Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 18, 2014

The frantic pace of technology cycles, the amount of tech news, the blogs, the conferences, the demo days, the announcements, the fundings, the IPOs. As VCs we’re inundated with emails from founders, friends, colleagues, angels, seed investors, VCs, law firms, venture banks, corporates and so forth with their favorite deals.

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peer-to-peer pitching VC accelerator 317

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 2, 2015

One time, I spoke at a meetup that was divided into my talk and demos--and the organizer assumed I wanted to go on before the demos. I didn''t understand why it would matter, but she told me that most of the investors like going before so they could skip out after the demos and not get bombared at the end of the event.

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pitching peer-to-peer venture capital creativity 368

Innovation 2 Enterprise

JANUARY 30, 2024

On Wednesday, January 24, the inaugural cohort of startups from i2E’s Bridge2 Pre-Accelerator program presented their groundbreaking innovations during the Bridge2 Demo Day at Sailor & The Dock in Oklahoma City. During Demo Day, attendees heard pitch presentations from five founders who participated in the initial Bridge2 cohort.

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mentorship SaaS accelerator pitching 96

TechCrunch

JULY 13, 2022

It seems like every time a demo day ends , there’s a new one waiting around the corner — and as you know, TechCrunch is no stranger to covering them. But today we’re highlighting the demo day for a new wave of crypto projects and teams who participated in the latest cohort for Alliance DAO, a web3 accelerator and builder community.

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accelerator peer-to-peer pitching networking 136

Entrepreneurs' Organization

OCTOBER 23, 2024

As the founder of a folder printing company, I often get asked how to design folders that effectively guide prospects through the buying journey. Contributed to EO by Vladimir Gendelman, an EO Detroit member and founder and CEO of Company Folders, Inc. , Make CTAs stand out with a contrasting color or larger font size.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

This obviously doesn’t scale once the founder can’t be in every sales meeting. You want to be able to demonstrate your product and the best way I call, “A day in the life of …” where you show the demo as though you’re a user with a problem that needs to be solved. If you need demo tips I’ve covered that before.

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500

APRIL 6, 2020

On our end, we hosted our first-ever Digital Demo Day to ensure the safety and protection of our team and founders. Using YouTube Live and recorded presentations, as well as an investor-founder Slack channel, we found success in this new format. If you missed the event, watch it here. If you missed the event, watch it here.

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investment investing startup founder 256

This is going to be BIG.

MAY 14, 2012

Sun's space was for it's customer assistance unit and Cornell just had a demo space patched into a supercomputer back on campus. It needs to go house to house--founders and employees getting matched through individual e-mail intros, deals happening over handshakes, and startups getting recruited into your ecosystem one at a time.

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coworking spaces communities coworking accelerator 364

American Entrepreneurship

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

The disruptive technology-enabled startups are being showcased at its Demo Day, following their five-month participation in the Labs’ accelerator program. “At Today’s Demo Day showcases the Inclusive Ventures Lab’s largest and most global cohort to date, underscoring our mission to advance a more equitable investment landscape worldwide.”’

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disruption ventures startup mentorship 97

David Teten VC

JULY 27, 2021

We have collected a wide range of freebies, contests, accelerators, online communities, and VCs designed for student tech founders. The Kauffman Foundation found 47% of US tech founders held degrees in STEM while 34% held degrees in business, finance, and accounting. 1) Freebies for Student Tech Founders. Right here.

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founder mentorship peer-to-peer pitching 144

TechCrunch

APRIL 7, 2023

Y Combinator’s Demo Day took place this week , and although the event itself was virtual-only, 86% of the founders in YC’s winter 2023 batch lived in SF while participating. As a result, “the average Black founder raises less than around $1,000 from family and friends,” reports Dominic-Madori Davis.

