Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 8, 2014

Deal support / analysis / quant / legal for deals a partner is seriously considering. Portfolio company support & analysis. I’m a proponent of this ( provided the associates stay silent during board meetings ) because it gives the VC firm leverage and provides and extra set of eyes & hands to help support the company.

investing 365

investing investment VC board 365

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.

mentorship 96

mentorship SaaS accelerator pitching 96

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. Empower and support your team to achieve way more than they thought they were capable of--so that they can take a lot off your plate. I tried pitching business development ideas, coming up with marketing ploys.

peer-to-peer 406

peer-to-peer pitching consulting creativity 406

American Entrepreneurship

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

Twenty-three members of the Morgan Stanley Inclusive Ventures Lab cohort are pitching today to an audience of over 300 investors, potential partners, and customers. The disruptive technology-enabled startups are being showcased at its Demo Day, following their five-month participation in the Labs’ accelerator program. “At

disruption 97

disruption ventures startup mentorship 97

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 4, 2013

I think the issue I have always had with investment bank pitches was best summed up in this article about Y Combinator in which Paul Graham apparently made the following quotes. ” The other Paul Graham quote from the article is this: “The other thing they say is that they can’t tell on Demo Day which are the good start-ups.

VC 347

VC advice pitching entrepreneurs 347

StartupNation

NOVEMBER 21, 2021

In the startup world, it’s pitch decks, not business plans that get companies funded. Making a pitch deck is an art, a science, but most importantly, a story. Angel investors and venture capitalists have also learned to expect a standard pitch deck as the first filter when evaluating a company to invest in. Demo Day pitch.

pitching 122

pitching SaaS mix-use media 122

This is going to be BIG.

MARCH 10, 2011

On to of that, connected communities of entrepreneurs are better at incubating and supporting startups now than ever before. When you have such low barriers to launch and great support structures, you should expect investors to have higher expectations of progress these days.

incubation 268

incubation peer-to-peer communities financing 268

TechCrunch

MARCH 8, 2023

Thousand Faces , a web3 community-based investment group, hosted its demo day on Wednesday with the top 10 startups from its Female Founder Accelerator program. The demo day coincided with International Women’s Day and featured women-led businesses focused on sustainable development goals (SDGs).

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pitching startup health accelerator 78

The Zapier Blog

JUNE 19, 2025

They typically highlight key features, benefits, or use cases, often with a quick demo or close-up visuals. Why this Facebook ad works : Feature-forward messaging : "Record your pitch once—share it anytime" in the ad copy , as well as the video itself, makes the value of Canva Recordings instantly clear.

culture 98

culture pitching media education 98

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 5, 2010

I’m a huge supporter of his initiative to help end this practice. Marco Zappacosta served up an cogent, business focused and nicely demo’d pitch of their product. would acknowledge – they needed to get to the demo more quickly. I wrote about how to give demos in a previous post.

education 254

education pitching VC media 254

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Demos – One of the things that most people are bad at and that are hard to standardize is the demo. I have written about how to do a demo before (even though this was in the context of a VC pitch much of it applies). A good demo tells a story. 80% of demos I see are features, functions & benefits.

advice 296

advice SaaS startup pitching 296

TechCrunch

MAY 24, 2022

It’s Demo Day time! Today marks the 30th Demo Day for Alchemist , the enterprise-focused accelerator that helped grow companies like LaunchDarkly, Rigetti Computing and Privacera early on. As with Alchemist’s last few Demo Days, today’s presentations will be entirely virtual and streamed on YouTube.

real estate 89

real estate accelerator pitching transportation 89

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 8, 2014

They support entreprenership because they see the ROI: Be helpful to a startup now, be there when they''re high on promise and low on cash, and you could be the platform that the next Facebook runs on for a long time to come. All he had to do was hangout at hackathons and do demos where he wrote code live. all at once.

venture capital 266

venture capital communities pitching networking 266

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 1, 2009

There have also been many high profile financings of infrastructure players to support these gaming platforms including Offerpal Media, SuperRewards (bought by AdKnowledge), Gambit and more recently LA-based Sometrics. million even before the demo day to help you integrate your social network with dating ambitions.

