
YC W20 Online Demo Day moved up due to investor interest - coolswan
https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-w20-online-demo-day-now-on-march-16/
======
phsource
I'm glad they're moving Demo Day up. The whole point of YC is to level the
playing field for all kinds of founders, and this would help keep the focus on
Demo Day rather than the behind-the-scene investor meetings that tend to
benefit connected, established founders.

Personally, as a YC W19, first-time founder of Wanderlog [1], I didn't do any
fundraising before Demo Day. But I heard from friends in the batch about cold
emails, "informal" dinners, and all kinds of shenanigans to get ahold of
founders earlier.

Demo Day helps even things out by giving attention to all startups in YC, and
not just the companies with connections. Everyone's given the same amount of
time on stage, and off stage (in any other year), everybody's milling about in
a huge hall. You can't tell who's the recent college dropout, and who's a
former co-founder of a co. with a billion-dollar exit.

I can totally see investors really taking the coronavirus/lack of an in-person
Demo Day [2] as an excuse to double-up on their outreach, leading to an even
more imbalanced process. Good work on the YC Partners' part for short-
circuiting this and helping the first-time founders and the traditionally
disadvantaged

[1] A trip planner for vacation itineraries:
[https://wanderlog.com](https://wanderlog.com)

[2] [https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-w20-online-demo-day-now-
on-m...](https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-w20-online-demo-day-now-on-march-16/)

~~~
chrisseaton
> all kinds of shenanigans

I don’t understand - why do you care if another company fundraises or not?
What’s it go to do with you? YC isn’t some kind of competition is it?

~~~
frankdenbow
1) YC may not be, but fundraising is a competition
([https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/09/sequoia-is-giving-
away-21-...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/09/sequoia-is-giving-
away-21-million-to-a-payments-startup-it-funded-as-it-walks-away-from-deal/))

2) Herd Mentality: There is subtle signaling if a company being presented
right beside you already has 50% of their round closed, vs a company that
hasnt received this early interest.

These are not my ideals (I'm a fan of self-funding and sustainable growth),
just the reality.

~~~
timr
Have done demo day twice, and I can confirm. It was way, way worse the second
time around. Lots of companies had filled out their rounds by demo day,
despite the official YC advice (i.e. _" don't fundraise until demo day"_).

Also, it's not a subtle effect at all, particularly now that demo day is split
up into batches with similar companies grouped together. If you're presenting
on the same day as some company close to your space that has raised millions,
it looks bad. Investors routinely ask who else has invested in your company.
If company X has a long list of name investors and you don't, investors want
to put their money in company X. It's a downside of the dynamics of the
feeding frenzy created by demo day -- investors have little to go on, so they
make a big deal out of herd signaling.

Obviously, this doesn't matter for the hottest deals, but most companies in a
batch aren't hot deals, and the hot deals don't need demo day in the first
place.

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tvladeck
Seems like a classic case of market unraveling:

[http://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2009/06/unraveling.html](http://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2009/06/unraveling.html)

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technotony
This is smart. If coronavirus is growing by a factor of 10 per week then we
are all going to be in lockdown/isolation in two weeks time and probably not
focusing on doing seed deals.

~~~
AVTizzle
My thinking exactly.

~~~
TaylorGood
Ancillary to this health wave being an exception. Here is what I posted on
Twitter earlier: "Business owners with unaligned or rigid products or services
unable to adapt are actively sinking. I’ve halted most everything and have
never felt so much pressure to iterate for something and the coming months of
shifting consumer priorities."

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maram
>>They can sort companies by industry and geography, and will be able to
export the list of companies to a spreadsheet.

4 days ago I commented here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22506013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22506013)

“I think YC should add a sheet for us to write our comments/ratings and
decision” I shared my experience on how I get bored and excited.

Many people reached out since then asking me to share my spreadsheet. This
sheet will be very helpful.

Whether YC partners read my comment or not I’m so grateful for this feature.

THANK YOU YC<3

~~~
arshmand
Would love to see the spreadsheet/notes that you have been taking. Email is in
profile. Thanks!

~~~
maram
will do

~~~
arshmand
Updated my profile with my email address. Thanks!

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mobileexpert
I don’t really understand this, doesn’t YC strongly encourage investors, to
the point of punishing those who violate, to wait until Demo Day? That way
they get to build good market conditions for raising.

~~~
maram
>> doesn’t YC strongly encourage investors, to the point of punishing those
who violate, to wait until Demo Day? That way they get to build good market
conditions for raising.

I’m not sure what’s your source because the first paragraph contradicts what
you are saying “Over the last few days, a large number of investors have
accelerated their outreach to our current batch of founders. They are moving
quickly to make investment decisions, and we’re going to match their pace and
accelerate our schedule by one week. YC W20 online Demo Day will now be on
March 16.”

~~~
dang
It's discouraged but people do it anyway. It's in YC's interest to help all
the startups in the batch; presumably they decided this was the best way.

(I have no inside info; in fact I just found out about this from the HN
submission.)

~~~
maram
Thanks

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tosh
Is there any way to participate as investor? I did not immediately find a way
to sign up for it but would be very interested.

~~~
benmccann
You need to apply to attend. The application has already passed for this batch
([https://apply.ycombinator.com/events/246](https://apply.ycombinator.com/events/246)),
but you can check back later to apply for the next one.

~~~
tosh
ty for the pointer!

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Grustaf
Why are they giving us details like sorting options on the website, it’s not
going to be open to the public is it?

~~~
jedberg
This post is for the VCs and investors, but since YC is very transparent, they
make the post public.

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physcab
Should continue to do online demo day in conjunction with live ones. Would be
a great way to scale the platform

~~~
glennon
YC's Demo Day attendee portal has had an online component at least since
Winter 2018--the first I attended. The pitch videos were made available a few
minutes delayed from real-time live.

