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Ask questions that move from the demonstrated product to the customer problem, evidence of demand, alternatives, execution risks, and the founder’s insight. A productive booth conversation is not a miniature investment committee meeting: start with what you just saw, request concrete examples and time periods, and let the founder’s answers determine which thread deserves a follow-up.
Start with what the demo actually showed
A polished demo tells you what the founder chose to present, not everything the company can deliver. Your first job is to separate a live capability from a prototype, a simulated workflow, and a roadmap item.
Ask what works today
Use a direct, non-accusatory question: What part of what you showed is working in the product today, and what is still a prototype or planned? This invites a useful distinction without implying that an early-stage product should already be complete. TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield application guidance emphasizes real functionality and a working minimum viable product, so the answer helps you understand how closely the demonstration matches that standard.
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Follow up with specifics when the answer is vague:
- Was the workflow run live, or was the screen a prepared recording or mock-up?
- Which steps require a human operator, manual data preparation, or a private pilot?
- How many customers can use this version at once?
- What important step did the team leave out of the demo?
You are not trying to catch the founder in a “gotcha.” You are building an accurate mental model of the product’s current boundary.
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Find the customer and the urgent problem
A strong explanation connects a specific user to a recurring problem and an existing way of coping. Avoid starting with a broad market label such as “all small businesses” or “everyone who uses software.” Ask who experiences the pain most intensely.
Identify the highest-need user
Ask: Who has this problem most urgently? Then ask the founder to describe a recent case: Can you tell me about a time a customer ran into it? A concrete story should include the user’s role, what happened, how often it happens, and what the consequence was. If the founder can only describe an abstract persona, you have learned that the customer definition may still be forming.
Map the current workaround
Ask: How do those customers handle it today? The answer may be an incumbent product, spreadsheets, a manual process, an internal team, outsourcing, or simply tolerating the problem. “Nothing” is still an alternative if the pain is not strong enough to trigger action. Understanding the workaround tells you what behavior the startup must change, not merely what feature it offers.
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Useful probes include:
- How frequently does the problem occur?
- What does it cost in time, money, risk, or lost opportunity?
- Who feels the pain, and who has authority to approve a purchase?
- What event causes a customer to look for a solution now?
These questions distinguish an interesting inconvenience from a problem that can support sustained use or payment.
Ask what evidence of demand means
Do not treat a growth percentage, a user count, or a pilot logo as self-explanatory. Ask what was measured, who was included, and over what period. TechCrunch lists early traction as a consideration for Startup Battlefield, but it does not publish one universal threshold or required metric. The right evidence depends on the business model and stage.
Use a metric-and-context question
Start with: What have you seen so far that makes you believe people will keep using or pay for this? Then ask: What changed in the last few months? Request the denominator and time window for any number you hear. “We grew 50 percent” could mean weekly active users over one month, revenue over a year, or a small base of pilot accounts; those cases have very different implications.
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| Business situation | Evidence worth clarifying | Follow-up question |
|---|---|---|
| Consumer or prosumer app | Activation, repeat use, retention by cohort, referrals | How many people returned after the first week or month, and how is that measured? |
| Business software | Active accounts, renewal behavior, paid conversion, expansion | How many customers are paying, for how long, and what causes them to renew? |
| Marketplace | Successful matches, repeat transactions, supply and demand balance | What proportion of users complete a transaction, and how often do they return? |
| Hardware or regulated product | Working deployments, reliability, approvals, purchasing cycle | Which milestones are complete, and what remains before routine customer use? |
| Pre-revenue or very early company | Interviews, pilots, signed commitments, usage in tests | What did prospective users do, not just say, and what changed because of that evidence? |
Evidence can be directional rather than definitive at a demo event. Your aim is to learn whether the team distinguishes observations from assumptions and whether it has learned something recently.
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Explore alternatives and meaningful differentiation
Ask What do customers compare you with? rather than only asking for a list of named competitors. The relevant alternative may be a familiar vendor, an internal workflow, a consultant, or no action. Then ask: Where do you win, and where does the alternative still work better?
Look for a customer outcome
Feature lists do not explain why a buyer changes behavior. Ask what becomes faster, safer, cheaper, more accurate, or possible for the customer. A useful differentiation claim has a user, a situation, and an observable result. “We use artificial intelligence” is a technology description; “a support team resolves a defined class of cases in half the handling time” is an outcome claim that can be investigated.
Watch for the no-competition warning
TechCrunch’s official FAQ states, “Saying you have no competitors is a red flag.” Treat that as a prompt to broaden the question, not as proof that a company is weak. Ask what customers did before the startup existed and why they might continue doing it. A founder who can explain where an alternative remains stronger usually demonstrates more market understanding than one who declares the field empty.
Test switching friction
Ask what must change for a customer to adopt the product: data migration, procurement, training, integration, regulatory approval, or a new habit. A dramatic product advantage may not matter if the cost and risk of switching are higher than the customer’s perceived benefit.
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Ask what proved difficult
Use: What has been harder to build or deliver than you expected? The answer reveals whether the team has encountered real constraints and adjusted its plan. Listen for a specific dependency, failed approach, operational bottleneck, or customer requirement, followed by what the team changed.
Ask about the ten-times problem
Ask: What would have to be true for this to work at ten times the current scale? Depending on the company, the limiting factor could be cloud cost, manufacturing capacity, data rights, human review, sales hiring, onboarding, fraud prevention, or regulatory approval. You are testing whether the founder can identify the assumptions that do not automatically scale.
