Putting the BaaS in BadasS - Our TechStars Boston Demo Day Pitch

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15 Jul

Putting the BaaS in BadasS - Our TechStars Boston Demo Day Pitch

Written by Ryan Light

There was something surreal and bittersweet about walking through the doorway of the Club Royale in Boston on June 15 2011, for TechStars Demo Day. It hadn’t quite sunk in yet that after today, Techstars was over.

Demo day was the culmination of 3 months of 15-20 hour work days, countless nights of sleeping under our desks, getting pastey-white due to lack of outdoor exposure, and new-found expertise on who provided the best pizza in Cambridge. It was time to show the world what we'd all been up to and how we had taken our company to the next level.

The proud, yet slightly nervous Boston Techstars class of 2011 stood around the dim auditorium, which normally houses rock concerts. A lingering aroma of old beer washed away with Pine-Sol, filled the air. This was it, the day we'd all practiced ad nauseum, the day we'd get to have the undivided attention of hundreds of investors and journalists, to WOW them with our slick presentations and our incredible products. Great TechStars mentors like Katie Rae, David Cohen and Reed Sturtevant prepared us well to take this stage and OWN it!

Sravish, Morgan and I had worked hard on the Kinvey pitch. Katie, Reed, David, Sunil , Fred, Brad and Mike had given us a lot of great feedback. We went through endless iterations, but we weren't quite happy with it. The evening before Demo Day, at about 5:00 PM, Sravish and I locked ourselves in a conference room and started from scratch. We built a brand new deck, re-worked the art work, re-wrote the script, and worked in jokes about "Backends" and "Backend as a Service" (BaaS). Sravish lost his voice, my back hurt and I could barely keep my eyes open. We called it a night at 1:00 AM.

We got to the Royale at 8:00 AM and practiced the Kinvey pitch one last time, and then forgot about it. We mingled for the rest of the morning (some photos) with our mentors and friends, and when the time came, here’s what we presented (this is an edited version of the video where we took out investment and product related sections)

Demo Day was the most fun I’ve had in a long time. It’s a thrill I will remember for the rest of my life. We got a lot of positive feedback on the progress we’ve made and the goals we aim to accomplish. The future for Kinvey is bright, as we continue to put the BaaS in BadasS.