Demo Daze: Five Ways to Turn a Demo from Dull to Dazzling | Performance Works

Published: 2012-07-19 18:43:50

Techno-idealist CEOs are convinced that app goodness, once demoed, is irresistible. Hence the plaintive cry: “please, please watch my demo and you’ll see why we’ll be the next Facebook.” But most demos rarely impress. And a truly bad demo can kill the deal, because it reveals—up close and personal—the CXO’s inability to market, sell, communicate, or understand how to build a business. (Please note that even great demos rarely, by themselves, make the sale to investors. But they can create enough interest to start an investor dialog.)

my View about this Content

This is a perfect test of the iR demo, then. This article has many good tips for a demo creator.

Ron Weissman: Ron, a frequent commentator on all things venture-related, is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist and angel investor. He has served on >25 early stage boards and advised or invested in >50 startups. He focuses on business software, with a special emphasis on SaaS, text technologies, analytics and Health IT. At Performance Works, he assists venture backed companies and firms seeking venture or angel capital in strategy, operational performance, marketing and fundraising.

Ron Weissman Bio

Ron Weissman was vice president of strategy and corporate marketing for Verity, a global leader in corporate information retrieval and knowledge management. During his tenure at Verity, the executive team earned the large company "turnaround of the year" award (1999) from the Turnaround Management Association; Verity gained dominant market share and saw its market capitalization grow from $50 million to more than $1.5 billion. Prior to Verity, Ron spent more than five years at NeXT Computer, where he managed European and corporate marketing. In addition to his work in Silicon Valley, he ran academic computing at Brown University and at the University of Maryland, where he was Associate Professor of History. He is the author of two books on the history of Florence during the Renaissance.

my View about this Content

Ron sounds like a very Experienced guy, and a rare "Rennaissance" man.

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