How to demo your product Video Lecture | How to Start-Up your own Company (Video Course) - Entrepreneurship

hey everybody welcome to startup basics
this is a new series we're doing here at
this week in startups brought to you by
our friends at Wilson Sonsini
a great firm here in the valley and
other places they've got plenty of
offices they do a great job and we were
having lunch talking about gee how can
we help support founders more and we
said you know nobody has really done a
video series where you just go over the
most basic things that a founders should
know and so boom light bulb hey let's do
like a couple of dozen startup basics
ten minute episodes where we just talk
about something very basic so that
people who are starting out you know can
start on second base instead of like
trying to figure all this stuff out and
searching Cora and searching the web for
blog posts I can just tell it to you
straight now one of the most important
things for you as a founder is to be
able to show your product to demo your
product and there are many different
formats in which you're going to have to
demo your product and be enthusiastic
about it and excited and just convince
people that your product deserves to
exist to get attention to get press to
get funding all of these things and so
over the last seven or eight years I've
been hosting the launch festival and I
have coached and helped in rehearsals
with the launch of products like Dropbox
mint Fitbit powerset brilliant space
monkey just the list goes on and on and
what I found over the years is that
founders who are just completely heads
down inside of their products are
terrible at demonstrating to an audience
or just an individual their own product
in fact it is easier for an outside
party to demo your product than it is
for you to do it because you are
thinking about the thousand different
reasons you created your product not the
two or three or four simple virtuous
important things about your product and
that's what we need to do as
entrepreneurs not tell everybody the
entire roadmap not tell everybody the
thousand features you're going to build
but just get them convinced at the base
functionality and elegance and beauty of
your product the world is moving to
simple elegant products not complex spec
sheets with thousands of features
everybody wants something simple single
function apps single function websites
that just solve a problem elegantly and
simple so the first thing I tell people
when they're presenting and this is
really for presenting on stage maybe in
a VCS office a smaller stage or at a
conference like a launch festival or
TechCrunch Disrupt or the demo
conference or you probably shouldn't do
those because they charge startups a
bunch of money but any of those events
you want to go and you want to show your
product in the first 15 seconds I cannot
tell you how often I will sit there with
a clock and tell an entrepreneur you
have five minutes to demo your product
and they will spend the first two or
three minutes talking about everything
about their product every feature why
they made it their background all of the
stuff without showing a product and what
that tells the audience when you take 30
seconds 45 seconds 60 seconds two
minutes three minutes to show your
product is that you don't actually have
a great product you don't want to signal
that to the audience the people with the
great products cannot wait to show you
them so within 15 seconds please for the
love of God show your product if you
have uber or Dropbox or path or angry
birds or Yammer you're going to want to
show those things immediately because
they're elegant and simple and awesome
and they speak for themselves and this
is the ultimate test for me when
somebody doesn't show me their product
quickly whether it's in an elevator or
at an event on stage in a private
meeting I just started in my head saying
okay the time it takes for them to get
to the product is negatively correlated
with how good the product is so if
they're taking five minutes this
product's a zero if they're taking four
minutes the products of two if they take
ten seconds the product could be an
eight nine or ten because they can't
wait to show it to me so that's number
one
you have to get to your product 15
seconds now the second thing is to show
not tell do not talk about what your
product does show us what your product
does so if I said to you hi my name is
Jason and this is my product
uber and I take it on hand as you can
see there are three or four Lincoln Town
Cars in the immediate vicinity of the
restaurant we're at right now and it
says here to click to call one I'm going
to click the button
and now you're going to see that it's
requesting an uber I'm showing you now
if I didn't take the phone out and I
said uber lets you see cabs on a map and
then you can click to get one to come to
you and then use it it's like why are
you doing that why not you show us and
again so now this is number two
first rule get to the product 15 seconds
second rule show the product don't tell
us about the product by showing us the
product we get to experience it in all
of its beauty and its functionality if
you don't show us we start to think okay
they're telling us about the product not
showing it it must not be that good so
always show it and if you don't it's a
signal now what you also want to do is
tell tell us the story of the product so
you can come up with a story so if it's
Dropbox it's a very simple product when
they launch that in the first year of
the conference it was super simple you
installed it it put a full a little icon
in your taskbar you click the taskbar
and open up your folder and you drag the
file into it and then you could pull up
another computer and see that file so
that was a very simple product right it
really wasn't that much to show but