VC 255

VC venture capital networking innovation 255

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

My list of excuses includes: product, pricing, competition and lack of sales support. Complaints about support may be real – it might actually be time to scale and give your sales people more leverage. And finally a reminder: Selling is about listening & reacting and not “pitching.”

startup 319

startup consulting pitching support 319

David Teten VC

JULY 27, 2021

How can you get free money and other support for your business idea? . I have been researching this both to support Versatile VC ’s portfolio companies and also as part of research for my new book, To University and Beyond: Launch Your Career in High Gear. Participants have a chance to win more than $250,000 in cash and other support.

founder 144

founder mentorship peer-to-peer pitching 144

TechCrunch

NOVEMBER 2, 2022

SparkLabs Korea , a Seoul-based seed to early-stage accelerator, held a demo Day on Thursday for its 19th cohort of companies. The latest demo day marks its tenth year after SparkLabs launched its accelerator program in December 2012. Not all teams end up pitching at demo day. and Asia. .

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accelerator startup mentorship incubation 100

TechCrunch

AUGUST 11, 2022

Today, we’re taking a closer look at the pitch deck it used to raise its pre-seed round. We’re looking for more unique pitch decks to tear down, so if you want to submit your own, here’s how you can do that. . Demo slide. Well, that’s the world Five Flute wants to live in. The company raised a $1.2

pitching 89

pitching strategy development incumbents 89

NZ Entrepreneur

MARCH 16, 2025

James covers the genesis of Ministry of Awesome following the Christchurch earthquakes in 2011, and provides updates on Ministry of Awesome approaches to startup founder support and programming. You’re also sort of no longer running your classic three-month type accelerator program, which finishes on, say, a demo day.

startup ecosystem 52

startup ecosystem mix-use advice incubation 52

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 13, 2011

The value of Pitch Decks; Brad’s personal preferences on deal presentation; and Brad’s practice of accepting cold approaches via email. Are Pitch Decks becoming obsolete? It’s interesting that the question is pitch deck’s being obsolete versus business plans being obsolete. Aren’t pitch decks still the norm? “I

venture capital 288

venture capital pitching communities entrepreneurs 288

Gust

DECEMBER 27, 2012

It sounds obvious, but the majority of entrepreneurs who pitch me have obviously never thought through many of the major issues surrounding their companies. With #1 – #3 under your belt, you should start preparing the components you will use to support your pitch to outside investors. Understand your business.

investing 164

investing investment pitching mix-use 164

TechCrunch

OCTOBER 19, 2020

This year, as funding for female founders drops to 2017 levels , Feinzaig realized why accelerators, hers included, might not work for women as well as they work for men: demo day. The truth is, you don’t raise a round based on a 5-minute, highly scripted, polished and practiced on-stage pitch,” Feinzaig continued. “The

accelerator 119

accelerator pitching health culture 119

TechCrunch

MARCH 26, 2021

Amid the pandemic, investors became laser-focused on sections of the pitch deck that address monetization and business viability — signs that founders need to come to the table with better-defined businesses in order to succeed. Our favorite companies from Y Combinator’s W21 Demo Day. Image Credits: nadia_bormotova / Getty Images.

VC 94

VC real estate venture capital pitching 94

StartupNation

JUNE 29, 2025

Using product or service descriptions with the expectation that a “demo” is going to generate sales is a fool’s errand. During our research, we identified more than 50 companies where the founders proudly declared they have done “more than one hundred demos.” Every single company that rushed to demo eventually closed the business.

startup 52

startup disruption innovation mentorship 52

American Entrepreneurship

SEPTEMBER 15, 2024

With a rigorous selection process, only the most promising tech-enabled companies get the chance to pitch. Three pitching events happen on the first day of the Conference: Seed Stage, Early Stage, and Growth Stage companies. The Seed Stage Pitch competition winner will be awarded a $500,000 investment.

