For many start-ups, the opportunity to demo at a high-profile conference can be irresistible. What better way to proclaim to the world – and the people who apparently matter – about what you’re doing and why it’s just so damn exciting.
The question is whether it’s a smart thing to do.
This hit home upon reading Peter Lalonde’s account of his disappointing experience with Openera at TechCrunch Disrupt. What was supposed to be an exciting opportunity to “absorb insight, meet visionaries and explore the highs and lows of startup culture, funding and innovation”, failed to materialize. Instead, Lalonde saw Disrupt as a waste of time and money.
The problem with these kind of exercises is they rarely meet the ultra-high expectations that start-ups envision. What they see as the “Super Bowl for Startups” usually ends in disappointment because the reception is not what they expected, the opportunities fail to emerge, and it takes a tremendous amount of time, effort and money to make it happen.
Despite the harsh realities of the public demo, they can be difficult to resist because there is the chance to hit a home run. You hit the stage, tell your story brilliantly, and you’re swarmed by enthusiastic bloggers and investors upon leaving the stage. It’s like buying a lottery ticket or getting a hole-in-one playing golf – possible but highly improbable.
My advice to start-ups when it comes to demos at conferences is to spend a lot of time calculating how many resources it will consume, and whether these resources could be allocated in different ways that generate a better return on investment.
Another consideration is how much of a distraction getting ready for a demo can be for the entire organization. Rather than being focused on sales, attracting users and developing the product, a start-up’s energy is sucked up by the demo because, after all, a successful demo will – in theory – change everything.
If a start-up can justify the various costs, they should go for the demo. At the same time, it’s a decision that should be rule by pragmatism as opposed to emotional optimism.
