Demo. Die. Repeat

Founder Udham (or “Fudhu”, as his friends called him) was passionately building his start-up “Dream Labs”. He truly believed he had “the” killer product the whole world was looking for.

Unfortunately, being early days, the product had its own shortcomings. Demos frequently had glitches. Some customers were more forgiving; others were brutal. So, demos were always a stressful exercise.

Today was a special occasion. Dream Labs had been in discussion with Vella Capital (VC) for USD 2 mn funding. Discussions had been positive (but formal agreement was yet to be finalized). In the meantime, one of VC’s Limited Partners (LPs) - Kuber - was visiting.?

Fudhu was used to pitching to investors. Today, he has to pitch to his investors’ investors. He used to think VC is on “other side of the table” but today it felt like “Dream Labs + VC” were on one side…Kuber was on the other. Ranchor Das was the Partner in VC, who was working with Dream Labs. He was orchestrating all the discussions. He wanted to make sure at the end of the meeting, Kuber goes back pleased and confident about Vella Capital.

?

Apart from the usual song-and-dance, a product demo was a critical element of the meeting. Just as people were getting ready, Ranchor Das muttered in a whisper “oh god, I hope the demo works”. Fudhu started laughing, and proceeded with the demo. As feared, there was a glitch. But Fudhu had a charming co-founder, Jugaadu Singh. Jugaadu seamlessly shifted the audience from the actual output to another screen which had correct results (from an earlier trial). Kuber didn’t notice the sleight-of-hand, and was very impressed with the product. Vella Capital team was relieved.

In the evening, Fudhu, Jugaadu and Ranchor Das sat down over drinks. The sentiment was - “we came, we demoed, we conquered. Tomorrow, we repeat”.?

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{Ram (https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/ramakrishnanm) has raised money for his start-up, as well as invested in other start-ups. This is part of a comical series on how the entire start-up ecosystem - Founders, Investors, LPs, Investment Bankers, Accelerators - are constantly selling dreams to each other}