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Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? ” As far as “terms” go I’m 100% aligned to have the most vanilla, founder-friendly terms I can. So I stand by my well-read Quora post of why I don’t attend demo days. What stage?

advice 361

advice VC pitching entrepreneurs 361

Jason Malki

JUNE 18, 2025

Josh Canale I had the pleasure of interviewing Josh Canale, the founder of Josh Canale Design  — a solo UX consultancy that helps early-stage AI startups turn complex tech into adoption-ready product experiences. I didn’t come from a business background, so I’ve been spending a ton of time learning from other founders and experts.

startup 52

startup consulting mix-use support 52

500

MAY 15, 2020

When news broke of COVID-19 entering in the US, we were one of the first major accelerators to turn the Demo Day experience completely virtual, and since then, we have focused on collecting data from investors and founders to help the community at-large through reports like our COVID-19 Investor Survey and Female Founders Survey.

accelerator 264

accelerator communities founder startup 264

500

JUNE 9, 2020

Supply chains have been disrupted, businesses have had to close or operate at limited capacity for months, and even founders have had to expand their fundraising timeframes as we saw in our 2020 Female Founders Data Report. As a VC firm, we’ve had to adapt many aspects of our business as well.

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frameworks investment investing disruption 202

This is going to be BIG.

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a founder that I backed and he was telling me how excited he was about his company. And trust me, a demo never makes a difference. He said the path was so clear that he could literally see it--and that''s the way he''s always been since I met him.

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venture capital networking technology capital 420

Y Combinator

JULY 26, 2022

On the morning of September 7th and September 8th, 2022, YC will host our 35th Demo Day live on Zoom. This two day event will feature founders from 30 countries and startups in every sector — open source, ML/AI, dev tools, fintech, B2B SaaS, consumer, healthcare, hard tech, and more.

SaaS 98

SaaS investment investing founder 98

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

Should I trust my instincts for founders and products or should I be more focused on the market size or business plan? ” As far as “terms” go I’m 100% aligned to have the most vanilla, founder-friendly terms I can. So I stand by my well-read Quora post of why I don’t attend demo days. What stage?

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VC advice pitching entrepreneurs 347

Dream It

AUGUST 10, 2020

Adam Dakin , Managing Director of Dreamit Healthtech, sees founders make the same common pitch mistakes over and over. The self-proclaimed superlatives founders use to describe their startup often fail to elicit the intended response from investors. Way too many founders do this and it’s a surefire way to be labeled as a rookie.

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pitching disruption startup advice 341

TechCrunch

JULY 6, 2021

Influential entrepreneurs like Paul Graham and Naval Ravikant always preach the need for startups to have founders-turned-investors on their cap table. As Ravikant puts it, “founders want to know that the people they are taking money from have first-hand experience.” . MAGIC Fund has 12 founders who act as general partners.

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500

DECEMBER 17, 2019

Our final group of startups batch consists of founders from all over Latin America, including five companies from Mexico, one company from Chile, two companies from Colombia, and one company from Peru. Throughout the four-month program, founders will put in hard work to prepare for Demo Day in March of 2020.

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Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 18, 2015

There are too many deals to look at, too many seed funds or angels asking you to look at deals and weekly “demo days” with manicured and monocultural presentations crafted by experienced story tellers to help even the mundane idea sound like it will. For investors life is no different.

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advice VC entrepreneurs transportation 398

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2014

Don’t even get me started on Demo Days. You could spent 20 days / year at Demo Days now. Co-founder discontent. Reference checking is to confirm or disprove a strong, positive intuition you already have about founders that could lead to an investment or a pass. You have to deal with CEOs who resign. Motives matter.

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VC investment investing entrepreneurs 374

Dream It

APRIL 7, 2020

This was the first time we've done a virtual Kickoff Week, and our team at Dreamit is even more excited to get to know these amazing founders in person when things return to normal. ?? This pandemic is accelerating a trend in more and more startups utilizing remote workforces and closing sales with virtual demos,” states Barsh. “As

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ventures accelerator enablement communities 369

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

startup accelerator with global outreach that conducts demo days twice a year. For participating founders, it’s a critical day; for investors, it’s a buffet; for us in the media, it’s a chance to look at lots of companies, each hoping to be the next hit from the well-known startup backer.

