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Was Your Presentation Memorable? Or Was It Forgettable?
If you are an American Idol viewer, you know that when the singer finishes their performance Simon Cowell provides his analysis. Many times he says things like "that was forgettable" or "you didn’t do anything to stand out from the rest". As I watch hundreds of startups present their products and services, I am often thinking the same thing. And you should be too.
This week I watched about a dozen startup pitches at the DEMO conference via the live stream (which was fabulous btw). Most of the demos were, unfortunately, forgettable. The products might be awesome but nearly none of the presenters got me excited about their product or service. This issue isn’t just about the companies I watched at DEMO – it happens all the time at nearly every pitch event I attend. I will use DEMO as the example for the rest of this discussion but know that you can insert any pitch conference in its place.
What makes a pitch memorable? That’s simple (yes, it really is simple). It’s about showing your passion for your product.
When you are on stage, you want every single person watching your presentation to feel your passion about your product. Only one of the DEMO companies I watched brought some passion to their presentation. That company was Skout. The founder showed their dating jukebox and looked like he was humping it (in a good way). It was hot because you could feel the energy level in the room go up. The other presentations I viewed were all monotonous and almost seemed like it was the same presenter on all of them. No pitch or tone change, no excitement, just a boring, "here’s what it does". If you aren’t excited about your product, why should I be?
Compounding the problem was that nearly every presenter was wearing the same outfit. While I am not suggesting you dress up like you just came in from a fishing trip or color your hair orange, it also doesn’t mean you need to wear a blue shirt. We’ve seen the pale blue shirt crowd many times before. Even another shade of blue is fine — the pale blue screams forgettable.
UCLA basketball coach John Wooden once said, "Make everyday your masterpiece". I would modify the line a little, "Make every pitch your masterpiece". I know it can be very hard, scary and nerve-wracking to be able to stand in front of 10, 100 or 1,000 people and talk. It’s certainly not easy for anyone, no matter how many times a person has done it. One of the things that always helps me is to remember that the people watching me speak are there to support me. In the case of DEMO, all of the people in the audience and watching from home want to cheer you on and want to see you succeed (I know I do). So instead of thinking that you are going out to pitch to a group of people you don’t know, think of the people in the audience as family. Change the way you look at the people you are pitching to and you will see how much stronger your presentations become instantly (even if they aren’t pitches).
I am going to share more tips on how to make your startup pitches memorable each and every time over the coming week. And I’d be happy to critique your pitch at SXSW.
As a sidenote, when I mentioned in the DEMO chat that I thought the presentations were forgettable, organizer Chris Shipley told me that it was easy to critique from the 3rd row. I’d be more than happy to bring my startup to DEMOfall but as I told Chris I can’t afford $20k.
The bottom line is simple – when you are pitching your product or service, bring passion, bring excitement and get the crowd enthused. Make your pitch memorable each and every time!
[...] If you do apply to present at one of the conferences, please make sure your presentation is memorable. [...]
Totally agree. with so many demos at demo you have to do something to get people to remember your product so they check it out and more importantly spread the word about it.
That’s true, it’s all about passion, you love what you do and you are passionate about your Start up = Success in delivering what it’s all about and get more people talking about it, if you don’t show your passion, people are going to fall asleep during your presentation and never remember anything about what you’ve just said.
It’s interesting (!) how so often after I’ve attended a day of PowerPoint how when I feel my way back across the day that it seems I’ve been watching the same presentation again and again…
In addition to passion, I’m also wondering how much extreme relevancy makes a presentation memorable. ie if it solves a problem that I’m having RIGHT NOW in an elegant or surprising way, I’m going to remember and talk about it.
And yes it is easy to criticise from the third row, but if people are criticising it might mean you need to up your game…
Andrew
They reading from cue cards and going through the motions and pulling out his phone to demonstrate a point and back to the cue cards – don’t remember the name of the service, but I remember the pitch! Another one – the two women trying to convince me that their system was so easy to edit videos on, yet, it looked about the same as any other one – “Hey I’m smoke, let me introduce you to mirror!” Another one I can’t remember the name of the service, but I remember the pitch.
So yes, it’s very important, and both of those above pitches are examples of remembering their pitch and now historical / visual reminders of their $20k they could have spent in a better way.
Rex
I am not 100% sure how I feel about the cue cards. I saw this as well at the demofall i attended last year. Without the cue cards, several of those presenters would have never been able to get through their presentations.
There was one presentation with 2 guys which had an error page on their demo and the one guy just lost it – the other guy did a good job in trying to save the presentation.
I didn’t see one with two women so I don’t know which company you are speaking about.
As for whether the 20k was worth it – this is always a hot debated topic – i think the live video helped – the real question is how many media mentions did each company get – that’s the real key.
Allen, I’m so glad you mentioned the visual style of both the presentations and presenters! Pale blue shirts and khaki pants seem to be the uniform these days, I wonder if anyone actually ever made a research and found that it helps to gain trust or something…
In any case – it looks like we could use Simon Cowell in the tech world… Maybe you should nominate yourself for the position ;)
looking forward to more tips
Good pitches do need to be memorable – we have 100% agreement on that.
However, consider the purpose behind DEMO pitches and the audience – these are companies looking for investment, pitching to an audience looking to invest. Unless you’re in a position to invest in these companies, you really are judging from the third row. Remember – part of the reason why Simon gets away with what he says is because he’s a record executive, not just an armchair quarterback like the rest of us.