Joey from Earbits again.  Well, it's Friday, March 25th.  Demo Day is over and my inbox is flooded with emails from investors, journalists, prospective business partners, and time wasters (no offense, we just don’t need help with hiring right now).  YC w2011 is coming to a close and it is truly bitter sweet.  While it's been an intense program and I am glad to head home to my own bed, my friends, my familiar restaurants and more, I will leave behind the YC Mafia - mi familia nueva.

The Family That Convore Built 

I suspect that other YC sessions had an easier time bonding because there were fewer companies.  With over 40 companies in w2011 I have to admit that I don't even know everybody's name.  That being said, one of YC's w2011 companies, Convore, easily made the most dramatic difference in bringing this YC group together.  Over the past few months the group has “Convored” about everything from whether or not to organize a Dim Sum gathering, to more recent groups like saying fare thee well to Daystilldemoday.com.  For a brief period, it was common knowledge that Jason Corwin from TellFi and I had a nightly Convore stand up session, ragging on each other and trying to entertain the rest of the group.  One night it was someone else and I, and I heard Jason cried.

All joking aside, were you to peek inside of YC's w2011 batch on Convore, you would see the real YC at work.  There are threads dedicated to helping each other craft the perfect Demo Day pitch, some threads talk about how to deal with technical issues, others discuss legal concerns.  What it represents is the truly communal nature of Y Combinator and how willing everyone is to help one another, despite being under incredible stress and time constraint.  This is the true power of YC - the network.  In 6 months, when I need help with X, I will call upon another YC company and I will get help, no matter what it is, in fact, that happened today with an alum I met at Alumni night.  This is what PG built.

Paul Graham and the March Toward Demo Day 

Throughout the YC program, Paul Graham and the entire YC team make themselves available to the batch, and every former batch.  I still see friends from old batches coming in for office hours.  Despite having 40+ companies on their plates, the YC team makes time for enrollees and alumni alike.

Last week, though, help for alumni was mostly put on hold in preparation for Demo Day.  First, PG and crew help the last minute launches go public in the media, and then it’s Rehearsal Day.

PG tells companies not to focus on their pitches until the day before Rehearsal Day, keep working.  A better company makes for a better pitch more than a better pitch does – or at least that’s the thinking.  (I happen to think this might be different from company to company, but that’s neither here nor there.)

On Rehearsal Day, something amazing happens.  After 3 months of hanging out with 40+ companies on a casual basis, many of whom seem like average companies on the surface, suddenly the curtain is pulled back.  Regardless of what amazing feats your company has accomplished, you come to the shocking realization that you are not the only one.  When you finally sit down to see what the other companies have built, you truly know what YC inspires in people.  You are just one awesome company in a sea of awesome companies.  I can say this with confidence, because the YC alumni would come to tell us that this batch was by far the most impressive yet.

Pitching a No-Hitter

Awesome companies or not, the pitches are not all awesome on Rehearsal Day.  Why?  Because some companies take the “wait till the last minute” advice to a new level and craft their pitch that day.  One company asked ours to trade time slots with them so that they could write their pitch during the rehearsals.  Everyone is truly scattering to get work done, pitches done, and their delivery perfected in a very short period of time.  And who wouldn’t?  We’d come to find reporters from the Wall Street Journal, Mashable, TechCrunch, Xconomy, and heavy weights like Scoble in the Demo Day crowd.

So, for several days PG leaves the YC offices in presentation layout and lets the companies come in to practice their pitch.  On certain days he and the team are there to listen to your pitch and fix it.  My company didn’t come in to practice, mistakenly thinking we’d be just fine without practice.  Admittedly, I was practicing plenty at home.  Finally, on the day of the Alumni pitch, where you present to the former YC companies, PG emailed us and asked us if we were coming in to practice.  So we did.

Alumni Day

We showed up for Alumni Day, which starts at 7, around 11am.  At least 10 companies were around practicing, and Paul and Harj are in the crowd giving everyone feedback.  “Speak so slowly that it seems unnatural,” is the most common advice.  “You sound like a car salesman,” is what I got.

