Some things I learned from walking around and listening to pitches and launches today:

• Don’t use the phrase “without further ado” to introduce your product or co-worker during a pitch because everyone else is already using it. Everyone.
• For any on-screen product demos, use a Mac if at all possible. The interface is cleaner, less cluttered and just looks smoother overall. I was at one booth and his PC’s IE window had frozen. He tried to open a second IE window and the machine BSOD’d on him. Good thing it was just me and he wasn’t on-stage…. Also- If it’s a web-based product, turn off auto-complete on the browser unless it’s needed. It will create a distraction from what you actually want to show when all of your test field-data shows up during the demo.
• DO have friends/family critique your pitch. If you can’t explain to them what you do and how you’re going to make money at it, there’s no way you’re going to relay the thought to a room of 500+ potential customers/investors/users or the random stranger that walks up to your booth. I’m guilty of this myself because I already know in-depth what my own products to (because I conceived the idea and built the product) but what I frequently fail to realize is that I need to tell other people how it works and really make them understand why they need it. I walked out of the launch session this morning still wondering what some of the startups there do. I went and spoke with a few of them and are still at a loss on a couple of them. Good luck with that.
• Stay away from phrases like “we plan to” and “we’ll soon be” – they’re too open-ended. Be definitive and decisive about what your product does. If you’re already working on major changes to the product, you launched it too prematurely. That’s not to say that you can’t have improvements in the pipeline, but if you’re already having to justify not having major features at launch, you shouldn’t be launching yet. A false start can be deadly.
• Have pricing and/or the revenue model nailed down. There’s no reason to be wishy-washy on pricing at launch. Don’t undervalue it…find the sweet-spot for the target market and stick with it. Indecisiveness in a business model shows you’re unsure if it’s going to work or not. Even if you’re not sure, don’t let it show.
• Remember my favorite phrase regarding version 1.0 launches: “If you don’t hate version 1.0 at launch, then you waited to long to launch it”. Avoid feature creep and just get the product working and out to market.
• I’m no fan of booth babes but having an attractive woman working a booth doesn’t hurt one bit. She MUST have complete knowledge of the product, what it does, what it doesn’t do, and how it’s going to make money. I’ve attended conventions and conferences in the past where the booth-babes were EVERYWHERE. I’m a big fan of “the ladies”, but at most of the shows where this took place, I would avoid those booths just because I thought it was a trashy sales tactic that those companies chose to employ. Specifically, Hula Networks was notorious for doing this at trade-shows; it’s total crap and I still refuse to buy gear from them because of it. If/when I get to launch a product at a show like this, I’m not saying I won’t bring an attractive employee/friend/co-worker with me to help work the booth, but she MUST know what we’re doing there. As an attendee, it’s annoying to be hearing the pitch from one person (i.e. the ‘babe’) and then have to be handed off to someone else at the booth when I ask my first question about their product. It’s a strange pet-peeve of mine. If you’re working the booth at a show, you should know ALL of the intimate details of the product you’re pitching. Note: the TuneUp girl was very knowledgeable of their product…could have been one of the founders for all I know. In fact, that’s probably the easiest way to sum-up what people working the booth should be like: they should have the knowledge of and passion for the product that the original founders or creators have.
• If giving out show-schwag, be sure it’s something people will actually use. Boingo gave me a bulky luggage tag with blinky-LEDs on it. Seriously? A luggage tag? I doubt this will leave the hotel with me when I check-out (Merry Christmas, housekeeping). On the other hand, Parallels gave me a boxed copy of their software. What’s cool about it is I feel like I got something tangible from the show that’s cool to use. Granted, they could have just as easily (and more cheaply) given me a pre-printed postcard with a code to download their software for free, but, having the box that I can hold in my hand makes it REALLY feel like I got something valuable from them. Giving out tangible schwag may be nearly impossible for some products or services but it’s way more memorable and less likely to get lost in my desk when I get back to the office.
• Having shitty wifi at a conference is something to be expected. Don’t rely on the venue to provide decent wireless. Any don’t, by any means, expect a decent 3G or even Edge connection on AT&T’s network anywhere in the bay area. AT&T sucks, go with Verizon or even Sprint. If you’re doing a product launch and access is critical, bring both. Having reliable connectivity options is well worth the cost of the extra service and gear. If you can’t demo your product, the whole thing was a waste anyway.
• There’s no such thing as dressing too informal during a pitch. One guy had a horrible fashion day (even I was able to tell how tacky his pants were), but his product was good. The pants became a joke that pretty much everyone in the room could laugh at/with him about and they moved on to the product itself.
• Most people are probably afraid to say it but I don’t really care what other people think, so here goes: If you speak with a thick accent, it WILL hurt your pitch. Seriously, it will. Why is that, you ask? If I have to work at being able to understand what you’re saying, it takes away from my ability to concentrate on how I’m going to use your product or why I would buy it. Maybe this is only true for chubby white-guys like myself but I feel like it’s important to mention. I noticed people tuning-out when it became difficult to understand what the person on-stage was saying.
• Don’t sound like an infomercial. One of the pitches was for a pretty cool portable image/document scanner. It was pitched by two people who sounded PAINFULLY scripted. Maybe it’s just me that gets annoyed by this but it was so obnoxious that I found myself tuning-out since it felt like I was watching a late-night infomercial…and it wasn’t even an entertaining one like Sham-Wow.

Here’s what sparked this rant: I finally got fed-up with the fact that I pay over $50/month for each of my office telephone lines whereas I pay $26/month for the same exact calling plans & features on my home number. I decided to cut some costs and port all but one of our office telephone lines over to Broadvoice SIP trunks and just connect my Asterisk box up to them. The move will save me over $600/year for our company. I had to leave a single POTS line with AT&T so we could still have DSL service into our office for testing modems and for our 24×7 Torrent box.

After all of the lines being moved were ported to Broadvoice, I called to AT&T’s Business Customer service at the telephone number they list on my bill in-case I need to reach them. I was calling to get the additional calling features (Caller ID, Call forward, etc…) dropped since it’s only going to be used for the DSL connection riding on it.

Here’s what happened when I called; keep in-mind that I had my customer number and gave it to each person so it’s not like they don’t know who’s calling:

1. The first person couldn’t find my account and said I must have dialed the wrong department so they transferred me somewhere else
2. The second person said she found my account but it’s an ‘Industrial Account’ and she’s not authorized to help me, transferred again.
3. The third person told me I’ll need to go into an AT&T retail store to make the change (What?! There’s no such thing as an AT&T ‘landline’ retail store)
4. The fourth person told me I would need to e-mail my request into them: “I’m sorry sir but we don’t take orders over the phone for those changes.” My response: Are you fucking kidding me?! You’re a PHONE COMPANY!!

I gave up and decided to leave it for another day….or when I can delegate it to an employee to deal with. I wish there were a decent and affordable alternative to AT&T. NOW I see why the FTC (supposedly) trys to prevent monopolys from forming. Fucking christ…