How to present your startup at a conference? Lessons from Liquidity

As a founder of a young startup, you will be attending startup meets and conferences. There is Launch Festival and TechCrunch Disrupt. There is TechSparks and Startups Unpluggd. There are many such events a founder goes to and presents his or her idea.

If you have 5 minutes to talk about your startup idea, how will you do that?
In this post, we will look at what Liquidity did at TechCrunch Disrupt.

The startup Liquidity won the TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2015. Its founder Victor Hwang gave a very energetic pitch at the event. I have presented the crux of the entire pitch below so you need not watch the presentation (though I highly recommend you do watch it here).The entire presentation was just 6 minutes 25 seconds. Crisp, clear and awesome!


Step-1 Introduce the problem
10,000 people will die today because of these micro-organisms (shows the villain; a bacteria). 1 billion people do not get safe drinking water because of them. This statement makes you care and also tells you how big the opportunity is.

Step-2 Why is it so hard to get safe drinking water?
It is because the purity standard is 99.9999%. Even a very small amount of bacteria can make the water unfit. Even if you make the water clear, you don't know if it is pure. It is the invisible stuff that kills you.

Step-3 Existing solution
The world until now has been making a trade-off. Some products are ineffective (do not kill all bacteria) and some work but are really hard to use (inconvenient). This is a trade-off and no trade-off is the optimal solution.

Step-4 Proposed solution
Liquidity eliminates the trade-off and creates a state-of-the art product. It is effective AND convenient. No chemicals, no electricity and no pumping needed. We can change the world!

Step-5 Demo
A good demo shows how convenient Naked Filter really is!

Step-6 How does it work?
Here he explains in simple terms how the nano fibre membrane works.
Shows us visually how bacteria gets stuck in the membrane as water passes by.

Step-7 Dream team
The product is a result of scientists, engineers and business people (a dream team working on it). There is 15 years of R&D by Stony Brook University. Concerns about credibility and expertise are taken care of.

Step-8 Our products and roll out
What products are we selling? Personal water bottles, household products and industrial products. Roll out starting from the US and Europe. Next we enter the emerging markets. Eventually reach a billion people all over the world.

Step-9 Product is ready and can be ordered right now!
Order now and you will get it in 3 months.

The presentation went like this: The problem --> Why it is such a big problem? --> What is the existing solution --> What is our proposed solution? --> Demo --> The science behind the product. How it works? --> The team --> The product portfolio and roll out plan --> Order now!

The framework is simple and we all know about it. Google on how startups should present and you will see a similar framework almost on every site. But the question is, how should it be followed to make an impact. Victor Hwang makes the impact and that's why we should learn from him.

Simple Slide Design
If you notice the slides, they have been designed really well. Large images with hardly any text. A complete slide with few words on them. The slides compliment the speaker. They are not meant to overpower him.

If you are interested in reading about how to pitch your startups to investors, click here.

How to present at a management fest?

Management fests in colleges are quite common. I happened to be a judge at a fest last week. It was in St. Stephens College, Hyderabad and the contest was called 'Pitch Perfect'. 9 teams from all over India were given a topic and given an hour to prepare. They had to come and present their suggestions (a PPT) in 5 minutes. A tough task for various reasons:

1. Limited time to prepare
2. Limited time to present

Impressing the judges was the toughest job. As a judge, I realised, after a PPT ended I was hardly able to recall what the team had spoken about. I could remember just 2 to 3 things. After each pitch ended, I had to rate the team on the required parameters. So the crux for every team was to make an impact within those 5 minutes and ensure the judges were able to remember some of the stuff they spoke about.

So what can you do, if you are tomorrow in the same situation?
How should you present?

Less Content, More Impact

Less Content: Force yourself to share very few things in your 5 minute presentation. Depending on the task at hand, figure out what will make you win. In this case, the teams had to present a 3 month long advertising campaign to promote a new movie. If you say too many things, the judge will not remember. If you suggest 2 or 3 very innovative ideas, that's enough. Come up with something really good and then let that shine through. Do not cloud and clutter your good idea by sharing 9 more ideas.

More Impact: Try to make sense overall. Do not go too fast, because time is less. Having 5 minutes does not mean you will fit in more stuff. The reason you have less time, is that the judges want you to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Do not...
1. Do not have long list of bullet points on each slide.

2. Do not fill your slides with text.
Since you do not have time for visuals (students were given less time and had no access to internet), keep the slides very light on text. Less text is better. Have few words on each slide.

3. Do not have too many slides.
Since the time is less, do not waste it on making PPT. What the judge is looking for is quality content and not 7 PPT slides. Just have the topic header on each slide. Once the slide comes up, start talking. You can carry notes, as you did not have time to rehearse.

4. Do not go without a wireless presenter. None of the teams had a presenter that day. Thus they ended up saying 'next slide please' to the organiser every 45 seconds.

5. Do not speak too fast.

Remember, less content and more impact. All the best.

Your audience: Alive & Kicking

Day long conferences are fertile grounds for presentation led boredom. When bored, people check their email or take a quick nap. The extra cool air conditioning makes matters worse and induces sleep.

The time that is most vulnerable to a sleepy audience is the post-lunch session. After a good meal in a 5 star hotel, people cannot be blamed for sleeping unless the next presenter is Steve Jobs or Sachin Tendulkar.

I attended the Nielsen Consumer 360 conference in Gurgaon, India sometime back and what they did was noteworthy. Just after lunch, when the audience was susceptible to falling asleep, they brought in...

Watch the pictures and continue reading...

Photos: Nielsen India's FB page

It was remarkable. Not a single person in the audience could sleep. Moreover it was a pleasant surprise. The performer made everyone dance, sing and what not. He played drums, his team danced and the audience was given simple instructions and people moved their hands, moved their bodies and shouted on top of their voices. It woke everyone up and established a very nice connect.

For people who follow cricket, notice that Rahul Dravid is there in one of the pictures.

My slides from Ignite Hyderabad

How to make your Presentation Awesome?

View more presentations from Vivek Singh.

Here are the slides which I presented at the inaugural Ignite event in Hyderabad on April 17, 2011. Since you are going to only see the slides and not listen to me, they will not make much sense. Hence I have added 2/3 sentences on every slide (in a black rectangular box). Enjoy!

Going to speak at Ignite Hyderabad

Ignite is happening in Hyderabad for the first time. Ignite, an event which happens all over the world, is a forum where people from different fields come and share their work and ideas; whatever they are passionate about. Every speaker gets just 5 minutes. He has to make 20 slides which automatically advance every 15 seconds. Extremely interesting as well as challenging.

If you are in Hyderabad, do come and check it out. You will have interesting people from all walks of life talking about what they are passionate about. You can also catch up with me, as I am one the 10 speakers that night.



Venue: Lamakaan, Off Road No. 1 Banjara Hills, Opposite GVK One Mall
Time: 7pm to 930pm
Date: April 17, Sunday

See you there!

Read more: Ignite Website, Ignite (Wikipedia)