We invite you to join us, DEMO alumni attendees and demonstrators along with local entrepreneurs and VC's for a casual evening of cocktails and conversation in one of the following 4 meet-ups scheduled for December. For complete information and to sign-up, visit the city link most convenient for you.
San Francisco, Dec. 2- The Mighty Bar, http://demoinnovationseattle.eventbrite.com/
Seattle- Dec. 3- Barca, http://demoinnovationseattle.eventbrite.com/
NYC- Dec. 10- 3 Ten Lounge, http://demoinnovationnyc.eventbrite.com/
Austin, Dec. 14- Jack B's Lounge http://demoinnovatoinaustin.eventbrite.com/
We look forward to seeing you in December!
]]>I’ve been on the road lately, in a continued effort to find and meet with the best companies around to launch new products at the DEMO conference, and have been developing some cool ideas for DEMO’s next conference in March. I’ll share more about those ideas in future posts.
]]>I’ve been on the road lately, in a continued effort to find and meet with the best companies around to launch new products at the DEMO conference, and have been developing some cool ideas for DEMO’s next conference in March. I’ll share more about those ideas in future posts.
First, here are a few thoughts, after wrapping up a trip to London this week, and Boston last week. In each of these places, there are hordes of ambitious, talented entrepreneurs. http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/30/demos-visits-to-london-and-boston-show-california-is-great-place-to-launch/
]]>It’s been two weeks since the end of DEMO. I’m awestruck by the experience, both by all of the incredibly talented people that convened there in San Diego, and by the traction 70 entrepreneurs were able to get during those short few days.
Thank you to all of the people who came and make it such a terrific event.
]]>It’s been two weeks since the end of DEMO. I’m awestruck by the experience, both by all of the incredibly talented people that convened there in San Diego, and by the traction 70 entrepreneurs were able to get during those short few days.
Thank you to all of the people who came and make it such a terrific event.
I’ll talk about highlights shortly, but now it’s time to to start it all over again. We’re already gearing up for the next DEMO. I have to admit, this is going to be a different hat for me; I’m used to wearing the hat of hard-nosed reporter. But it’s turning out to be a lot of fun.
http://demo.venturebeat.com/2009/10/09/demo-rocked-now-the-party-starts-again/
]]>And now, it's time to move ahead and begin the search for the DEMOspring 2010 class! To get things started, we're hitting the road again, starting in Boston, Oct. 22. The DEMO Boston Meet-up kicks off the DEMO Innovation tour where Matt Marshall, DEMO Executive Producer and the DEMO team will travel around the country to connect with the DEMO community in search of the best innovation to showcase at DEMOspring 2010, March 21-23 in Palm Desert. Find out what's new at DEMO, talk up your product or concept and connect with a great group of innovators who have already reaped the benefits of a DEMO launch.
Join us, DEMO alumni attendees and demonstrators along with local entrepreneurs and VC's for a casual evening of cocktails and conversation at VOX in Boston. Sign-up and we'll see you in Boston in two weeks! http://demoinnovationboston.eventbrite.com
The first 40 folks thru the door receive a drink ticket good for your favorite beer or wine.
Boston is just the first stop. We'll be posting information shortly about many other visits to cities across the U.S. If you have a product you would like to discuss with Matt for launch consideration http://www.demo.com/launch/applylaunch.html or our AlphaPitch program, http://www.demo.com/pitch/applypitch.html at DEMOspring 2010 (whether you live in a tour stop city or anywhere in the world), submit your application today.
]]>DEMOfall 09
September 21-23, 2009
Sheraton Hotel and Marina
San Diego, CA
www.demo.com
*Special registration offer applies to new registrations only.
]]>But, alas, the worst came on Sunday afternoon. I was racing to make an already extended deadline, stealing away a few hours from the annual Labor Day weekend friend-fest when the screen went black. The rising heat in my lap should have been a clue, but I was in a hurry to get back to the party and didn’t think to shut down the system and let it cool off. I pushed through; the laptop didn’t.
