Will They Make It? The Perfect Presentation

I heard this question twice yesterday, once from a CIO and once from a financialanalyst: "Why won't they just tell me what their productdoes?" It's not the first time I have heard that plea, and I'm sure itwon't be the last. One of the ways to tell if a company will make it ishow quickly can they get you to understand why they exist and whatmakes them different.

Suppliers of all sizes, but especially new emerging companies, need theperfect presentation. If they can't get you to understand what problemthey can help you with and why they are better than the other guys, youare probably not going to invest in the solution. If you and your peersdon't invest in the solution, then they won't make it past theirinitial funding.

Fortunately it is the season of giving and I am going to give supplierssome of the basic ingredients to the perfect presentation. First, everyvendor's opening slide should have three bullets: The exact problem the solve, why they are different, and how much the product costs. Optionally, the slidecould end with a "Should we continue? Yes or No?"

Until a vendor convinces a buyer that they have a product that can solve a problem, buyers won't care about things like where your company is, how impressive a building it is in,who founded it or who is funding it. With that first slide we all wouldknow if there was mutual interest. If, as a supplier, your response isthat you can't get the basics of the problem you are trying to solveaccomplished in one slide then I believe you are going to have a bumpyroad ahead. If the potential user of the product answers "No, I don'tthink that is what we need," then find out why they think so, see ifyou missed something but be prepared to mutually move on. Sometimesthere just isn't a good fit or the timing is bad. Move on, no sensebanging your head against the wall.

Once you have interest, especially if you are a smaller company, your buyer will care who yourfounders are and their backgrounds. Again, this should be done in oneslide. They may want to know who is funding you. I tend to find that buyers put less importance on this than suppliers do. Venture firms makea mistake more often than they get it right. For every Data Domain, orEqualLogic there are ten or more misses. Next, if you feel it is reallyneeded, a brief (one slide) summary of the market conditions.Now that we are three slides into the presentation, maybe four, let'sget into the meat of how you are going to solve their problem. Can Ihave it in pictures? We live in a world where interruptions are a wayof life. Remember when it was considered rude to check email during aconversation? Now it is acceptable meeting interruption. You have togive the listener something they can easily return to and re-engagewith if they get interrupted. I find that graphics are easier to comeback to.

These are just the basic components of the perfect presentation. Thereare pages more that could be written. The key is to keep it short,simple and to the point. From a buyer perspective, as you are trying todecide if a company will make it, the crispness of this initialconversation should give you some insight. If you feel a 70 pagepresentation coming on, then ask the presenter to stop first and tell you the information that I am asking for on the first slide. Itwill give you some additional clues into their viability and may saveyou a few hours of time.