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What do you envision happening at that moment?

The value of your time in an accelerator is multiplied ten-fold. Understand that and you won’t become yesterday’s newspaper.

So, what do you want to happen on demo day? Want a check? A term sheet? Then what is going to make VCs try to tackle you as you walk off the stage. Want lots and lots of users? Then think about what you need for every member in the audience to sign up/download/buy your product on the spot (and enthusiastically tell their friends and colleagues to do the same).

So, decide why you are here. Here are some examples: Figuring out if anyone wants this as fast as humanly possible Figure out if anyone will pay for this, and how much Build a rinse-and-repeat economical marketing machine Figuring out if we can resell this idea in X industry Double our retention Get to X number of daily active users Raise paid conversions from 0.5% to 2% Prove to investors that your company is not a risk and that their money is pure gasoline to your engine

The last one is probably the most common. This means users/revenue/testimonials/traction long before demo day. To achieve this, your real demo day deadline is 30 days prior to the accelerator’s demo day.

It’s a Death Match Against Time

Now that you know what you want demo day to look like, work backwards to day one. What do you need in T minus one month to demo day? What about T minus two months? Where do you need to be right now?

Here’s a tip most startups seemed to miss: when a mentor comes to meet with your startup individually – only send one co-founder in. Don’t send the whole team. That co-founder can take notes and update you over lunch or on the walk home.  An incubator (especially if you’re travelling to get there) may sounds like an adventure. No. You’re going to war against time, and only one of you will win.

Eyes on the Prize

no distractions to contend with and could focus entirely on our startup goals.

working, planning, outlining, and designing

work full time

get into Rocky Balboa mode

Stand Up Against Distractions

You’re going to meet a ton of smart, confident people, and they’re going to talk a lot about what “you should really do” in their opinion.

Each one is going to listen to you for about two minutes and then talk for 30

Remember that you know your idea more than anyone.

The hardest part of an incubator is knowing who NOT to listen to.

That said, your network is about to explode (in a good way). Especially with the incubator brand on your forehead, this is the time to ask for every. single. connection. offered to you. This will end in a few months when you become a has-been so take advantage of it now, follow up, maintain the relationship, and hold on to the contacts you do find valuable.

You Don’t Have Time to Burn Out

Entrepreneurship is not a competition of who stays longer at the office. Get what you need done and stop when you’re causing more harm than good

Listen most to the people who have tried your product or at least are the intended audience

Don’t check your email in the morning. Get straight to it. Check it after lunch or at night.

This kind of work can be done with a very small team, and incurs drastically less development cost than a new product version

Like a product feature, the idea is not to perfect the economic model prior to building the MVP, but to have some idea that the economics you are proposing will set the venture up for eventual profitability and a low-friction scaling process.