There, my leather encased “premier edition” Thinkpad. The best it would do was choke up a pre-boot screen, whimper a few faint beeps, cry “fan fail” across a black screen, and go dark again. Little more than an attractive paper weight wrapped in hand-stitched Japanese leather.
A drowned my troubles in a 1996 Orfilia estate merlot and the assurance from that I could steal time on my friend’s laptop early the next morning. One unsung benefit of our browser-based world is that you can pretty much restore to some hobbled productivity through files and footprints left on Exchange servers. I shared my pain on a Facebook update: “ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG! Thinkpad crashed. Files lost. Recreating them now. I guess this is why it's called ‘labor day.’”
A great wave of compassion and support rolled through the comments: “Buy a Mac!”
I considered it for a moment, but as I’d not planned to spend a couple grand on a new computer this month, I took another approach first: I called tech support. Early Tuesday morning, I dialed the 800 number for Thinkpad premier support, a number I’d tucked away almost two years ago when I got the machine. Until now, I’d not needed much support for the system. Tom in Atlanta answered, efficiently diagnosed the problem, then dropped the bad news. The system board I might need was in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. They’d get it on a plane asap, but it might take until the end of the business day to get the part to the Bay Area. Meanwhile, the fan, another likely cause of the problem, was just 45 miles away. UPS would have it to my office by 11:15 a.m. A service technician would be there by noon.
That’s not exactly how it played out. A polite tech arrived at my office before 11. The part hadn’t arrived, but he happened to have a new fan with him. He disemboweled my machine, put it back together and timidly knocked on my office door at about 11:40, a working computer – my working computer – in his hand. Within four hours of my call for help, my Thinkpad was repaired.
I suppose there should be some moral to this story. I could have given the Thinkpad up for dead and followed the advice of the crowd. I could have gone to the Apple store, bought a Mac, spent the day at the Genius Bar as a retail geek tried to recover the data from my old hard drive and load up the apps I use every day. I could be here today, trying to find my way around a new OS and recreating files that just couldn’t be recovered from my Windows Vista machine.
Instead, I’ve had a Top 10 best customer support experience. My faith in Lenovo and Thinkpad reinforced. There may come a time when I’ll make the leap to Mac, but this isn’t the week. And given this outstanding experience with Lenovo, I’m guessing that week won’t come for a very long time.
]]>
Another new feature we’re introducing this year at the DEMOfall conference in San Diego is a peek at some technologies that may not be here quite yet, but which will bang us over the head in the near future.
]]>Another new feature we’re introducing this year at the DEMOfall conference in San Diego is a peek at some technologies that may not be here quite yet, but which will bang us over the head in the near future.
These products won’t be fully ready for market launch. However, they will reveal where exciting core technology developments are taking us. I call it the “DEMO labs” part of our program. It’s a way for the DEMO audience to see yet another phase of emerging technology — and it’s relevant for business decisions, because these technologies are coming soon.
http://venturebeat.com/2009/09/02/demo-labs-come-see-the-latest-cool-stuff-from-numenta/
]]>Cool Cocktails. Late Night Nibbles. Casual Connections.
]]>Cool Cocktails. Late Night Nibbles. Casual Connections. This is a great opportunity to continue networking with press, attendees and demonstrators, share your views on the day's demonstrations and look ahead to another full day of DEMO. Come to the Harbor's Edge for your favorite cocktail or choose from a special selection we'll have available to you. Sponsored by Porter Novelli. DEMOfall 09, Sept. 21-23, Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina www.demo.com
]]>The life blood of Silicon Valley is venture capital, but the industry is under huge strain. Some estimates suggest venture capital dollars could be cut in half.
]]>The life blood of Silicon Valley is venture capital, but the industry is under huge strain. Some estimates suggest venture capital dollars could be cut in half.
On Monday, Sept. 21, to kick things off at the DEMO conference in San Diego, we’ve organized a dealmaker dinner, where we’ll discuss “The good, bad and ugly of raising venture capital in the downturn.”