actually showing the install process and
the onboarding and how quick and easy it
was to install that was a big Wow in a
big AHA for people it's like double
click here it's installed put in your
name put in your password you're logged
in and now you see your files now open
up this laptop do the same thing and now
you see your files everybody is like wow
I want that you showed it to me I want
it you can also tell a story so that
people can get vested in it right and so
this is my third rule which is examples
matter when an entrepreneur says oh well
this product can do this and it could do
that I could do anything you could do
almost anything with it when you say it
can do anything for anybody what you're
saying is it's going to do nothing for
nobody come up with specific examples
that really resonate with us that make
us feel vested in the product that make
you feel like I want to use the product
so if it was meant and Aaron Patzer who
won the first year of the conference and
wound up selling mint for I think two or
three hundred million dollars doing to
it Aaron was an amazing presenter and he
showed the onboarding of mint.com by
logging in to your chase a cow
logging into your Charles Schwab account
logging into all these different
accounts American Express and you saw
your data getting pulled in but then for
examples you could say and this person
might not know how much you're spending
on restaurants so it pulls from three
different credit cards it normalizes the
data and here we see that restaurants
are you know twenty seven hundred
dollars a year but that's not enough it
puts it in a pie chart and now you can
see that actually restaurants versus
travel versus this were 27% and if this
person was on a budget they could lower
that percentage to 7% so they show this
example that we could all relate to oh
my god I'm spending too much at
restaurants I should eat in a little bit
I should cook my own food and save money
to put to my 401k it was an example that
resonated with people that we could all
relate to and you'd say I want that
product right this is a great way to
actually connect with people emotional
resonance you care about the example you
care about the outcome of the example so
I'm wearing this basis watch is very
nice it tracks your sleep if I was
demonstrating this product for an
audience I would say Jason put this
watch on signed up synced with his
desktop and I would actually sync with
the desktop do the 30 second sign up
okay and most people say oh don't do the
setup just start wherever no no show
them the setup because the users are
going to have to go through that right
show them how simple and elegant is to
take credit for that and I wore it
overnight and here is what my sleep
pattern looks like as you can see I was
woken up I was in deep sleep here and
after I changed my sleeping habit by
taking the Bulldogs out of the bedroom
and putting them across the house in the
kitchen true story and I made sure the
curtains were closed and I made sure I
went to bed at 11:30 that's when I lower
the number of tossing and tumbles as you
can see in this next day when I click
next I see the next day you can see now
my sleep score went up and my number of
tossing and turning went down and
actually felt better at work the next
day and I was actually more focused
during this meeting so that's what you
know you're actually demonstrating
something hey this is how the basis
could emotionally connect with you the
audience right these examples really
really matter and it's very sloppy of
entrepreneurs and it's kind of
disrespectful I think for you to just
say anybody can use it and leave it up
to the audience leave it up to the
person you're pitching on how to use the
when I show people inside I say what's
your favorite topic they say Bitcoin I
say great we do five Bitcoin stories a
day here's how you subscribe here's how
you get email alerts here's how you get
phone notifications and now you're going
to get caught up with Bitcoin and never
miss an important story and they're like
oh great I want that boom now finally
we're going to take one more after this
synchronicity year after year I have
people come and they try to demonstrate
the product on their own so while I'm
talking they're typing so they're trying
to demonstrate the basis watch for
inside calm or uber and they're actually
doing a bunch of the actions themselves
sometimes that's okay if it's a very
simple app but usually you want to have
a driver especially if you're filling
out forms or doing blocking and tackling
like that and if you're going to be
filling out those forms and doing it you
must be in sync so whoever's driving the
presentation must be in sync with the
person speaking so if the person is
speaking the screen is changing the
presentation screen is changing based on
what I'm saying so when I say here's how
my sleep pattern looks when I wake up in
the morning and sync my watch with my
phone here's what it looks like and the
screen changes now let me take these
five parts of the screen and explain
each one to them and this is another
great tip this is sort of like number
four be number four a is synchronicity
number four B is describe the screen
you're showing start at the top left go
across and then go down very simple and
so when you describe a product like that
you don't need to write notes you don't
need cue cards so I've had people come
and they have the cue cards and they go
okay so inside.com allows you to look at
a custom feed called my feed and then
next to it is all updates all updates
represent all updates in the news
process and then there are top updates
and you're just like oh my god this
person is a robot I'm going to go to the
bathroom I'm going to go get a coffee
I'm going to go hang out outside or I'm
going to check my email you're going to
lose people but when you're speaking
