It was a ritual that Y Combinator (YC) had down pat. On February 12, 2020, the startup accelerator issued an email invitation to its Winter 2020 Demo Day on March 23 and 24. Almost 200 early-stage companies would “present themselves to a room of specially selected investors,” the invite explained. It included information on the venue—a pier next to the San Francisco Giants’ Oracle Park—and noted (twice) that lunch would not be provided.
After 15 years and 30 batches of companies, YC Demo Day was one of the startup ecosystem’s most familiar institutions. But as the Winter 2020 edition approached, it became clear that COVID-19 was about to disrupt every aspect of business as usual.
By early March, tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter started telling employees not to come into work, or at least recommending against it. So it was hardly surprising when YC managing partner and director of the early-stage program Michael Seibel sent an email to those…
Read More…
Source : fastcompany.com
Source link