entrepreneurs 98

entrepreneurs ventures pitching mentorship 98

AsiaTechDaily

APRIL 19, 2023

The focus of the 12-week accelerator program is to equip the companies with the necessary skills and knowledge to take their businesses to the next level, providing best practices in pitching, financial modelling, business strategy, and product development. The program will culminate in a demo day with investors from all over the world.

startup 98

startup accelerator strategy pitching 98

Y Combinator

SEPTEMBER 6, 2023

My first YC Demo Day was in Summer of 2008, where my startup and twenty-one others anxiously pitched a room full of investors on what we’d been working so hard to build. Fifteen years later, I’m here as YC’s president kicking off our 37th Demo Day — the one celebrating the Summer 2023 batch.

communities 140

communities SaaS investing investment 140

TechCrunch

JUNE 17, 2021

Schedule and host livestream product demos, tutorials or Q&A sessions. And every exhibiting startup also gets two minutes to pitch live during a breakout session. Exposure, practice and invaluable feedback from the pitch-savvy TC crew — jump on board that opportunity. Your audience?

disruption 102

disruption startup pitching creativity 102

TechCrunch

DECEMBER 3, 2021

Vinehealth , a 2018-founded, London-based digital health startup that’s built an app which offers personalized support for cancer patients while also making it easier to gather patient-reported outcome (PRO) data, including for drug development and clinical trials, has closed a $5.5

support 84

support SaaS health hospitality 84

Y Combinator

DECEMBER 9, 2020

” You know it was a good application video when the same pitch can be reused in the S-1. That was followed by Demo Day in late August. Here’s their pitch: Many investors were skeptical, and they didn’t make it onto the list of top picks from Demo Day, but fortunately they were able to raise a seed round and keep growing.

pitching 145

pitching founder advice support 145

Dream It

SEPTEMBER 28, 2020

Your product must: Have key security solutions or applications used by the firm Have APIs that can be used to integrate with homegrown tools Support industry standards that are applicable to your product category. Demo or mock data is better than no data. Remember, most CISOs detest typical sales-oriented pitches.

disruption 195

disruption SaaS frameworks pitching 195

TechCrunch

JANUARY 19, 2021

They also build sales collateral, such as demo videos, pitch decks and one-pagers, to more effectively reach and build long-term relationships with these prospects. For additional support in the formation stage, companies bring on MBA interns and work with their investors.

consulting 111

consulting strategy hospitality creativity 111

David Teten VC

FEBRUARY 9, 2015

I’m surprised at how many funding pitches I get which lack some of the basic information which investors require before funding. 50% of these meetings led to pitches to individual partners. About 30% of partner pitches led to full partnership pitches. I suggest use the Founder Institute Mad Libs elevator pitch.

pitching 53

pitching ventures VC capital 53

TechCrunch

MARCH 20, 2021

We get into how to build a fundraising process , the concept of soft-circling an investor and what Kunst says is one of her biggest pet-peeves in a pitch deck on the site, but I wanted to give you that sneak peek for now. Pregame Y Combinator Demo Day with Equity. Thirdly, thank you for all the support.

investing 106

investing investment startup pitching 106

TechCrunch

JULY 6, 2021

Each founder wanted to invest in other companies during YC’s Demo Day. I was pitching on the day, but I was also listening to other pitches. After building and exiting multiple startups, some founders turn into angel investing to support startups and their ecosystems. The interesting bit? Here’s a scenario.

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founder angel investing pitching strategy 130

Tomasz Tunguz

DECEMBER 1, 2019

I imagine this is how every founder fats on the eve of demo day. Sales and support prepare their pitches. Launch day requires collaboration across teams. Marketing must prepare the story and materials. PR readies articles and interviews. Engineering builds the product. SRE ensures it stays up. Legal must sign off.

sustainability 73

sustainability startup collaboration SaaS 73

Gust

SEPTEMBER 27, 2014

The answer to the original question, therefore, is that an entrepreneur should use Gust as a set of powerful tools to organize, support and smooth the fundraising process, rather than expecting it to be a magic bullet. Before you start entering your profile information, decide what language you would like to work in.

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VC angel investing pitching entrepreneurs 159