YC Demo Day: behind the scene

Imagine this: Thousands of investors discover 200 of the world's best startups. Each startup has 1 minute to convince them over Zoom. Here's how to stand out:

Me presenting at YC S23 Demo Day in my living room 🙂

A few days ago, I was at the W24 Y Combinator Demo Day Reception. It was strange for me as I was there this time as an investor (Angel) and not as a startup. Last summer, I was the one presenting and was shocked to discover we only had... 1 minute. No more. They even cut you off if you exceed this timing.

So, how do you convince investors who are investing on average 2-4 million (total investment) in just 1 minute?

Well... I'll explain to you, below:

How to convince investors in 1 minute:

1. Start by having a script: It might sound unnatural, but having a script helps you to gather your ideas and what you really want them to take away from you.

2. Time yourself: You want to express the big picture and how you achieve it within 60 seconds. The best way to do this is to time yourself practicing your script.

3. Smile: I know... you're in your living room, probably alone with your camera, and you know others are looking at you thinking: is this the next billion-dollar company? Smiling while you speak (even if you have to force it) helps you get better at presenting and makes the presentation warmer.

4. Speak slowly if possible: I'm a French native, so I need to speak slowly to ensure people understand me. But also, rhythm is important; the slower you speak, the more confident you'll appear (think about politicians haha).

5. Start big, explain how, finish with an open remark:

   • Every minute, $1m is lost in unpaid invoices in the US ($824b market).

   • At Respaid, we collect 50% of accounts receivable within 20 days.

   • We signed major customers (Flexport, Deel...) helping us become the US #1 leader.

How to leverage Demo Day?

Demo Day is a great way to set a deadline. Not only for you but also for investors. Think of a timeline that everybody needs to follow and is forced to because it's set by something neutral: YC. Thanks to this deadline, investors know that at a specific date you'll be public to all other investors. Here's my way to use it to create momentum and expedite the fundraising process:

• For investors reaching out to me asking about investing, I usually said I'd wait for Demo Day (or eventually 1 week before).

• For investor meetings, I'd say, now we're public, we've received a lot of interest, so I tend not to take too much of my time as I prefer to focus on product improvement and chatting with customers.

How was S23 vs W24 Demo Day?

For several batches, because of COVID, there were no in-person events around Demo Day. Even for us, at Respaid (YC S23), everything was over Zoom. This year, W24 startups were lucky to have an investor reception. And I can tell... you can feel the energy! Not only from startups but also from investors.

Even if my batch was amazing, W24 is really powerful. It's not only about AI but building concrete products that you can use right now. I discovered tools that we're already implementing at Respaid: providing amazing analytics to our users powered by AI (e.g., how much was collected this month and who hasn't paid?)

I also met a group partner who helped me last summer launch in the US and make the right decisions (e.g., focus on Enterprise only). See some pictures below.

Michael Seibel x Me (John Banner)

• Funding 3000+ startups, including 30+ unicorns (and counting) 

• Funding founders from 90+ countries around the world 

• Funding 1000 companies with underrepresented founders (women, Hispanic, Black)

• Demo Days that now produce nearly half a billion dollars of funding per batch 

• 10x increase in YC applications

• Recruiting 8 current YC Group Partners and 20+ current and former Visiting YC Group Partners 

• Transforming YC into an entirely remote experience during COVID

• Returning to an entirely new in-person program with new offices in San Francisco

• Investing $500k in each YC startup with our new standard deal

• A YC Deals database featuring over $1m of free credits and discounts per YC startup

• An investor database with reviews of thousands of VC firms

• Powerful alumni directory to connect all 10,000 YC alumni 

• An expanded user manual with over 350 articles of advice on startups

• Work at a Startup, a hiring platform exclusively for YC startups

• A platform for launching YC startups and public websites for every YC company

• A large library of startup content available for all future YC founders on Youtube

// this was taken from a YC Communication you can find here

Michael Ma x Me (John Banner)

Michael has recently created District, the most selective community for cryptos lover and founder/investors interested to raise a next generation of community in San Francisco.
When Joe Montana started his $25 million seed fund in 2015, he tapped Ma to be one of his two founding general partners. Michael previously sold his Y Combinator backed startup TalkBin to Google in 2011, where he held various roles including lead mobile product manager for Google My Business.

As always: YC anticipate everything.
Demo Day was on multiple level and to not disadvantage startups and randomise traffic, they were organised by name. Simple but efficient.

I plan to write more post about what’s like to be a YC founder, eventually a YC dad? (I have 4 kids under 4) Let me know your thought to share insightful and more important useful post 🙂 (my email)