Stage Lights and Startup Dreams

This is the first time I’ve done a full platform demo in front of a live audience. Most of them are potential buyers of our platform, so I am nervous. What would they think of our platform, will I deliver solutions to their pain points? Can I come off as confident and capable of handling large enterprise projects? All of this swirled in my head.

Sunday morning was our rehearsal day. It definitely helped a ton to see some friends and our marketplace members practicing their demos. Watching some of their finely crafted scripts, curated flows made me think about my approach twice.

It was my time to go up and rehearse. I am mic’ed up, laptop is all plugged in and I went for it. Truth be told, I do demos all day, all night, every night. Every 30 minutes, I am doing some major context switching and give another set of audience a complete walk through of our platform. Listening to them carefully and walking through our platform, bit by bit, creates a solution for them and sets expectations.

This time, however, it’s different. You don’t get any interaction from the audience, they don’t get to ask questions. You have to go head on and give the audience enough of an overview to get my points across, all under 7 minutes. 

The theme of my live demo is “launching a mortgage product in less than 3 minutes.”, my goal is to set the stage for what LendAPI is all about, introduce myself and through in a few ice breakers strategically to make sure the audience is following me.

The rehearsal was great. I talked to Sam afterwards and we tighten up a few things to make it even better. I can’t ask for a better Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder than Sam. He’s on top of everything and we collaborated all day and night this past Sunday to make sure our Monday demo goes as smoothly as possible.

After my demo, I stayed and watched a few fellow demo presenters and took some photos for them. I chatted with a few of them and learned of their business. It feels right to be at Finovate, hanging out with folks that speak your language and have done a ton more than we will ever imagine. 

It was raining outside but that didn’t deter Vance, our Techstars mentor and I catching up over lunch. Vance really helped me completing our seed round raise last year when one of the three investors couldn’t come through with their investment at the end. We talked about building and scaling companies and some of the issues we are facing today. It’s always wonderful to chat with folks that’ve seen us grow since day 1. We are forever grateful for Vance’s mentorship, his belief in us and always make us a priority whenever we need something.

Seven Minutes That Shaped the Stage

Demo Day and our demo slot of 9:19am EST, Monday came faster than I realized. I quickly went through registration, grabbed a few things to eat and went backstage on the main floor and tried to get myself ready for show time. 

I’ve never seen much backstage of anything. There was a ton of equipment, a lot of audio and sound engineers working in the dark getting us ready. I got mic’ed up again, laptop is set aside for the engineers to plug in and get ready.

Two of my fellow demo presenters went up. Hearing them backstage and behind the speakers made me think, “this must be what Ozzy hears every night before he goes on stage…”, maybe he rests in peace.

It’s time! How Finovate demo works is that while the last presenter is finishing, you are going up on stage on the opposite end of the stage to get ready. I went on while the last presenters were finishing. I looked out to the audience, it was a full house of about 500 people.

I immediately recognized our podcast host Rutger van Fassen video recording me with his equipment. And as soon as I caught up with my heart beat, Greg Palmer, the MC of the event came out opposite of me on stage and introduced me to begin.

I stepped into the spotlight and … “Good morning Finovate!……”

I gave my demo, launched a mortgage application in 3 minutes, a few laughs and applause at the end. I performed. I got a lot of “you did a great job” accolades from my peers and it was a humbling experience.

Our booth was mobbed by partners, friends, VCs, banks and credit unions. They all share our vision. Launch products quickly and create revenue together. The customers of today demand new products, quick decisions and a clean and intuitive user experience. And we delivered everything.

After the first wave of onlookers stopped by the booth, I went over to see the new batch of Techstars Economic Mobility cohort and did a quick one hour Q&A with the MD of Techstars NYC Andres Bareto. 

The interactions with the 2025 Fall cohort reminded me of what Sam and I went through a year ago and how far both of us have come since then. I gave my best to the new Techstars NYC cohort and I hope my stories gave them a sense of purpose and more fuel to scale their companies.

I didn’t want to leave but I had to rush back and take care of the booth with Eric King, my chief of staff. We met with even more credit union executives as the afternoon crowd rushed in and we had a blast doing more demos for everyone that's as interested in digging deeper.

“Freedom to Create” tour continues

I am cutting my stay in New York City a little short and flying to Minneapolis to meet up with Rob Weber and his Great North Venture’s team. I will be doing a fireside chat with Rob to talk about our origin story and how we are able to scale our business by cutting through the noise.

Next week, I will be spending time in Utah with our partner LoanPro to support them at their Salt Flat summit. It will be a blast, I already know.