Demo Daze: Five ways to turn a demo from dull to dazzling
As part of our series examining the ecosystem necessary to bring technology to market, we asked veteran technology executive and investor Ron Weissman to share his thoughts on how startups can achieve success. This is the next of his commentaries and we welcome your comments.
By Ronald Weissman
The setting: A buffet line at a Silicon Valley VC pitching event. An entrepreneur, not on the program, recognized me as a VC who had heard his pitch before.
The action: The entrepreneur drags me out of line, insists that I see his demo NOW! and corrals me into a corner, balancing his laptop on a stack of cartons.
“Ok, you’ve got my attention,” I sigh, with more than a hint of annoyance.
He launches into a demo of a complex app doing who knows what on screen. “See,” he says, “it all works, just like I told you it would!”
“Uh…,” I sputter, “what exactly am I looking at?”
“My app,” he says, “the one I told you would revolutionize multi-application business collaboration!”
In his mind, simply witnessing his demo will instantly convert me from a skeptic into an investor. In my mind, I can fake an urgent call (the surest way to flee a tedious demo) or be polite and suffer in silence. Holding a lunch tray, I can’t readily grab my phone, so, once again, I resign myself to the latter course – death by demo.
