Hi, everyone.
I'm Donna Griffit and I'm a corporate storyteller,
which basically means that for the past decade,
I've roamed the globe helping people get their story straight
and sound great telling it, taking boring data
and kind of turning it into exciting presentations
and documents that really people understand and get
the results you're driving for.
I've helped startups raise tens of millions of dollars,
and there's nothing more exciting for me
than helping them get to the core of their story
and really get their results.
Today, we're going to talk about a demo day pitch.
Now, there's a big difference between an investor
pitch and a demo day pitch.
When it's demo day, you have about five minutes,
give or take, to really wow your audience, put on a show,
and be a rock star.
You're up against a lot of other people,
and you want to be memorable.
So we're going to talk about the content and the delivery
of a demo day pitch to kind of get you ready for your big day.
We're not attempting to tell the entire story of our startup.
There's just no way to do that in five minutes.
We want to intrigue them.
We want to kind of get into their mind, get them excited,
and get the next meeting.
So where do we start?
Well, obviously, you want to introduce yourself.
But there's really no need to go too long into that.
So say who you are.
And if you had any big achievements
or any big traction-- you already have customers,
you have downloads, something exciting--
you've won a prize maybe-- you can go ahead and say that
at the beginning.
Quickly as possible, you want to get to the pain.
You want people to actually feel, ouch,
there's a real problem out there that you're going to solve.
But before you can talk about your solution,
you need to get them very clear on the fact that there
is a problem.
There is a gap.
So talk about the need.
Talk about the challenge.
Talk about the gap out there, the missed opportunity.
So it could either be pain, or it can be, ah!
Hallelujah!
We've seen the light!
There's something that your audience is like, oh gosh,
I can't believe I didn't think of that.
We want that right now.
And either one of those gets them excited.
It's kind of at the beginning of an action adventure film
where you meet the villain at the beginning or a villainous
act-- an explosion, a kidnapping, a murder-- and it
keeps you on the edge of your seat.
That's what you want.
So less than a minute is devoted to that.
Then you can talk about your solution.
Now, this is not the place to get
too technical and too detail-oriented.
You want to be able to say what it
is that you do in very simple language.
We do X for Y by Z-- so as simple as you can.
And then as quickly as possible, move on to an impressive demo.
You can stand talking about your solution for an hour,
or you can show a minute long demo.
And what do you think is going to be more impressive?
Obviously the demo.
So prepare a little short film, some screenshots, even reenact
something there-- anything that it
takes to really get them to see.
And remember, do your demo from a first-time user's
perspective.
They've never seen your product before.
So they want to understand what the process of going through it
is.
So really give them-- get them excited about that.
Let them see how good it'll look.
Now that they know about the problem
you're solving and about your solution,
it's time to talk a little bit about the market.
Now, in a five minute presentation,
there's no way that you're going to be
able to hit what you would in an entire business
presentation to an investor.
So there's three main things that I'd like you to hit.
One, differentiation.
How do you really stand out from your competitors?
Now, it's fine to have competitors.
It's good to have competitors.
It means that somebody has recognized the need
and they have users.
And we never, ever want to say something bad
about our competitors because you
don't know who might be in the room that's invested in them
or that knows somebody on the team.
So we always will say, like, my competitors are doing X
and what we do is X, Y, and Z. How cool!
So you're adding to it and you're really
showing that you've done your homework,
you know your competitive landscape,
and you know what sets you apart from the noise.
Then we want to talk about how we're going to make money.
You're not just here to impress people.
You're here to show them that if they invest in you,
they will definitely make a return on it.
So you want to talk about the business model.
Now, people at this point of an early stage startup
don't necessarily know the business model
that they're going to eventually use.
So it's OK not to be 100% sure.
But you could do a little bit of homework
and see what the best fit is.
Is it freemium?
Is it ad based?
Is it a marketplace?
Is it a rev share?
Whenever you think fits your product most.
And you can kind of talk about a subscription,
how much you'd be charging.
No need to go into big projections
of how much money you're going to make.
It sounds a little bit silly at this point
to start going off on that.
So just keep it very simple.
Finally, we want to touch on the opportunitization.
It sounds better with monetization
and differentiation.
So go with me on this.
We want to touch on the market.
What is the market you're addressing?
Now, it's not just the addressable market.
It's not just, oh my gosh, this is a billion market
with billions of users.
We want to talk about what's really unique here.
What's happening now?
What's the opportunity?
What's shifted in the technologies?
What's shifted in the economy?
What's shifted with users that really makes you something
that they need?
Have there been any mergers or acquisitions in your field?
Have people been invested in your competitors?
Something that really proves, hey, there's a need for this.
We need to jump on this bandwagon
and you need to invest in us to help us do it.
So there you go.
There's the business.
Now it's time to circle back.
And you can talk about the team.
Now, this is not the time where you
want to read everybody's CVs.
It's really nice that you want to give your team their credit.
But again, you only have five minutes.
Keep reminding yourself of that.
So you can just say, our team is made up
of technical and business and marketing and design.
And we all have what it takes to really make this happen.
And if you have somebody with special skills,
you can point that out.
But you're trying to establish credibility and likeability so
that they see a team that really has the chops and someone that
looks like a really nice bunch of people to work with.
Because remember, once they've invested in you,
it's kind of like a marriage.
They're going to come to all your family events
and they're going to kind of be there
in the background, the kind of rich uncle
that's sitting there making the calls.
So they want to know that you're a good person to be married to.
All right, now that we've got the content down,
let's talk about your slides.
It's impossible for you to have a really great looking product
and shoddy looking slides.
There's just absolutely no excuse for that.
Your slides are your business card.
It's the first thing that they're going to see
and you want them to look as great as you do
and your product does.
There's a lot of online products that'll
help you make your slides look better
that don't cost a lot of money.
If you have a designer on your team,
hey, let them take the slides and work some magic on them.
Now, your delivery itself-- this is not
the time to be a wallflower.
This is not the time to say, well, I'm not an actor.
I'm a little bit shy.
That has to go away.
You need to be at your best.
You need to be memorable.
You need to really make this happen.
And if you yourself are not the best presenter, then
maybe you want to think about asking one of the team members
that are really great presenter that has great presence onstage
and really make them remember.
You have to sound passionate.
You can't stand there saying, oh, well, we
have a great product and then expect
people to get excited about it.
That doesn't exactly work.
So get up there and give it your all.
And as a last point for today, you
want to walk in the room at your best.
This is the first time they're seeing you.
As far as they're concerned, what they see is what they get.
They don't know that you only slept two hours last night
because you had a big bug that you were solving.
And they don't know that you sat in traffic for two hours.
And they don't know that you just
had a big fight with your partner.
All they see is you.
And you want to be at your best.
You want to be at your friendliest, at your perkiest.
You want them to see, this is a person
that I want to invest in for the long run.
Good luck to everybody.
And if there's anything I can do to help you,
my contact information is on the slide.
You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever.
I want to wish you a lot of luck with your pitches,
with your startups, and with everything.
And I hope we get to meet in the future.
Thanks.