29 min listen
Demo days definitely amplify a brand, but not the one you'd think
FromEquity
ratings:
Length:
21 minutes
Released:
Mar 30, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single topic, think about a question and unpack the rest. This week, in light of Y Combinator's bi-annual demo day, Natasha and Alex asked about the utility of the parade of pitches. Our big question:Are demo days outdated?The question comes after Natasha’s latest Startups Weekly column, where she looked into the trend of everyone constantly trying to re-invent startup accelerators. We've seen everything from in-person events, to virtual pitch-a-thons, to record efforts, and more. Name it, it's been tried.Today's show is a continuation of that conversation, specifically digging into how demo days served founders in the past, and how they amplify in the present. There's a good bit of factors that jolted things up, including the proliferation of accelerators, a boom in pre-seed funding and the pandemic forcing programming to go remote. We also ask for whom are demo days really for?Listen in to hear what we landed on, disagreed with and picked for founders to focus on today.
Released:
Mar 30, 2022
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Equity Shot: Everyone filed to go public Monday: Natasha and Danny and Chris and myself all piled back onto the mics to dig through all the numbers. Here's a rundown of the companies we went through: Palantir, which filed its formal S-1 during our recording session. Danny covered most of the news last Friday, but the public doc is now live, so happy sleuthing. Unity's huge IPO that shows how big gaming is. Natasha connected it to the broader Apple-Epic dustup, and we all reviled in its growth results. Snowflake had Danny so excited he was conjuring scripted segues, and we were all impressed at its historical growth. Sure, it lost a lot of money last year, but, hey, Snowflake has dialed that back as well. And then there was Asana, a company I've covered quite a lot over the years. Our general take is that the company's growth has been good, if it is losing more money than we anticipated. Still, Asana could set a neat new precedent of raising debt ahead of a direct listing. This is one by Equity