I went to my first Ycombinator Demo Day this last Thursday. I wasn’t sure what to expect, except for the fact that a whole bunch of startups created by near-college grads would be presenting their projects. I definitely wasn’t expecting any well-thought out business plans but was hoping to see some really cool stuff.
After the event, much has been written about the companies themselves, and you can read about them at VentureBeat: The Ycombinator List and at TechCrunch: Ycombinator Demo Day: The Summer Class. There has been enough coverage about the companies, so rather than do that I wanted to write about something else regarding the Demo Day.
Usually when you sit through pitches, they can be relatively dry. You see lots of graphs and how big the market opportunity is and it’s usually a more serious and professional presentation.
For Demo Day, I was pleasantly surprised that each presentation had a healthy dose of humor cleverly injected. I found myself chuckling at funny demos, laughing at jokes made at competitors’ expense, and smiling to see them laughing at themselves. During one of the breaks between presentations, I stopped to say hi to Paul Graham (co-founder of Ycombinator) and asked him about whether or not he encouraged humor to be part of the presentations. He said they were actually more humorous during the dry-runs and that he actually pulled them back from being too over the top. I shudder to think what they were like before he pulled them back…!
Sitting through 19 demos for 3+ hours could have been a truly grueling affair. I am glad that the young graduates of this summer’s Ycombinator class threw some humor into their demos and turning a potentially boring, lifeless afternoon into a more lively event.