Through funding rounds, conferences and a 9 month period on the road with our sales people, I had the opportunity to give hundreds of presentations. Through our hard work, they went really well, but there are always a few that go wrong.
- At Pepsi, when presenting to their R&D team (30 people) I called soda a "Coke". (Response: 20 seconds of utter silence)
- When demoing our new technology in our second ever meeting, our lead customer's head was too large to fit in the demo equipment. We had to do surgery to the device during the meeting.
- When presenting to a VC on Sandhill Rd, a friend started IM'ing on the projector and it took almost a minute to stop them. (We didn't get a second meeting)
- One meeting room had so much wireless interference that our demo would not run.
- Our presenting laptop died 20 minutes before a meeting. After that, we always brought 2 laptops for major presentations.
When problems happen, the difference between success and failure is how we respond. If we are calm and redirect the presentation, everyone will most likely not even remember it at the end. Practicing this skill is one of the most important aspect of successful technical presentations.
