Somehow I became the guy who hates demo days. Oh yeah, because I wrote “I Don’t Want to Meet Your Company at Demo Day.” Funny thing though, that post isn’t really about hating on demo days but rather holding myself accountable for tracking the most compelling entrepreneurs and their startups over time, not just in the big reveal.
So how’d Homebrew do at this week’s YC Demo Day (which my partner Satya Patel attended)? Much better than last class IMO. We’d gotten to know 15 of the startups before Demo Day, many of those before they even entered the program. As an early stage thematic fund, only a percentage of the YC companies are going to be good fit for us (although this year’s trends towards ‘software evolving unsexy businesses/processes’ is in our bullseye). Hopefully our interactions with those companies over the past year helped them get feedback and build a relationship with us. In particular one investment we’re discussing is able to move quickly on our end because of mutual familiarity.
Congrats to the YC team and this past class. Best of luck.