2008 TAG Summit Wrap-up
Lance wrote a nice bit on today’s Georgia Technology Summit. I agree with everything he said. I’ll pile on a bit more. Pet peeve time.
I worked pretty diligently to follow the guidelines that TAG gave us for the Top 10 Innovative Company presentations. Pretty simple: “3 slides, 3 minutes. Any more than that and you will get the hook.” If you ever been to a big event like this, you know how hard it is for them to stay on schedule with so many speakers, presenters, exhibitors, breaks, etc. Everyone has to do their part, however small it may seem.
I was surprised, and a little taken back by how many of my fellow entrepreneurs ran roughshot over the rules. Some of the companies had what appeared to be a dozen slides, one guy tossed up a video, and some ran WAY over the limit (I swear one guy took 10 minutes). I know that Tino (TAG) didn’t seem all that thrilled about it either. Then again, these were supposed to be the same pitches that the judges saw during the audition … who knows.
I will say this, though. If you can’t pitch the essence of your company in 3 minutes to a room full of people (and obviously can’t follow simple instructions), that is a pretty clear indicator to me that you either have no advisors, some really iffy advisors, or you’re just toast.
Whenever I watch other people pitch, I also try to take notice of the crowd … what are they thinking? doing? gesturing? When people start breaking out the Blackberries that’s a pretty good indicator that you have a first-class ticket on the non-stop to nowhere. At that point, the applause is simply gratitude that you’re done. Trust me, you don’t want to be that guy (or gal).
The goal of the 3 minute pitch is not to raise money, and it certainly isn’t to provide due diligence - it is to get your message out there. Who are you ? What do you do? Why are you great? That’s it. Say enough to spark some interest out there - you want people seeking you out during the break, not praying for you to stop talking. That isn’t the time to amaze the crowd with your superior knowledge of dynamic link libraries.
Jeff Haynie (Appcelerator) had a nice pitch … nice, clean design … easy to read … got his message out there, and got the hell off the stage. You could tell he’s done this before. His pitch was reflective of a professional entrepreneur. Hopefully, TAG will post the videos soon - should be very instructional for some folks.
One suggestion for future events: It would probably be beneficial if TAG did a “bootcamp” pitch session for all entrepreneurs that are presenting at the Summit. Since we already do this coaching via our free PitchCamp sessions via StartupLounge, I’ll offer that up to TAG as a way to do it for free. We’re happy to help, and provide some sounding boards for you. Or, if you’re an entrepreneur who is getting ready to hit the pitch trail, stay tuned to StartupLounge.com for dates as we post them and come on your own - again, it’s free.
There’s no such thing as the “perfect pitch” (I’ll include every pitch I’ve ever done as well) - there is always room for improvement. But good lord … some of those pitches illustrated this fact: as hard as it is for companies to find capital in Atlanta, the entrepreneurial community has work to do to meet the money half way. Blocking and tackling …. the basics.
I will close with this, though - the TAG Summit definitely keeps getting better every year. I remember past Summits with pretty thin crowds. Much like building a company, it is an iterative process. As Lance pointed out, Tino does a good job of listening to feedback from TAG members, and the event continues to evolve.
Cheers.
Yesterday, I did something I haven’t done since the dot com flameout - I pitched to a west coast VC (Norwest). Refreshing. Invigorating. And they didn’t bounce us out on our rear-ends, which is a good thing. 
In fact, we did several pitches this week, which was both exhausting, and exciting. All of our efforts got me thinking about pitches in general, and I decided to put down some of my thoughts.
