Presentations of startups before the public.

I want to draw attention to a very interesting trend, an interesting trend in presentations of startups.

We are not talking about presentations before an investor, we will talk about different project competitions.

Over the past three years I have been able to attend 13 contests and have feedback from another 12. And what an interesting development trend I noticed.
Three years ago in 2005, in most cases, the format prevailed 20 (minutes per report) +10 (to questions from the audience) or 20 + 5. Even then it was noticeable that the series of several presentations (4-8) were very hard for the judges, especially the eminent judges and those who did not like this project, frankly did not listen and were dissatisfied with the murder of time. And I began to visit the idea that it would be nice to turn this business into 15 + 15. 15 minutes should be enough, but 15 minutes is still more interesting to listen to the question-answer.

It seems that such thoughts did not visit me alone, and after a while (year) the standard 15 + 5 became popular, which is closer to the subject. Most of the project presentations have become more interesting. The human factor immediately began to play, in order to ignite the investor in 15 minutes, we must try. In such presentations, it became clear who is leading the team, how charismatic it is. Contests began to meet with the speakers before the performance (to weed out those who were not an excellent speaker). Many contests have begun to work actively with projects, helping them to become more attractive in the eyes of potential presentation listeners to do coaching projects. Then I began to visit the idea that in such a situation a wide field of activity for fraudsters, but if the selection committee works well, then a good project with a strong leader has clear advantages.
Techcrunch last year introduced the 9 + 1 rule. The competition was a great success. Not least because he collected the best projects, but also because he set very strict rules of the game and inflated the stakes.
This year, the format of 7 minutes began to appear in Europe. What else has complicated the task for projects. But it made the struggle even sharper. At the upcoming event (April 17th) let's see how it looks live.
One is pleased that all judges usually see the Executive Summary of the Short Executive Description of the Project before the performance.
In this case, the emotional factor begins to work. We will not point fingers, but at one of the contests the speaker came out with a guitar, blew up the audience and received high marks. Meetings with the judges after that gave a unanimous opinion - they “got excited”, the project is good, but not so much.
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There are questions:
- How long? Where else to squeeze? Up to elevator pitch elevetor speech *) (30-40 seconds)? Or to the phrase "Hello, I'm Vasya Pupkin, project XXXXXXX, give me money"?
- And what can you use non-trivial ways to convey the essence of the project to the audience?
- And maybe really, a good startup does not require a big presentation, if the idea is good, everybody catches it on the fly (and how did I not think of it myself?)?

Another interesting trend is one interesting development - it is toughening the criteria for admission to the presentation. I saw when they tried to allow projects not to be rated by defining the best project by scoring on the drop-down scale with subsequent summation, but by absolute consensus by the unanimous agreement of all the judges - a total of 40 projects and 9 judges reached the final two projects. I had to replay.

Well, and a special thank you to everyone who lowered karma.
Ps. There is an opinion that losers losers enter contests. A good project and so will find the money. I do not agree with him, but there is something in it, agree.

Pps. Corrections made at the request of readers.

*) elevator pitch A short presentation of the project, which is used if the listener is caught on the road and he has no more than 30-40 seconds time and he cannot concentrate on the subject of the conversation, distracting for external stimuli (passers-by, mobile phone and etc.). Implies compaction and emotionality. It is usually used in a limited space (for example, in an elevator) when the listener has no place to go, or on the way from the office (working room) to the parking lot where the car is parked. The author does not know Russian analogues of this ideomatic expression.

**) presentation - demonstration of the project to the public, in this case the key listeners are investors, from the English presentation

***) investors - natural or legal persons who are willing to contribute some of the funds to the share capital of a startup in exchange for a part of the property in this startup, from an English investor

****) A start - up is a young, developing company that in the future may show a large increase in its market value (capitalization), from English startup (from a professional dialect common among residents and entrepreneurs of Silicon (Silicon) Valley, which is located in the north of the State California USA, south of the city of San Francisco (St. Francis) and north of the city of San Jose (St. Jose))

So politically correct enough?

Psss. In kindergarten tragedy, the children began to swear. Investigated, it turns out during the repair of the kindergarten, one soldier spilled tin on another's head. Polkan asks the victim:
- so what did you say?
- I said: "Private Ivanov, do not you see that the molten metal drips on your comrade's head?"