings and money?

Read with it

  1. This is a working Indian seed VC (Blume backed Unacademy, Purplle, Slice) writing down what it actually looks for, slide by... Blume Ventures Article · 20 min read High Pitched Assessments: the exhaustive list of what makes a good pitch deck Blume Ventures
  2. This is the most direct answer to the question: it argues you should ditch the intro and open like a movie cold open, and it... Feel the Boot Article · 9 min read Cold Start Your Startup Pitch: Hook Investors from the First Second Lance Cottrell
  3. Instead of abstract advice, this dissects the actual DoorDash demo day pitch that turned a 2 minute slot into a $2.4M seed... Slidebean Article · 10 min read DoorDash's YC Demo Day Pitch, Broken Down Slide by Slide Slidebean
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