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TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

It can be risky to ask creators to rely on a possibly precarious, pre-seed company to power an important aspect of their business — if you fail, as most startups do, you might inadvertently end up hurting other independent entrepreneurs, which is (hopefully) the last thing a founder wants. ” Image Credits: Jamble.

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real estate creativity sustainability founder 123

500

MAY 22, 2019

Our latest batch consists of founders from all over Latin America including 6 companies from Mexico, 2 from Chile, 2 from Colombia, and 1 from Argentina. 500 Startups is excited to announce the latest batch from our Seed Accelerator based in Mexico City. Batch 10’s startups will continue to put in. appeared first on 500 Startups.

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StartupNation

SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

Sometimes when you’re in the zone as a founder, a case of the twisties can utterly derail progress. As a consultant to many of the world’s most innovative global brands as well as motivated founders looking for a jump-start, it’s important to be able to know what steps along the way are absolutely necessary and which ones are nice to have.

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startup founder founder startup consulting 130

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 16, 2014

It''s also not the best way to create a helpful syndicate of investors that share the founder''s vision for the company. If all my deals came as intros from trusted connections that I know for years versus at founder pitch events that''s interesting data. Fear not, founders. The first thing I did was trace my sources.

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VC pitching networking venture capital 418

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2013

It also demystifies any assumptions that our founders were “puritanical” – they were anything but. And from an entrepreneurial point of view – it starts by acknowledging that foreign-born founders that don’t match our normal recognition pattern can be some of our best innovators.

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innovation culture advice education 391

The Zapier Blog

JUNE 19, 2025

They typically highlight key features, benefits, or use cases, often with a quick demo or close-up visuals. In-product demo : Quick cuts through the user interface (UI) show exactly how the feature works, helping users visualize themselves using it. The goal is clarity: show the product, show the value, and make it easy to say yes.

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culture pitching media education 98

TechCrunch

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

It’s YC Demo Day week, which has us nostalgic for the conversations Found hosts have had with founders who have been through the famed accelerator program. Unsurprisingly, when a YC founder comes on, the conversation often touches on how their time in the accelerator was a formative experience for their company and them as leaders.

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founder accelerator entrepreneurship enablement 102

This is going to be BIG.

OCTOBER 3, 2014

So I went--the only investor at the time to actually hangout during the pizza and hacking part of the hackathon, not just the demos. It was a great trip, but it also reconnected me with some New Yorkers that I hadn''t seen in a while--namely Chris Muscarella , the co-founder of Kitchensurfing.

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disruption communities innovation enablement 290

Entrepreneur's Handbook

MAY 2, 2023

Partnering with the right co-founder is the biggest determinant of your future success. Having founded multiple startups across various industries, I firmly believe having the right co-founder(s) is the most significant determinant of startup success. A co-founder is someone you’ll practically be married to (time commitment-wise).

founder 110

founder mix-use communities networking 110

This is going to be BIG.

JUNE 26, 2012

One event organizer had even asked me if I wanted to give my talk before the company demos, enabling me to duck out before the crowds could rush me. There was a pretty major theme I saw from a founder's perspective: VCs are jerks because they don't follow up. I know that a startup at the early stages is the founder's baby.

VC 397

VC pitching venture capital creativity 397

This is going to be BIG.

AUGUST 20, 2012

Sure, they had a demo or a prototype or something, but investors know the product will change. And in fact, it is ok--particularly when you're not a technical founder, it's not always clear what your next step is in the early going. Most entrepreneurs aren't qualified for their jobs--including about 100% of the first timers.

peer-to-peer 407

peer-to-peer pitching consulting creativity 407

500

JULY 22, 2019

Over the past three months, companies from 12 countries participated in our flagship program, building their companies and preparing for Demo Day on August 22nd. Competition was fierce, and these companies represent the top 2% of applicants for our accelerator.

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