I attended the Twiistup event last couple of days in Los Angeles. It was a great event with lots of interesting people, and some decent companies. As usual, the best part of the conference is meeting with the people, and also seeing where the energy lies in the software space right now. There were 9 companies that were selected to show-off their product, with a tenth slot open for a wildcard entry. The wildcard companies got to present the day before, with an audience vote sending them to the show-off event.
It was really amazing to see that out of the 10 or so wildcard companies, only 2 managed to pitch well. Not really well, but well. The rest 8 were terrible. For all entrepreneurs out there, before you go out to pitch, do yourself a favor, and read the two excellent books by Gene Zelazny – Say it with Presentations, and Say it with Charts.
Not only do these two books make you a better presenter, they will help you structure your content in the most logical way, and present ideas in ways that make sense. And yes, please please please, practice your pitch a few times in front of friends before pitching to others. If that makes you a little uncomfortable, well, that’s the whole idea.
Information Overload 