Bootstrapping workshop scheduled for March 8
SKMurphy Inc., a consulting firm specializing in assisting bootstrap entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley's software industry, will hold a workshop on presenting new applications to customers from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. March 8 at the Moorpark Hotel in San Jose, CA.
The session will feature startup coach peter Cohan of Second Derivative and author of Great Demo, a book on how to create a compelling demonstration for your software application that will make customers take notice.
Cohan aided in coaching Phreesia Inc., a software app offering automated check in and patient documentation for physicians' offices, winner at the 2007 Fall DEMO Conference, an event showcasing the latest in new products and technologies.
For more on the March 8 coaching session and other upcoming workshops and services from SKMurphy Inc. visit http://www.skmurphy.com/services/workshops/ .
February 4th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Thanks for the mention, I wanted to let you know we had added an advanced session for the afternoon as well. The morning workshop addresses an approach to giving a demo that focuses you on a prospects critical business issues and makes sure you get your key solution benefit across in about four to six minutes. This whets the appetite of any senior managers in the room and makes sure you cover their key concern before they time out and go to their next meeting (typically you have less than ten minutes to get to the point).
This approach also avoids a few of the common pitfalls startups fall into: telling the story of their company before they explain the benefits of their offering, meandering through a set of possible benefits instead of focusing on a few that are most relevant to the particular audience for the demo, and laying the groundwork for variations and elaborations on a theme as prospects then ask “what about this, what about that.”
Participants in both sessions will have a chance to give the six minute version of their demo and have it critiqued. The advance session covers a number of topics around managing difficult situations: what to do when you need to present multiple solution demos; how to present to a mixed audience with different needs; how to communicate your vision for the product in a demo; how to handle bugs, crashes, and time challenges.