Well here's the skinny on the first live demonstration that I gave for numeroom.com
since going live private beta on June 2. I'd been preparing for such events by lurking at a few
in the city to see how other companies were going about it and crafted my presentation
strategy for maximum effect! I had to jump through a few hoops with Rackspace
(my hosting provider) to get the servers online but the deed was done.
I got to bed nice and early in order to be well rested and was able to get about 4 or 5
hours of deep sleep before I got up early that morning restless at the day to come.
I hit the road around 5 am for my run, 6.88 miles of "meditation" that formed the
substrate for thoughts on how it would go. I reviewed my demonstration script in my
head and after the run was over and I was showered and ready for the day reviewed it
again. The hours flew by and before I knew it it was time to head out to Manhattan.
I got my laptop configured and ready and hit the road.
I arrived early as is my ken and was curious about the venue, a bar with a back room
for such presentation events. I'd never been to or pitched at such an event but
there is a first time for every thing I guess. One reason I wanted to get there
early was so that I can be the first presenter to set up the laptop on the
projectors and call dibs on "first!".
I love starting the event off and then watching the other presenters and I got
the opportunity this time. Slowly people started trickling in until about
15 minutes before the event and then a flood of people came in, I made various
introductions to people that were there, fellow presenters and the organizer and
then the count down to the big show! The total count was about 100 people packed
in the space. One bad thing about having such an event in
this bar ("SideCar" in Manhattan) was that the "divider" between the main bar room
and the presentation room was just a couple of curtains, this allowed a lot of the din
coming from the bar to intrude upon the presentations. I had to speak extra loud to keep the
viewers attention but noticed that all eyes were glued on the screen so I knew
I was getting through at least to those not situated so close to the bar!
I was introduced and went into my script, I'd memorized it so it was automatic,
I even skipped over a planned language translation demonstration without skipping
a beat, a friend in Venezuela was to play the part of a remote foreign participant
but a late start to the event and a power outage on her part put the kibosh on that!
The description of the feature seemed to be enough for the people present.
When time was called (each presenter was given ~5 minutes to do the dance)
I took several questions from the crowd. This was cool as it allowed me to
extemporaneously talk about my product. One guy asked me how my service was
different from "Google Wave" which is not the first time I've had such a question,
despite our products going about solving the business collaboration problem in very
different ways. After the Q & A, some applause and the next presenter was up to
take the spot light and I could then mingle, take and give cards and talk, talk,
talk.
I have no shortage of words when it comes to my work so the talking part was the
easiest. I made quite a few contacts that are baring dividends. Several potential
speaking engagements to talk about my tech. and woo customers and just minutes ago,
contact from a Hedge fund member for a coffee to talk a bit more about my service
(he was at the demo event apparently watching silently)
So that pretty much sums it up, I just need to get something fired up before I
totally run out of loot I am down to the dregs and
making magic happen just to keep my personal lights on (let alone the servers
at Rackspace!)
If anything, all these travails will make a really great founders story should
I succeed!
carpe diem!
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