Brydon asked me about my tips for DemoCamp presenters. The advice is very simple, it’s all about understanding the audience, your possible outcomes/next steps, and maximizing the audience engagement with the goal of achieving your outcome. It doesn’t sound very complicated. The other advice I can give to presenters is to watch other presenters with a critical eye. You can see a pitch fest or a demo almost anywhere. Need help finding one to watch: check out Demo, TechCrunch50, or even some of the previous DemoCamps.
What to expect?
Demos are 5 minutes + 5 minutes of Q&A (more if the crowd is engaged and asking good questions).
How to get the most out of my demo slot?
- Set realistic expectations.
This audience is a great place to find talent, to connect with potential early adopters, or get feedback from a very savvy crowd. Decide what you want to accomplish, i.e., we want to see potential early adopter reactions, we want to get potential hires engaged, we just want to be cool. This crowd will be blogging, tweeting, talking to each other, thinking about beer, etc. It’s kind of like a TechCrunch50 or Demo light (just one calorie – tastes great and less filling).- Do the coolest thing first!
I’ve got the greatest bread slicer. Then show me the freaking sharks with lasers attached to their heads slicing the bread. Once you’ve done that, then talk about the boring stuff. You want the audience engaged. So the audience the reason that you will win (and please don’t let it be a log in box- Don’t use slides unless absolutely necessary.
This is called “Demo” Camp. People want to see functioning software. There are certain things that are hard to convey in a demo, i.e., funders, strategic relationships, etc. But if you start with the big WOW! then a few slides to convey the other details won’t get as many heckles.This is all about demand generation. I’m happy to help you understand the audience and how to succeed. We want great demos. Demos where people go “holy shit, that was built in Canada, I want to _____” work there/buy it/make my company more like those guys.
Demo Resources
- How to Demo Like a Demon
- Great Demo! by Peter Cohan – this is more sales and pre-sales focused, but the lessons apply. This is where Do The Last Thing First originated.
