How to do a great demo

Demos are a key component of the culture at Novus. It's an opportunity for us to collectively develop common knowledge through your learnings and lessons. Presenting a great demo is not only a way to help others be informed on what you're working on, but opportunities for others to learn and ask questions.

We encourage everyone to demo — and we even have an on-going joke that if you don't demo within three Novus meetups, we'll kick you out. If you're working on anything, you should be fighting for a spot to demo.

How do demos work?

At 2:15 demo-leads go scout and collect a list for demo-ers. We round everyone around a TV or a projector and at 2:30 we start demos. We have some rules around demos to ensure this 30-minute slot is productive for everyone attending.

• —Demos are no longer than 3 minutes max — keep it short and concise.
• —A minute for each Q&A (1-3 questions). Have more questions? Go interact with the demo-er.

What can I demo?

Our community leans towards technical, 80-20, so naturally we sit around watching lines of code run. But that doesn't mean you can only present technical demos.

Here are some previous demos we've enjoyed:

• How I broke up with my co-foundersFounding team
• AI Retrieval-Augmented GenerationTechnical
• How I built a newsletter with over 50k subscribersGTM
• How I shut down my startupFailure

In the past we've also had very philosophical demos, and even demos on “how to propose to your partner”. You can demo anything you think may be valuable or cool to the audience.

How to do a great demo

Some characteristics of a great demo:

• —Prepare your demo: login, wifi, your pages.
• —Keep it short and brief.
• —No selling — we want to learn from your demos.
• —Show us what you built and tell us how you did it.
• —Optionally, if there are areas you need help in or want feedback on, ask. (“I need…”, “I'm looking for X”)

Some context you want to build within your demo:

• —What was my goal?
• —How did I achieve it?
• —What did I learn?
• —If I were to do it over again, how would I do it?

“Breaking up with my co-founder”

• ContextMy co-founder took a job to do startups on the side, meanwhile I'm full-time.
• ContextI want to work with someone who works on this startup with me full-time.
• ProblemI want to break up with my co-founder.
• SolutionI had a difficult conversation, and he wanted to be bought out.
• LearningIt's important to be on the same page with your co-founders at all stages.
• TakeawayIf I were looking for another co-founder, I'd look out for these characteristics…
• QuestionHow do I remove my co-founder from my cap table?