welcome to week 6.
closing out strong w/ demo day.
you've come so far…we're proud as hell of you if you're reading this.
this is our final week and there are only two focuses:
create -> launch -> measure -> learn again this week.
craft your demo.
a "demo" is simply the story of what you're doing, how it works/looks, and your progress — all in 90 seconds.
as you go through life, you'll find that you need to tell this story a lot. because ppl will always be curious about what you're up to.
and you never know, the person you tell your story to might be able to help you out.
but you gotta be able to tell your story properly + get the person excited about your work.
it's a skill in itself, and that's what we'll help you do this week + get better at it.
we cover this in depth in lecture #6, so be sure to watch it.
here's the lecture #6 recording. it starts here.
watch recording of lab #6.
If you wanna get a better sense of how to make your demo day video, we gave a ton of feedback to ppl here :)
don't worry if you missed it. here's the recording and it starts here.
final update is due saturday july 27th @9:00 am pt.
*this has a different due date than all the other weekly updates.
**it's due saturday july 27
***before submitting please review all the detailed guidelines below.
required steps for the final update.
there are going to be three ways you'll be able to practice telling your story.
01 — the demo day video.
this is the main part of demo day.
this will be a 90s video you record + edit where you tell your story of what you're working on to the world.
we'll put your demo video along with everyone else's on a page on sage.
and on july 27th, we'll send this demo day page to our email list of 200,000 ppl.
you never know who might see your demo. def put some effort + thought into it :)
pls read the guidelines for the demo day video below. don't just record a random video. we have very clear guidelines.
you must follow the guidelines — if you don't, we we'll have to remove you from the page.
demo day guidelines
the demo day video is by far most important part of this week.
a lot of people think it’s the live demo day but it’s not. it’s this video because this is your chance to tell the world your story from the last 6-weeks.
and, if you tell the story properly you could potentially get a lot of people interested because we’re going to put you on a page with all the other demos + send it out to everyone.
many of you have probably never told your story in a concise video before, so, at worst this is gonna be some good practice. you won’t become as good a presenter as steve jobs but, hey, gotta start somewhere – right :).
build your confidence. it’ll be worth it.
so, this video must be a max of 90s. it can be a shorter, but not a second longer.
it must be a 16:9, horizontal video (like most youtube videos), not a vertical video.
here's the format to follow based on lecture #6:
1. introduce yourself and what you're building. this is your project one-liner. take it from your idea slide and refine it.
recommended: 10-seconds.
be sure the video starts with you taking up the whole screen like this. notice how he's perfectly center and the camera angle is showing the top of his head, to the base of his chest. also, notice how simple his background is.
no matter what you're making (music, software, whatever) we've found all this simple opening that grabs attention. if you think it's cringe/wack — feel free to do something different. but…just know, we've seen this opening work 100s of times.
*optional: start with “hi buildspace”
2. what does your thing do? this is the "demo" part -- show ppl how your thing works. if you’re a musician, show us a piece of your song. if you made an app, show us how it works. pretend like you're showing it someone new.
recommended: 30-45-seconds.
if you share your screen at this point or start to show something else, be sure people can clearly see what you're doing/showing.
good example here of how someone told their story in s4.
3. where are you with your project now? talk about how your project is doing. show numbers if you made progress on it. if you have no numbers show us breakthroughs/milestones.
recommended: 30-45-seconds.
the whole goal of this section is to help people understand your journey these last 6-weeks and see where you started, all the things you tried, the things you failed at, the things that worked, etc. all of this makes up your story. we wanna see the wins and the losses.
show, don't tell.
literally show all the dumb shit you tried, show all the stuff that went well. we wanna see it all. if you made 100 reddit posts and all got 0 upvotes, show us all 100. if you did something random that worked, show us.
please — show. don't tell.
good example here of how someone showed their progress in s4.
4. where are you going next? you probably have a clearer vision of your project after 6 weeks. let ppl know where you're going next or how they can check out your project.
recommended: 10-seconds.
here are some really good examples:
example for content creators.
example for musicians.
example for software products.
example for ai/software products.
example for game devs.
example for hardware.
example for d2c.
want more? there are thousands of demos. scroll for inspo.
things you should definitely do for your video:
make sure you audio isn’t bad. if you gotta go borrow a mic, go do that.
make sure your lighting is good. it should not look like you are in a dungeon.
make sure the shots of you have a solid camera angle.
something like this is perfect:
this video is gonna be something new/difficult for many of you.
but look. when you are on the 15th take, frustrated as hell. or are 10 hours in trying to edit something and can't get it look right…just see it all as practice.
don't do this because "buildspace told me to".
do it because you think these skills are important and see this as practice.
trust us — if you you keep making stuff, these skills talking on camera, making videos, editing, etc will come in handy later.
once you have the video. upload it to youtube. when you upload the video to youtube, please make sure you customize the thumbnail.
even if your video isn’t public, these thumbnails are what people will see on the demo day page.
do whatever you want for the thumbnail. but, if you aren’t sure we recommend simply having the thumbnail be an image of you waving at the camera or say hi.
for the title of the video, make it something like “how i went from x to z in 6-weeks” or “how i made an x in 42 days”
ex. “how i went from 0 to 100 users in 6-weeks – buildspace”
ex. “how i made my first short film in 42 days – buildspace”
do whatever you want! you just wanna make sure the title grabs people’s attention.
here's an example thumbnail we cooked up lol.
have fun with it!
