MattMaroon.com

Yesterday was our practice run through for demo day, the first of which is in a week. Overall I think we did pretty well, considering I’ve done virtually no public speaking before this. I consider myself pretty great at talking to strangers in small groups, but pretty terrible at large ones, if for no reason other than inexperience. It’s something I’m almost positive I (or anyone for that matter) could become good at with enough practice though.

When we first started rehearsing last night I had scripted the whole thing. We were doing some slides in the background, but I was pretty vehemently against having a bunch of text. Everyone’s tired of the same old Power Points. You know, the ones with a bunch of bullets that you 9 to 5ers see every day. Maybe some sentences zoom in from the right. Or drop down from the top. Oh look, that slide dissolved into the next. Hooray.

I’ve only seen a few of them in my life, mostly in movies or television shows about offices, and the cliché is already grating on me. I can’t imagine what it’s like to investors. So we decided to spice it up with pictures instead that were relevant and interesting, but not so interesting that they took people’s attention away from me. I think we did a good job on that, but we need to add a few more. As always, I’ve got a couple ideas.

So anyway, I ran through the script once and it was terrible. I’m just not good at that sort of thing. I don’t write anything like I talk, and I could maybe script something that sounded good verbally, but it might take me weeks and even then I’d feel awkward trying to act my way through it.

When that failed miserably I decided to just write the basic points on a note card and wing it. That was much better. And as I sat there watching the few startups before me do their demo, I thought more and more about it and decided to just treat it as a conversation. In fact, it’s a little better than a conversation, since the first couple questions people ask me are always the same and I can just answer them right off the bat. So I made a conscious effort to treat it as such.

At the end PG pointed out to everyone that I had done a good job of that, and said they should emulate, so I guess I pulled it off somewhat. I still have some work to do though. I’d like to add a little more humor in, since that makes anything more interesting. And I’d like to practice a few times a day between now and then so it’s second nature. John says I should also get a microphone, so I can drop it Chris Rock style when I’m done.

As if preparing the presentation to pitch to dozens of investors weren’t enough, we’re also currently dealing with getting a merchant account. And trying to get PayPal set up, which is a customer service nightmare akin to Party Poker in their heyday. And working with the web designers, who are currently making us a super badass looking home page. And deciding on a stat feed provider.

We also have our first meeting with a VC from one of the area’s top firms the day before the Boston demo. Luckily that doesn’t require much in the way of preparation, but it’s pretty exciting. I’m told he’s pretty enthusiastic about our market, which some definitely are not, so it will be nice to at least get some feedback.

And on top of all of that, Vonage claims I owe them $40 for some hardware they sent me. The only Vonage hardware I ever had was a Linksys router I picked up at Circuit City, so it’s definitely a mistake. I cancelled my service with them almost two years ago, and have never once just received a bill or a phone call since. So now I have to deal with that and try to make sure it doesn’t tarnish my credit record. It would be pretty funny if someone were looking at it. “Hmm, he hasn’t missed a payment on his mortgage or his Lexus, or anything else for years, but he’s unable to pay some crappy VOIP company $40.” They’ll be out of business soon and I’ll have the last laugh regardless I guess.