Avocode at 500 Startups; Week #13: Time is running out
One, two, check, check!
As the 40 CEO’s from the batch 17 grabbed the mic, the office is turning into a stage. Once you enter through the red door on our 12th floor, you can sense that the office is filled with people talking to themselves, weirdly gesturing in front of the mirror, front iPhone camera, colleagues, moms — whoever is willing to listen. Yes. Demo day, a presentation in front of 400 investors is coming quickly.
Probably everyone on the Avocode team knows Vu’s pitch by heart now. The rules for the pitch are quite simple:
- Pick a song that will play as you come to the stage. We chose this one.
- You have 2 minutes. Yes, two.
- Make it up to 10 slides.
- Introduce yourself, the company, the problem and your solution.
- Paint a picture of the current market.
- Talk numbers.
- Introduce your team.
- Put in a CTA on the last slide. Something that connotes: if you want to give us your money, let’s talk.
- Good luck.
Not only the CEO’s were prepping. The entire Batch 17 prepared an introductory video for both the Preview Day and Demo Day. 👇🏼
This is the result:
The last evening before the Preview Day we user-tested if all of the equipment works. .🕵🏼
Showtime
Well, not really. This week is just a dress rehearsal called Preview Day. It’s still important, because some investors already attend this private events, but mostly it’s just people from your Batch, 500 staff and the Batch that just started in San Francisco.
FYI: There are four batches in 500 Startups now every year, two in San Francisco, two in Mountain View. Each two always overlap, so a new incoming Batch can visit the Preview Day of the previous Batch from the other city during their first week, that also happens to be the Marketing Hell Week.
Finally, the Preview Day was over, the chairs gone and we had time for more important things.
Drop the mic
Vu did well so it went well. Not to mention that in the meantime we still work as usual up to 11pm. With our crooked backs and red eyes that we all proudly collected here, we closed our laptops and enjoyed the heck out of this weekend.
On Friday we went to a release party of the Gross Magazine.
Oh yeah, Bolek is not a teenager. He had his 20th b-day. On our hunt for cake we went to Costco. It turned out that it's like Makro we have back home. After carefully choosing all of the amazing thingies they have here for like an hour, we were not able to pay for it, because we didn't have the customer card. $@!!!# that! So we went to Safeway and the the whole shopping all over again.
As I said earlier — we're learning here every day…
On Sunday, we went to Santa Cruz to surf and chill with other people from the batch.
Stay tuned, the actual Demo Day is coming on Tuesday next week!
Matt out. 🎤💥