with passion and you're looking in the
screen and you just describe what you
see on the screen so as you can see here
is my sleep pattern on the top left I
have deep sleep deep sleep is really
important
for these reasons and here you have REM
sleep this is when you have rapid eye
movement this is when you're dreaming
and here's how that works and let me
describe what you're seeing in the graph
and then finally here's your tossing and
turning and then here's how many hours
and here's how that relates to your
previous five nights here and then on
the bottom of screen you can save it and
print it and do these things walk down
and describe the product step by step
you don't need notes and the person in
the audience feels like oh I'm really
connected to the presentation right
that's that synchronicity and now
finally Wow moments in the presentation
if your product has a WoW moment you
will know it because people will either
ooh a clap or otherwise gasp or just be
super interested now if you go to the
World Wide Developers Conference thrown
by Apple they are the masters of this
Steve Jobs Tim Cook all the folks over
there do a great job at having moments
where people say wow they can do it with
a statistic you know where they're
showing how many billions of apps or you
know billions of downloads there are and
they can do with features and so they're
awesome at having something they know
will be a WoW moment whether it's
showing a new the filters on the camera
just something that they know will
resonate now nobody knows exactly what
will resonate with an audience and this
is really the element of surprise when
you are surprised things trigger in your
brain and the chemical reaction can be
very similar to having ice cream or
doing drugs or genuinely being surprised
surprise is a great great thing to do
when you're in a presentation so when
Steve Jobs took out the manila envelope
and he pulled the first macbook air out
the oohs and the ahhs were incredible
what showmanship right there's a
surprise inside of this manila envelope
let me show you what it is in your
product you might have some great
feature that people go oh wow that is
amazing right
so for uber it might be like and by the
way at the end of your trip one more
thing we send you an email and let me
show you that email when you click it
and open it it shows you the route you
took how much it cost the name of your
driver
and who to contact if there's a problem
and you can hit reply and just seeing
that you probably remember the first
time you took a ride-sharing app like
uber and got the actual map of the way
you got where you got especially if it's
a new city and you're concerned about
being driven the long way around boy is
that powerful isn't it that was a WoW
moment for me when I use the service oh
my god I can actually see what route we
took and what it cost and why and if it
was wrong I could actually reply and
send it back and get a correct price
based on the most direct route just all
wow moments so building and working
towards those round moments is great but
you don't know in isolation which ones
are the while moments because you're so
deep in the product there's an easy way
to do this you give your presentation to
ten people in a room and then you have a
Confederate one of the ten people is
actually not watching you present
they're watching the people who are
watching the presenter and when that
Confederate is watching the other people
they're taking time stamps at one minute
and seven seconds in that three people
smiled had two minutes and 15 seconds in
three people left at four minutes in
people looked at their watches and
phones right then you play back that
video to yourself and to your
Confederate and you talk about what
happened at those moments and maybe it
means you have to move on quicker or
maybe it means you have to you know lean
into that particular moment and even
make it better maybe a big pregnant
pause or a big Hey Wow and using your
tone is one of the great tools you have
to know what kind of presenter you are
but I've had so many people who are
monotone presenters who talk like this
and they keep talking and what it does
is it lulls people to sleep you have to
learn to use your voice as a tool so
sometimes you can be so emphatic about
what is wrong with this industry and why
this feature that sucks so bad and other
software and now you've solved it and
there's resolution in your voice and
sometimes you can use an inquisitive
voice and be like hey I wonder why
nobody ever created a simple way to send
large files between people well that's
what we do at you send it or maybe you
could use a low voice
you know I was thinking one day and I
couldn't find any app that allowed me to
call uh just a simple thing like call a
cab and then I found one and it was
absolutely amazing you know you so
you're using your voice to move it up
bend down to make points and there are
great speakers who do this and that is
another example when you take your hands
and you make a point with your voice and
your hands you want to do it that long
but you can make that point and when I
make that point everybody's going to
listen right so these are stylistic
things with tone and voice that you can
layer on after you have a brilliant
product now what if your product sucks
what if your product doesn't have wild
moments well then why the hell are you
presenting it go home and make it
awesome do not present a product who
will beat that out drop pretty do not do
not present a product that's not ready
to be presented like that present only a
great product that's it now here's a
little secret you have designers working
for you or you can hire designers for
twenty five fifty a hundred dollars an
hour off of dribble or Behance or any of
these websites you can find them around
the world and you can say to them I have