One thing hasn’t changed: Entrepreneurs with a great idea usually need money in order to scale their businesses rapidly. The founders of Google, YouTube, Facebook, Oracle and Apple all benefited from getting early money from investors, whether in small or large amounts. If they hadn’t raised money at the right time, they’d have been stunted. http://venturebeat.com/2009/08/31/demo-speakers-mike-olson-shanna-tellerman-on-raising-vc-in-the-downturn/
]]>Here’s the latest batch of judges who will be at the DEMO conference next month in San Diego. They’ll help award the $1 million media prize to the best of the 60 companies launching new technology products at the event.
We’ve already announced that a list of all-star alumni will also be on hand for the Sept. 21-23 conference as well as the first bunch of judges here. We’ll be making more announcements shortly.
]]>Here’s the latest batch of judges who will be at the DEMO conference next month in San Diego. They’ll help award the $1 million media prize to the best of the 60 companies launching new technology products at the event.
We’ve already announced that a list of all-star alumni will also be on hand for the Sept. 21-23 conference as well as the first bunch of judges here. We’ll be making more announcements shortly.
]]>I’m delighted to announce the first few judges who will be at the DEMO conference next month in San Diego. They’ll help award the $1 million media prize to the best companies launching their products. I’ll be announcing more judges over the coming days.
]]>I’m delighted to announce the first few judges who will be at the DEMO conference next month in San Diego. They’ll help award the $1 million media prize to the best companies launching their products. I’ll be announcing more judges over the coming days.
The media prize is a new feature at DEMO. We’ve already announced that a list of all-star alumni will also be on hand for the Sept. 21-23 conference. That, added to the 60 companies we’ve selected from thousands to launch their product, plus the significant press that show up (everyone from the The Wall Street Journal, to USA Today, CNN, CNET, Forbes, Infoweek, ComputerWorld, PC World and the top blogs), is going to make this a fun event you won’t want to miss. Stay tuned for more announcements in coming days.
]]>At this point, I typically give the advice that the best pitches are made by those most passionate about the company and product. The pitch conveys the conviction that the product - no matter if it’s for seriously over-worked business IT managers or the fast-texting Tween generation – will make a real difference in the customers’ lives. The ideal pitch weaves in compelling data about market size and opportunity, how the product is sold and bought, and – if it’s really strong – why the company who makes this product is absolutely the best company on the planet to deliver the goods.
No doubt, you can find that advice and more with a quick search of the DEMO.com archives. To be entirely truthful, “how to pitch” is that evergreen editorial idea that I dust of a few weeks before a DEMO event in attempt to calm the nerves and advise the eager among the up-coming demonstrating companies. So, if you’re nervous or eager, do the search. You’ll find lots of advice, I promise.
But this time around, as I was thinking about this column and listening to one more in a long career’s worth of pitches, it occurred to me that all the advice that so-called experts like me give so-called novice pitchmen may actually be making pitches worse. Yep, that’s right: all these pitch practice sessions may well be dragging down the overall average quality of the pitch.
Take for example the 5- or 7- or 10-slide pitch template. Surely you’ve seen one. Or a dozen. Every VC firm has one. Most consultants have taken someone else’s and put it on a fancy background.
Heck, it’s just a well-known rule of thumb. No matter what the format, the template goes something like this:
• Describe the pain and suffering of a world without your product
• Show that the huddled masses are, indeed, a very large mass
• Enter your product to save the day
• Draw a two-by-two grid and put your logo in the upper right box
• Wave the resumes of your team, all much smarter than the average bear
• Ask for money and explain how you’ll spend it responsibly
• Cue sunshine and display a hockey-stick graph of your profits
I was sitting through a series of those well-structured presentations earlier this week and I found myself aching for a story. One after another, founders were pitching companies that had fascinating reasons for being. A temperature monitoring, alerting, and auditing system that will prevent millions of dollars in waste from damaged vaccines. A brilliantly simple idea for adding power-generating turbines to the high-pressure water lines that service every household. A social gaming platform for Tweens escaping the parent invasion of Facebook.
