Stage Two's blog

While I’ve blogged about my discomfort with the conflicting startup launch conferences (TechCrunch50 and DEMOfall), I still believe there’s plenty of opportunity on the table for the companies presenting. By now a handful of startups have already begun their presentations, a few on deck, and a bunch prepping themselves. I read a good post by Brian Solis on TechCrunch about “How to Stand Out from the Crowd” and thought I’d add some additional advice.

In no particular priority order:

1. Set Realistic Goals: Are you there to meet VCs or to meet press? Or maybe to meet potential business partners? There’s only so many hours in the day, and as you’ve by now noticed, there’s lots of people you could meet. Pick some specific, achievable goals, and put all your energy toward that. It’s easy to get distracted at an event like this, so focus is important.
2. Watch Presentations Before Your Own: If you are demoing this afternoon, or tomorrow, you have plenty of time to watch some other presenters. Get a feel for the room and the crowd. See what’s working well, and what’s not. Even if you’ve spent months creating a good demo script, you are getting more useful data right now than you can possibly have prepared for. Be nimble, don’t be rigid.
3. Have FUN up there: I’m a natural windbag, so I always enjoy being on a stage. But not everyone feels so comfortable in front of a large audience. That’s understandable, but the only advice I have is: “get over it!” This is the time to shine, not retreat. It’s just a few minutes, and while they may be extremely important minutes, don’t get so serious that you can’t enjoy your time. Your audience will know if you are comfortable or sweating bullets, and if you are trying your best, and smiling and (gasp) joking around, they’ll be on your side. Nothing wrong with being nervous, but people are going to want to like you, just make it easy for them!
4. Have your 10 second pitch ready: You only have a few minutes on stage, but you’re going to spend hours in the halls networking. Let’s face it, with all the “power players” around, everybody’s in a rush. You need to give a quick, compelling pitch, and don’t be offended when someone doesn’t want to know more. But if you take 2 minutes just to explain your story, they probably won’t be around to hear it all. Be fast and to the point.
5. Share the VIPs: There are some crazy bigwig type folks hanging around at these events. If you are lucky enough to get a few minutes with someone uber-important, please remember they are busy too, and there are many others like yourself who are just trying to meet them at all. There’s nothing more frustrating than standing behind someone giving their life story to a guy you’ve been dying to meet and exchange cards with. Give your pitch, swap cards, be friendly, and then, move on. It’s just good karma
6. Plan to Follow-up: This might sound obvious, but if you don’t plan to follow-up, don’t bother taking cards. Your window is 1 week, no more.
7. Wear Schwag: Let’s be honest, your goal is some amount of attention-getting. Might as well throw on a shirt (make one at Zazzle if need be), it’ll help people who are trying to find you. It may be gimmicky, but wouldn’t you rather be found than… not found?
8. Have a Tie-In: It’s always good to be able to say something like “Yeah, I was the guy on stage with the picture of the 5-foot-tall mouse” (or some other, more relevant idea). You don’t have to go crazy, just something that the audience will remember if you bring it up.
9. Don’t Get Drunk: Yes, we’ve all seen it. The people at the launch parties/events that have one too many drinks, and no pal to get them out of sight. Don’t be that guy.

Good luck at the show everyone!

UPDATE: I’m going to add one more from Robert Scoble (paraphrased): Don’t launch at a major conference with a “sucky” Web site!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 8th, 2008 at 9:24 am and is filed under Events, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.