demo

Should Startups Demo At Conferences?

By Mark Evans in Startups 1 Comment Tags: , ,

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.

The Power of the Corporate Demo Video

By Mark Evans in Video No Comments Tags: , , ,

As an ex-journalist, words have power. They can deliver a wide variety of messages and stories that can resonate with readers across the spectrum of emotions.

Despite my enthusiasm for wordsmithing, I’m also a huge fan of the demo video to help companies communicate who they are and why it matters. In a world in which people are multi-tasking and increasingly time-strapped, I tell clients that you can offer people compelling and well-written text but, if given the choice, they will watch a demo video most of the time.

It was interesting to read a post this morning by Michael Arrington about a new demo video for Blippy, the social service in which you share purchases publicly by providing the company with your credit card information. The video was done by Transvideo Studios, whose clients include Mint and Box.net.

The video is certainly good but I would suggest (and this is a very un-Canadian thing to do, especially on July 4) that some of the videos that Seth Singer and myself have created recently compare favourably.

We’re particularly excited of a demo video done for GridCentric, a Rogers Ventures portfolio company that makes virtualization software so companies can scale their computing resources in real-time to meet demand as opposed to having excess “just in case” capacity. In creating the video, we not only gave GridCentric something they could use for sales, marketing and financing purposes but helped them with their core messaging.

Here’s a video that we created for Sysomos for a new service called Audience that will measure social media ROI.

Demo videos are not inexpensive, which can be surprising given the online world’s obsession with free. But – and this is clearly self-serving – they are very solid investments with a great ROI because they can be used for a variety of things – everything from explaining to consumers what you do to marketing, sales, business development and finances.

If you’re interested in learning more about what’s involved in creating a corporate demo video, drop me an e-mail at mark@markevans.ca.

Google Wave is, Well, Interesting

By Mark Evans in Google 6 Comments Tags: , ,

There’s been a lot of hype and excitement since the idea of Google Wave was launched a few months ago – fueled by a tantalizing video.

jkOnTheRun, for example, gushes about Google Wave even though James Kendrick hasn’t been in the beta:

“Google Wave is an incredible technology that is hard to fully understand. It is messaging, email and real-time web collaboration all rolled into one, and the implications are far-reaching.”

The excitement about Google Wave has a lot to do with the idea it can be the place where you can do everything and anything, driven by a ecosystem of developers creating applications.

Having seen a demo of Wave yesterday, and been walked through it by co-founders Jens and Lars Rasmussen, I’d suggest Wave has potential but it’s difficult to get a good idea about whether the buzz is justified, or it’s just the geeks being stoked about something new and shiny.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Google will eventually make Wave into something really interesting and useful but right now it’s work in progress. During the one-hour demo, it was clear that a lot more still has to be done, particularly relating to stability, speed and usability.

To me, the usability issue is paramount. I found the interface to be confusing, the iconography to be less than user-friendly, and the flow to be unintuitive. The demo involved a collaborative chat, which was sort of worked but it wasn’t smooth or simple.

My takeaway is Wave isn’t really ready to be shown to reporters given many of the features and functionality aren’t fully baked. I’m not talking about applications, which would help showcase Wave’s functionality and power, but the stability of the platform.

This means Google has an awful lot of work to do over the next five weeks as it gets Wave ready for Sept. 30 when the beta community will swell to 100,000 users.

The most interesting part of yesterday’s demo about monetization. Jens Rasmussen said the options include running ads against content (AdSense), as well as making Wave a part of Google Apps, which Google sells for $50 per seat/year.

“We plan to make Wave part that suite, which is why we are including some of those customers in the September preview,” he said. “We hope that it will drive additional sales of that product.”

When asked about a timeline for a more public demo, Rasmussen said a date hasn’t been set yet. Following the Sept. 30 launch, he said Google will spend a month feedback and server loads, and then determine the next steps.

At the end of the day, I’m sure Wave will be just fine and attract millions of users. Right now, however, it got a long, long way to go.

For some solid perspective on Wave, check out the Chicago Sun-Times’ Andy Ihnatko, who gives Google credit for being open about Wave’s development rather than making it a stealth project.


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