And, with all due respect to these incredibly committed and capable entrepreneurs, they were pitching these companies with the same passion they might apply to a turnip. Most people who spend time listening to entrepreneurs will say the same thing: most pitches are just awful. But, they were all following exactly the advice they’d been given by folks like me about how to pitch their companies. So if the pitches are bad, maybe it’s my fault. Well, me and every other person who’s proffered some version of the X-slide pitch deck. Because, let’s face it, that deck is screwing up the pitch.
No doubt about it, the deck is prescriptive for the information that belongs in a good pitch. Problem and solution, market opportunity, competitive threats, the brilliance of the team… all that needs to be worked into the story, to be sure. But keep in mind that the operative word here is story! Every company, every market opportunity, every entrepreneur has one. Yet in all the well-meaning advice about how to pitch a company, most entrepreneurs have lost the engaging story.
I’m not suggesting that entrepreneurs toss out the pitch deck entirely, but I am beginning to believe that the savvy entrepreneur would do well to take a class in improv theater or story telling. Those skills, I suspect, would play a strong part in turning the mundane pitch into a compelling story that stands out and above the crowd.
Start w/ vision, where you are, and where you want to go.
]]>In honor of Shipley’s long-standing history with the conference, DEMO has invited 16 legendary alumni back to the DEMO stage. Each individual will be presented with a Lifetime Achieve Award for their significant contribution to the advancement of technology.
Award recipients will also take the stage and participate in an engaging, lively Town Hall session. Attendees will have an opportunity to hear from and pose questions to this group of world-renowned innovators on industry direction, best practices and the impact of their DEMO launch on their product and careers. Read more about this notable group at http://www.demo.com/pr082409.html
]]>This Fall, sixty companies from five continents will present at DEMOfall. (If anyone knows of a great product coming from Africa or Antarctica, we’d sure like to know about it.)
]]>This Fall, sixty companies from five continents will present at DEMOfall. (If anyone knows of a great product coming from Africa or Antarctica, we’d sure like to know about it.)
The roster includes an array of early stage companies, as always, along with a number of larger and returning companies that prove that growing a big business isn’t incompatible with fresh innovation.
In this difficult economic environment, we’ve seen evidence of the adage that bad markets are great times to start new businesses. Among the 60 products to launch at DEMOfall 09 are serious business tools and engaging consumer applications that customers will be happy to buy. In fact, that may be the most significant among the trends evident at DEMOfall: companies have embraced the value they are delivering to market and understand that a true “customer” is one who finds strong benefit in a product and is willing to pay for it. Business models for new products are much clearer today than they were even 12 months ago. While it’s too soon to predict the end of the “everything wants to be free” business driver, it’s clear that “free” does not a business make.
And what do these companies tell us about market trends? One strong indicator points to the recognition that, if social media has taught us anything, we now fully understand the importance of our business and social relationships. Two trend lines emerge in this broader theme: contacts are managed, relationships are nurtured. We’ll explore a number of tools that help us do both.
Having come to recognize the intrinsic value of relationships that we can now more easily enumerate, we need better tools to communicate, especially in our vast and virtual world. We’ll see a handful of new products that bring voice, video, and data together in a highly cost-competitive and supremely easy-to-use manner. The average business no longer need be envious of big corporations and their expensive video conference rooms.
While we’re on the topic of social networks and media, you knew it had to happen: the effective informal marketing channel is being formalized. Tools to leverage, manage, and measure social marketing are plentiful at DEMOfall. We identified those that embrace the culture of social media, skipping past those aimed at exploiting it.
As is typical in market cycles, this DEMOfall will demonstrate a shift from consumer Web 2.0 trend lines to serious business focus. The applications we’ll see next month embrace what’s best about Web 2.0 – smart interface and design, self-service and cloud-convenience, ease of purchase – while delivering services that really do make us more efficient in our work.
It wouldn’t be DEMO, though, if we didn’t also pay attention to play. A number of products offer sheer fun and one product, in particular, dramatically shifts the state of the art of consumer audio.
Still, DEMOfall is the place where the business of new products are taken seriously. I hope to see you there. www.demo.com/f9dblog
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