“That’s because I was a car salesman,” I fired back.  Chevys and Nissans, in case you were wondering.

The pitches were noticeably different from just days before.  People who previously sounded like they were trying to turn you into a customer were suddenly pitching you like you had a few million dollars to invest.  The whole dynamic had changed in the days since Rehearsal Day.  PG had whipped the mafia into shape.  It was remarkable to watch.

That night, we pitched the Alumni.  I would hear that our batch seemed more impressive than any prior, and we would mingle with founders who now run well-oiled companies.  It was solid practice and good times.  I’d like to thank Art from FanVibe for sharing some amazing secrets of game mechanics with us.  You will soon see them on Earbits.

Demo Days and the Strength of the YC Mafia

For two days following Alumni Day, we would pitch over 350 investors – from major VCs, to minor angels, to some of the smartest people you’ll meet.  It’s energizing, nerve-racking, and exhausting.  After you’ve spent all day practicing in the parking lot behind the YC offices and then executing stylishly for your 2 minutes and 10 seconds, you spend another hour or more mingling with people who expect you to be at your best.  After just one session on Tuesday I went home, collapsed, and would later find myself amazed that it was only 10pm.  With two sessions to follow on Wednesday, it seemed impossible to stay upbeat.

And with that we come to perhaps the most fulfilling part of the YC process.  On Wednesday, when everyone is running on fumes, the presentations are at their best.  From behind the walls of the main room in YC’s offices, you hear what seem like professionally written jokes hit the crowd just right every time.  And as founders walk “off stage” to applause from some of Silicon Valley’s finest, it is high fives and fist bumps in the back room.  This is the YC Mafia and it’s awesome.  While Robert Scoble is taking pictures from the front row, the YC is taking pictures from backstage, joking, and congratulating each other’s pitch abilities and more.  They’re exchanging stories about their pitches, things that worked, things that didn’t.  They’re letting the next presenter know whether the joke that worked on the last crowd will work on this one.  It must be like being backstage at a comedy club.  Still, many people are piled into the back room with their laptops open working their asses off.  It never stops.

And after everyone has presented, it’s open bar time.  I, for one, had to take the edge off.  A drink or two to loosen up, and of course, you meet the most interesting people by the bar.  I started following up on my business cards today and found one that just said a person’s hand written name and “Awesome” next to it.  Apparently I thought this guy was awesome.  I looked him up online and remembered that we had been chatting near the bar and talked about music and little else.

PG is All Business

As you’re navigating the crowd at Demo Day, mingling, trying to relax, thinking about our pitch, and so on, there is Paul Graham with a fistful of paper.  On it – notes.  While everyone else is enjoying themselves and chatting with potential business partners, Paul is walking around with notes about your presentation and waiting for a moment to tell you to extract this line, clarify that one, enunciate that one, or in general just say “Thank You” at the end of your pitch.  It is so awesomely obvious that PG loves what he does, that he cares about his crew, and that he knows exactly how to run this program.

When the notes have been distributed, and sometimes before, Paul will run around making introductions.  Earlier on day one he came up to me and said that a reporter was looking for a company who would be controversial (he used another word), and that he thought I should talk to her.  On other days, he says, “Do you know who that is,” and points to some old guy, and then explains that the person basically invented the universe, because there are people there who did things like that.  (Yeah, I know…after my Marine article, I am sure to hear an earful about saying PG mingles with the creators of the Universe.)

At any rate, that is PG.  From the interview before you know you got into YC, to the final moments of Demo Day, he is figuring out whether you have what it takes to be successful, and helping you improve in any way he can.  No matter how frustrating it can be sometimes, by the end you can’t help but feel overwhelming gratitude.  The guy does love this job and it shows.

And that, to all who care, is a behind the scenes look at Y Combinator's Demo Day.

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Joey Flores
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joey@earbits.com
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