I thought it was incredibly valuable, but exhausting at the same time. Usually, meetings like this would be spread out over days and weeks, giving you a chance to recover from each pitch. This was relentless: the same questions every 20 minutes for most of the day.
On the other hand, it was awesome to meet so many people excited by what we're doing in a single day. The investors we spoke to were engaging and thoughtful, and we didn't have to worry (for the most part!) about whether speaking with them was worth our time.
The algo for matching investors with companies seemed to work _okay_, although there were a few meetings we had to schedule outside of Investor Day with people who didn't make the cut for whatever reason.
On the whole, it was absolutely worth it and I highly recommend YC keep it as a mechanism for speeding up fundraising after Demo Day.
> In the days following the event, Younis ... used the organization's software to collect data on whether companies raised money on Investor Day. A handful of companies had. Others reported positive conversations.
A little surprising that only a "handful of companies" raised, although I don't know what "handful" means here. 5%? 10%?
Is "Silicon Valley" now a short-hand euphemism for all startups worldwide? So if you're in say Chicago or Baltimore or Bangladesh and you're a startup trying to raise money, are you participating in Silicon Valley's most grueling ritual? Yes, I know this article is SPECIFICALLY about the YCombinator demo day which IS in Silicon Valley. But is the side-read here that it's like this (or most likely harder) for startups everywhere outside of Silicon Valley? And is this even representative of how things are really done for everyone outside of YC in Silicon Valley?
Maybe this should really be titled: Inside one of Silicon Valley's top Accelerators: the grueling YC Demo Days. TL;DR: This is not the reality that most startups face when they raise money, but an insight into a unique process at a unique accelerator in a unique part of the ecosystem.
I agree. We replaced that rather sketchy title with something accurate and flat. If anyone has a better idea, we can change it again.
The phrase "Silicon Valley" is becoming less and less meaningful as it gets slapped on more and more things. Presumably that only happens because it generates clicks, so at this point it's probably just generic linkbait and we should take it off everything.
If that's the case, then the article reads wrong because there's really nothing like this process for startups everywhere outside of Silicon Valley, and probably even inside Silicon Valley. It's a false metonymy in that case.