02 — the demo day social post.
once you make your 90s video, we recommend posting it on twitter, linkedin, reels, tiktok, fuck it post it on your facebook account you never log into.
just put it everywhere. you truly never know what may happen. this video can go viral.
this is your chance to tell people your story from the last 6-weeks.
we’ll do our best to interact with as many of you as possible to give a little boost.
*we ask you to all post your 90s demo day video on socials at the same time, july 27 at 10:15am pt, right after demo day starts. it’ll be more fun that way :).
**we recommend prepping your post ahead of time, though! so, all you gotta do on july 27 is hit post.
in s4 we did this and a lot of ppl outside of the season began to check out demos because of all the noise.
social post guidelines.
your twitter/linkedin posts should be super straightforward.
think about how you scroll through the platforms. you're not usually reading whole paragraphs — you're scanning.
whatever you decide to write — make it really easy to understand at a glance.
and this is how you should focus your time on a post:
80% of your effort should be on making the first line banger.
whatever comes after the first line should just be super straightforward.
don't try to be cute or clever with your tweet. it doesn't work 99.99% of the time.
just keep it simple :)
also, we know this 90s video is a horizontal video.
so, it's not a good fit for short-form like reels or tiktok. but our recommendation is to post it anyway. this happens to us a lot because we make a lot of out videos for twitter/youtube first — but, we still post horizontal videos all the time on IG Reels like this one.
it's not perfect, but, better than not posting tbh!
you can 100% feel free to make a demo video specifically for vertical short form, but, we're not gonna require it. it's gonna be extra credit for grants (more info below).
03 — live demo day.
so, this is how live demo day will work:
on july 27 at 10am pt im gonna go live on youtube.
i'll give you some final words + tips.
then, once i give the signal — everyone will join a discord server we make.
we will send you the link closer to demo day. just be sure you are rsvp'd here.
within that discord, there will be hundreds of video rooms.
each room will be able to have a maximum of 7 people.
so, once you join a video room everyone will go 1-by-1, share their screen, and take 2m to give a live demo + get some feedback from other people in the room.
once everyone’s done, you can hop to a different room and do it all over again.
this is the 5th time we’re running live demo day.
tldr: it can be kinda cringe + chaotic at times. some people go really long and tell their life history, some people have really bad audio/lag, etc.
my advice: just embrace the cringe.
also, a big part of demo day day is finding a room you vibe with. if you feel like the people in your room ain't it or this is one person talking way too much, you can just hop to a different one.
we made demo day in such a way where you can control your own destiny, vs have us control it for you.
live demo day will be 2-hours long from 10am pt to 12pm pt on saturday, july 27. so, please be sure to block the time out on your calendar.
live demo day guidelines.
some basic things to keep in mind + rules:
you must have a webcam + video for demo day. plz don’t be that one person that has video off and is weird about it.
please make sure you have a good mic if your mic is trash ppl won't be able to understand you and it'll be cringe.
make sure you are somewhere quiet from 10am pt to 12pm pt. don’t be that person with a ton of noise in the background everyone will be annoyed at you lol.
please make sure you got a good internet connection for live demo day. we always see people struggle with vpns or school internet connections and it makes the experience trash for them.
please prepare ahead of time make sure you can join the video rooms, share your screen, share your video, etc. discord screen share is kinda weird.
once we send you the server link closer to demo day, be sure to practice.
[optional] extra credit for grants.
grants will be announced by aug 16.
and, this is the final extra credit for grants. it’s the #1 thing we’re going to look at when making our final decisions on who to give the grants to.
so, you are making a 90s horizontal video. this is required already.
but for grants, if interested – we ask that you make a 45-90s demo video but, do it as a short on reels/tiktok/or yt shorts in vertical format.
introduce yourself.
tell us what you’re working on.
show us how it worked.
show us where you started, and where you got – numbers, progress, milestones, etc
end however you want.
simply tell us your story.
final update is due saturday july 27th @09:00 am pt.
a lot going on, here are all the important dates to keep in mind.
1. saturday, july 27 @ 9am pt -- the final update is due.
if you don't submit this, you won't show up on the final page.
2. saturday, july 27 @ 10am pt - 12pm pt -- live demo is happening.
be sure to rsvp for it here.
3. saturday, july 27 @ 10:15am pt -- we'll all post our final demo day videos to socials together :).