3 secrets of great presentations

Startlike is close to being ready for prime-time and I just started pulling together some thoughts for a few upcoming presentations.

I've done pitches for just about every type of audience ranging from angel investors and private equity firms to potential clients, partners and employees. Presentations differ based on your audience, but whether it's Peter Thiel or your mom, every product presentation must clearly answer two basic questions: 1) What does it do? and 2) Why do I need it?

In my younger (and dumber) years I've had my share of presentation missteps. In fact, I would pay good money to have videos of myself giving the original PriceJester investor pitches back in 2000 just to see it all again through wiser eyes. Let's just say I'm pretty sure I've come a long way and I'd like to share a few pointers so others can learn from my mistakes.

Here are 3 of my must follow product presentation tips:

1) Show the product in the first 60 seconds. A politico friend once told me that politics are about 3 things; the candidate, the candidate and the candidate. As obvious as it might seem, a product presentation is also about 3 things....you can guess what they are.

2) Tell the audience how your product solves one of their problems. During your presentation, set the problem on a metaphorical tee and use your product demo to knock it out of the proverbial park. Your product does solve a real problem, right?

3) Finish your demo in 5 minutes and move into Q&A. If you can't do it, go back and iterate to simplify your product until you can. I'm not saying you should be able to cover every detail in 5 minutes flat, but you should be able to clearly explain the core features and solve the problem. Trying to cover too many things will lose the audience. If your product is good, and you explain it well, the Q&A will allow you to explore more features in response to specific questions. Good Q&A engages the audience by forcing them to think and ask insightful questions. If they don't have any questions you've either a) struck oil (stop drilling) or b) struck out (better luck next time).


I really don't think you can go wrong with these tips. Good luck on your next pitch.

Time to market as a predictor of success

Over the years I've been privileged to work on many new products. Some have been quite successful while others have been....well, not so much.

I recently realized that I can't name a single project I'd consider a success that took more than 1 week to develop into a functional prototype.

For the purpose of this thought exercise, "success" means it went on to generate more than $1 million in revenue or attracted at least 1 million users.

So, I'm able to think of 9 things that meet the criteria above and 100% of them, a full 9/9, were prototyped in about a week. Just to clarify, they all required continued support and development but I could touch and feel each one in 7 days.

I have tried many projects that took longer for the first pass. Some were very ambitious with development schedules of 6 months or more. I just added up 10 such projects and stopped counting because these are painful memories. I literally don't have a single one that managed $250K in revenue or 250K users, let alone the criteria listed above.

I think there is a lesson here.

-Jeff

5 rules to start-up success

I'm keeping this post short because I want you to read it.

If you're a start-up founder following these rules will increase your odds of success.

Be Simple.
Strive for simplicity in everything you do.

Focus.
Your current iteration is the only thing that matters.

Adapt.
Every failure brings you one step closer to success. Be willing to change course quickly and efficiently.

Be Frugal.
It's all about finding an iteration that works before you run out of money. Every dollar you save makes the runway a bit longer.

Be Happy.
Your company and products feed off of you. Find balance in your life and stay happy.

Some Valley down side...

I'm not posting this to bash the Valley (or California) but sometimes the rest of us are made to feel a bit "location inadequate" for our web start-up. This post by Nolan Bushnell speaks to the dark side of California's business regulations and why it's not the same place to start a company today that it once was. It's worth a read and will probably make you appreciate your home state a little more.

In addition to his commentary on California, the following excerpt deserves special attention:

It is often said that as goes California, so goes the nation. The passage of Sarbanes-Oxley--which has not brought to justice any new bad guys, but has cost American business billions of dollars and kept many of them from going public in the U.S.--is a sign to me that California-style regulation may be taking root at the federal level. When the laws governing business become nothing more than wasteful harassment, and companies are punished simply for doing business, everyone becomes poorer. Government, whether at the local, state, or federal level, must provide the framework for the best life for its people.

California has many great features but few entrepreneurs put the state's business code and tax structure on the list. We must all be on the lookout for what Busnell calls "California-style regulation" at the local, state and federal levels. We must do our part to keep America pro-business.

For what it's worth, if anyone is looking for a new place to call home, we'd love to have you in sunny South Carolina.

Follow @JeffColumbia on Twitter

Ok, I admit it, I was wrong about Twitter. I setup an account long ago to test it out (I was definitely an early adopter) and I just didn’t think it would go mainstream so I stopped using it. I can’t remember my original user name or the email address I used to sign up….oh well, we all miss a few here and there right?

I have always had a lot of respect for Evan Williams and Biz Stone (Twitter founders formerly of Blogger start-up fame) and they have done another great job here…kudos guys. That said, it’s time for me to fire Twitter back up.

I figured I’d do a quick post on what you can expect by following me.

Web Entrepreneurship – I did my first "real" start-up when I was 24. I’ve had a few wins and many losses. My newest company is called Startlike. I’ll tweet about business and web start-up life away from Silicon Valley. I’ll be sure to feature businesses I think won’t make it…like Twitter ;-)

Sports – I enjoy following sports and I tend to run my mouth about it.

Fishing & Golf – I am an avid outdoorsman and I enjoy playing golf. I’ll probably use Twitter to tell some lies.

Yeah, it’s an eclectic mix and I’m sure there will be other golden nuggets of wisdom…lol.

So…Follow me on Twitter (@JeffColumbia).

Hey Jeff, Bing is a Startlike rip-off!

This week the world was introduced to Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing. Almost immediately, I started getting messages alerting me that Microsoft had “ripped off” Startlike. I assume they are referring to the background photos and image tags on the Bing start page.

Well, photo backgrounds and image tagging are nothing new and many sites employ similar functionality. Let me just clear the air by saying I don’t see Bing as a Startlike “rip-off”. Bing is as a search engine that happens to use a photo background. Startlike is a start page covering a topic you are passionate about with a new image and a few hotlinks every day. It has the basic functionality you need, like web search powered by Google, along with tools to explore your passion and meet others who share your interest. While they might have some similarities at first glance, Startlike and Bing are very different. In fact, I am excited about Bing for a few reasons.

It’s $100 Million+ of consumer education for Startlike.
Since Startlike has some unique core features (specifically a photo background that changes daily with image tag hotlinks) it requires basic user education before diving into the nuts and bolts. With Microsoft spending $100 million promoting Bing, many new people will experience this functionality. Hopefully, when they later visit Startlike for the first time they will already have an idea of how those basics work and we can jump to explaining our organization by interest channels to quickly make the site more relevant to them.

We need a true competitor to Google.
Microsoft is our best chance to provide a real search alternative. Google is great, and we obviously selected them to power search on Startlike. However, having just one entity parse and disseminate the world’s information is a bit unsettling. Hopefully Bing will become a viable alternative. If so, I believe the competition will push both companies to do more and better things.


I’ll be watching to see how Bing is received and how it develops from here. I did notice their image tags look a little better than ours. Perhaps we should spruce things up a bit…;-)