Separate a risk from a red flag
Every early startup has unresolved risks. More revealing than the existence of a risk is whether the team knows how it will test it, what evidence would change its plan, and which milestone comes next. Be cautious when the founder cannot name a constraint, presents every issue as solved, or substitutes confidence for a measurable next step.
Understand why this team is pursuing the problem
Founder fit is not a charisma contest. TechCrunch says it considers founder experience, insight into the problem, and why the team is positioned to build the company.
Ask for the source of insight
Try: What experience gave you a close view of this problem? The founder might be a former user, operator, researcher, buyer, or specialist. The value is not prestige; it is access to informed observations that improve product decisions.
Ask what changed their mind
Follow with: What did you learn that changed your original idea? A specific pivot, discarded feature, revised customer segment, or changed pricing assumption demonstrates contact with evidence. It also tells you whether the team treats learning as part of execution rather than as a threat to its story.
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Check for complementary capability
If several founders are present, ask how responsibilities divide and which capability is still missing. A candid answer about a hiring need or an area where the team relies on advisors is more useful than a claim that every function is already covered.
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Close with a useful next step
End constructively: What kind of feedback or introduction would be most useful right now? This lets the founder state a real need instead of forcing an unsolicited pitch for investment, hiring, or a sales referral. If you offer an introduction, confirm the person’s relevance and ask permission before sharing contact details.
How to tell whether a startup demo is real
No booth conversation can establish commercial viability, retention, or technical reliability on its own. You can, however, check whether the presentation is grounded in an operating product.
- Ask which screen or workflow was live and which parts were simulated.
- Request a simple explanation of the user’s first step and the system’s output.
- Ask what happens when the input is incomplete, unusual, or wrong.
- Find out whether anyone outside the founding team uses the demonstrated version.
- Ask what the team still has to build before a typical customer can use it without special help.
A founder may reasonably decline to reveal confidential customer data or security details. The important signal is whether the answer remains precise about scope and limitations.
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Use questions that force context rather than a particular answer:
- Which users were included in the number you just mentioned?
- What period does it cover, and what was the starting base?
- How many users or accounts are active now compared with sign-ups?
- What behavior shows that customers receive repeat value?
- What did customers do after the pilot or trial ended?
- What result would convince you that your current assumption is wrong?
For a pre-revenue company, learning velocity can be more informative than a large but unqualified audience figure. For a mature revenue motion, renewal, expansion, and sales-cycle evidence may matter more than raw registrations. Let the model determine the question.
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Compare several demos on the same axes
When you visit multiple booths, use a short common framework so presentation polish does not dominate your impression. These axes reflect themes TechCrunch describes in its Startup Battlefield materials; they are an organizing aid, not an official scoring rubric or formula.
| Axis | What to record | Question to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Problem | Specificity, frequency, cost, risk, and urgency | Who encounters this most often, and what happens if they do nothing? |
| Product evidence | What function worked and what remained planned | Which part is available to an ordinary customer today? |
| Customer evidence | Users or buyers observed, period covered, behavior seen | What did customers actually do after trying it? |
| Alternatives | Incumbent, internal process, outsourcing, or inaction | Why would someone switch, and where does the alternative win? |
| Execution | Hardest dependency, bottleneck, and next test | What must be true at ten times the current scale? |
| Founder insight | Relevant experience and lessons that changed the plan | What did you learn that altered the product or customer focus? |
Write down one concrete fact and one unresolved question for each company. That is enough to preserve distinctions after a crowded event without pretending that a brief conversation is due diligence.
Historical prompts worth borrowing carefully
Historical Startup Battlefield stage questions offer useful patterns, but they are not current judging rules. In a 2017 Axios report, Shawn Carolan was quoted asking: If there was one job your product can do that you can’t do with any other existing solution, what would it be? The prompt tests focus and niche targeting; adapt it to ask about a single high-value job rather than demanding an absolute claim.
The same report quotes Sam Altman asking: As you grow your company, and its impact increases upon its city, its nation, and the world: will it be a force for good? That is a values-and-impact question from a 2017 stage interview. It can open a thoughtful discussion about consequences, but it should not replace basic questions about how the product works, who needs it, and what evidence exists.
What a short demo conversation cannot prove
- A working screen does not prove reliable production performance.
- A growing user count does not prove retention, willingness to pay, or healthy economics.
- A compelling customer story does not establish that the problem is widespread.
- A clear feature difference does not prove that switching costs are acceptable.
- Founder confidence does not prove execution capability or market size.
- A Startup Battlefield appearance does not make a current company an alumnus success story.
TechCrunch’s official Startup Battlefield page reports more than 1,700 companies in the program, $32 billion in total funds raised as of January 2025, and approximately 250 total exits as of January 2025. Those are aggregate figures for program alumni, not outcomes for the company at your booth, and they do not establish that participation caused those outcomes.
A compact booth checklist
- Product: What is live, and what is prototype or roadmap?
- Customer: Who has the problem most urgently?
- Story: What happened in a recent real customer case?
- Alternative: How is the problem handled today?
- Demand: What evidence shows repeat use or payment, with what time period and denominator?
- Difference: Why does the product change customer behavior?
- Execution: What has been hardest, and what breaks at ten times scale?
- Founder: What experience created the team’s insight?
- Learning: What changed because of evidence?
- Next step: What feedback or introduction would help now?
Keep the exchange proportionate to the founder’s time. One precise follow-up is usually more valuable than ten questions delivered as an interrogation. The goal is a clearer understanding of the problem, product, evidence, and people—not a premature verdict.
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