three more features I'm adding to this
product can you mock up what my product
might look like on Google glass what it
might look like on the SmartWatch that
Apple's making what it might look like
on a television set and they make you
three mock-ups three things that don't
exist and so when you run out of steam
two and a half minutes in you say and
you know that's really our phase one of
inside.com that's what we've launched
over the last hundred days and learned
here's a quick look at where we're going
we think that inside calm is going to
work great on Google glass because
you're going to get alerts that look
like this you may get a well and here's
a mock-up of what we've designed for the
watch and when you get your alert it's
going to ask you you know this question
and then here is finally what we might
do with televisions these are the
projects were working on I'm hoping to
get your questions and thank you for
your time boom so that's a way to extend
your time
on stage with a look down the road now a
lot of people don't like to do that
because they're like oh well that's not
actually watch product that's okay
showing people where you intend to go
and doing it with five let's say maybe
10 hours of work 3 screens 3 or 4 hours
each 50 bucks ok $500 for 500 hours you
can make mock-ups that extend your time
on stage and your wow factor by 10x the
wow factor by 10x and maybe your time on
stage by double anyway these are the
keys to doing great presentations now
there are others there are some other
little black blocking and tackling
things you're going to want to consider
like technical issues you're going to
want to use a brand new computer or a
brand new login like a fresh log in the
demo log in without your alerts turned
on without you know things in your
search history in your drop-down that
might be embarrassing to you or other
things you want a nice clean one and you
want to have your task bars hidden you
want to have your book block Mars hidden
and you want to know how to like make
your browser fullscreen if using a
browser or your you know projector being
full screen because you don't want to
lose screen real estate to bookmarks and
other things you want the full image and
you also have to think about the person
in the last row and what they say and
there's a quick way in any whether it's
Mac or Windows or even Chrome pixels or
whatever to zoom in on portions of the
screen so when you're showing a big
enterprise piece of software and then
over here is like a dashboard peak
component here's a dashboard component
you want to be able to zoom in on that
that's where the driver has an essential
job because you're saying let me show
you the five elements on this dashboard
element one and they zoom in so the
person the last row can see it in detail
let's look at number two they zoom out
they zoom into slide two boy these are
like little sophisticated things that
make a presentation sine shine
additionally you want to have recorded
maybe for one minute videos of your
presentation and have them on the hard
drive so when the conferences Wi-Fi
crashes during your presentation you
don't look like an idiot you just simply
say oh so let me show you the product
and the Wi-Fi is down and say you could
either choose to not say the Wi-Fi is
down you just see that there's a problem
you say oh okay let me tell you about
why we started while we move to the cans
present
tell your assistant hey driver hey let's
go to the can presentation boom a pull
up the demo and you play those short
videos and you can do that with
QuickTime or any of them in tape a
screencast you have to have that
screencast ready because we all know 1
out of 10 or 1 out of 7 presentations
the Wi-Fi goes down there's some
technical problem and boom you need to
be ready second what I do I have a
second laptop with the duplicate setup
ready so if this one goes down I go
underneath I grab the second laptop and
I open it because if you're on stage you
don't wanna have a problem and when
you're in that meeting with the VCS and
the investors and it's 10 people there
as a partner thing you're a partner your
driver is on their laptop and you have a
second laptop already open ready to
switch in cases a problem right this is
like the serious high-level presentation
stuff that the winners do that the
really awesome presenters do they're
ready for these contingencies and if you
do have a problem pointing out when
something doesn't work it's typically a
mistake so if something happens we're
like the page crashes and you have to
reload it you shouldn't say I have to
reload it what you should just say is so
let me tell you about the next feature
and your driver should be so
sophisticated that they reload it and
you never mention it I can't tell you
how many times I've been in a
presentation where something gets worked
and then it works but the presenter
stops to explain that it didn't work and
then the presenter explains why it
didn't work and you're like none of us
noticed that it didn't work just keep
moving like a magician who drops
something like and then points out like
oh look something fell from you know the
little rubber ball fell from under my
thing when I was trying to hide it it's
like don't show it just kick it under
the table and keep going forward anyway
I think we've got enough information to
get you started doing a great
presentation and the key to all of this
is having a simple beautiful elegant
product and showing it if you can take
one thing away from this discussion on
startup basics thanks to my friends at
WS gr for partnering with us on this
it's to show your product and use great
examples so we understand and connect
with it and then we can start believing
in you and believing that your product
deserves funding and our attention and
to exist in the world thanks for tuning
in and we'll see you next time