If you're the type to get queasy nerves from public speaking, strangers, or presentations, best advice is a shot of Jameson 20 min before your interview.
This is actually excellent advice, and I'm not sure why it's being downvoted. It works well with public speaking and oral language proficiency tests as well.
Don't have two shots. There's a local maximum where you're disinihibited but still not impaired. Find that.
That trick used to work pretty well for me, but sometime around age 36† my liver crapped out and a single shot of whiskey will now make me break out in a sweat. Alcohol sweat + nervousness + public speaking isn't a great combination.
A single cigarette is about 80% as effective for me, without the bad side effect. At a normal rate of public speaking, I'm not sure how significant the health downside of those individual cigarettes might be compared to the alcohol.
† I have a brother a year younger than me who reports the same thing happened to him, so this might be genetic.
I usually tell teams to really focus on specific and direct stories that are helpful to answer the three things all people in a pitch care about: Team, idea, and traction.
Team is pretty straightforward. E.g. How do you know if you can do X? Well, my cofounder Amy did that for Google for 3 years.
Idea tends to revolve around validating the market, e.g. We know customers want it because they already pay $10K/mo to Oracle for the same thing.
Traction is the thing that usually really helps nervous folks because it doesn't change with delivery — your numbers are your numbers, so if you know how much revenue you're making and what the growth rate is the last 6 months, just say it.
All those are important from the perspective of having the answers to the questions themselves.
The point of the shot isn't to suddenly give you some last minute insights about the company you've been building. Hell if you book your ticket to SF without having that figured out you might as well not fly.
The point of the shot is to calm the nerves of those of us (present company not included haha) that aren't used to speaking or presenting. It's a daunting task, especially with something like YC acceptance on the line. If it helps you calm down enough to give the answers you've already prepared for then go for it.
