The Demo Coach

Price reduced for So, What’s YOUR Story? workshop!

Nathan Gold — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:09:08 +0000

I admit it. I made a mistake in the pricing of So, What’s YOUR Story? workshop. The registration fee for a seat at the workshop has been reduced by 50% and the streaming by 60%. I hope you will take another look at the great line up of speakers, coaches, and mentors that will be teaching you how to use the power of story when talking about your businesses, products, and services.

So, What’s YOUR Story? workshop – Open for registration

Nathan Gold — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:14:18 +0000

Are you an entrepreneur, a CEO, or a marketer searching for a better and more effective way to communicate the value of your business, product, or service? If yes, So What’s YOUR Story? is THE workshop to attend.

This workshop is bringing five incredible speakers together… an Emmy Award-winning TV producer, a professional writer and director, a well-known angel investor, a visual storytelling instructor, and a Silicon Valley pitch coach…. to teach you how to use the power of story in your business.

Imagine being able to get your compelling, memorable, and relevant stories into the minds of your investors and customers so they are compelled to take action?

There’s one more really exciting innovative take-away you will get from this workshop. Each of you will get “YOUR 15-Minutes of Fame” by sitting down with one of the presenters (or qualified mentor) privately, one-on-one, to talk about your story ideas that you developed during the workshop. Your private conversation can be recorded for you to share with your team back home. This is a very unique opportunity that is included in the price of admission. Every person that attends will get their 15-Minutes of Fame.

So, What’s YOUR Story? is being sponsored by Citrix Startup Accelerator, VentureBeat.com, IBM SmartCamp, and SVForum.org.

Startup Monthly rehearsal sessions in January

Nathan Gold — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 18:01:10 +0000

Join Startup Monthly as teams practice and learn how to create great pitches to investors for their Demo Day on Jan 22nd. You too can sign up your team to participate.

The rehearsal workshop would focus on how to design, script, and deliver more memorable presentations, and how to best showcase your product when pitching your product to VCs and angel investors.

Here is the link to the event registration page: http://pitchworkshop1812012.eventbrite.com/

Startup Open Competition Recognizes 50 Most Promising Startups From Around the World

Nathan Gold — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 18:31:22 +0000

Quoted from: Startup Open

“GEW 50″ Now Vie for Trip to Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Liverpool
and One-Year Mentoring Program with Redbox Founders

In the search to find tomorrow’s job creators, Startup Open, a competition that searches for startups with the greatest growth potential, unveiled the “GEW 50.” The GEW 50 is a list of the world’s 50 most innovative new companies. These elite startups will now vie for a host of prizes to be announced on Nov. 14, timed with the kick-off to Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) 2011. GEW is a global celebration of innovative and enterprising activity that was founded by the Kauffman Foundation.

Hundreds of applications from more than 60 countries were judged on concept, growth projections and knowledge of their industry.

“These 50 companies represent the best and brightest of today’s entrepreneurs–and they hold the key to spurring economic revival and sustained growth,” said Carl Schramm, president and CEO of the Kauffman Foundation. “We hope that recognizing these promising startups will inspire other aspiring entrepreneurs to take chances and start new ventures.”

Socially Relevant wins First Place at JumpStart Days

Nathan Gold — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:46:14 +0000

TimeGrab, from Socially Relevant, takes first place at the Jumpstart Days held at Rocketspace each month. They were up against 11 other companies this month and prevailed as the top company of the night. Way to go David and team. You made me proud.

TimeGrab, a revolutionary mobile platform to engage users before, during, and after fun events. TimeGrab for iPad creates mobile, social communities for concerts and sports that provides a rich visual experience around entertaining content and related ecommerce. TimeGrab is the social timeline tool that can be personalized. In addition to providing a fun mobile environment for users, it also serves as a fan development, management, and commerce platform for the events and entertainment industry, which can be deployed as a manage service or in SaaS mode.

Kauffman Foundation Global Scholars Program opened to US companies

Nathan Gold — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 16:57:33 +0000

Kauffman Foundation Expands Global Scholars Program, Invites U.S. Graduates to Apply

Applications available online, due Oct. 17, 2011

A world-class opportunity awaits U.S. college graduates with innovative ideas for a new business. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is expanding its successful Global Scholars Program to include up to 10 recent graduates from U.S. colleges and universities who will join Scholars from around the world.

During the first five years of the Global Scholars Program, Kauffman hosted students sponsored by governments and organizations from five countries representing 11 nationalities. In 2012, the expanded Program will enable selected U.S. Scholars to learn and network with an international group of fellow aspiring entrepreneurs.

To learn more, read the news release here.

The Global Scholars Program is an amazing opportunity for entrepreneurs to get immersed in their business. After indoctrination and several months at the headquarters in Kansas City, the team of people head to Silicon Valley to rub shoulders with locals. They even get to intern at local companies for several weeks to really get a sense for what it is like to work at a company like Google, Yahoo, Cisco, and many others.

I had the distinct pleasure of coaching the last two Global Scholars classes from 2009 and 2010. They are really fun people who are thirsty for knowledge that can help them run and succeed in their companies. I am looking forward to working with the new class of people early next year! Apply now, if you want to be considered for this amazing program!

DEMO Fall 2011 comes to a close

Nathan Gold — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 17:15:07 +0000

I am excited to see that WeVideo won a DEMOgod Award at DEMO Fall 2011. They have an amazingly powerful video editing software hosted in the cloud. This eliminates the need for a big ass processor on your computer because all of the rendering is done in the cloud faster than you can say Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I am told it’s actually faster than real time HD rendering!!!

Here is the video of their demo at DEMO:

Congratulations to the team at WeVideo. I wish you success and quick adoption of WeVideo for telling stories to the world.

Can you find your “stuff” in the cloud?

Nathan Gold — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 22:39:18 +0000

Do you use any of these 25 services to manage your “stuff” in the cloud?

If you’re like me, you use several, if not many of them. Each time I want to see what’s in that particular service, I need to know the URL, username, and password! What a pain, especially when I can’t even remember where half my “stuff” is at any given time.

Well, I discovered Primadesk at the DEMO conference and they are on the move. I am now using their SaaS to manage just about all of my cloud services from one place with a single sign on.

Primadesk makes it VERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRY easy to find things in your cloud. In fact, to illustrate the point of how hard it is to find your “stuff” in the cloud, when they did their demo on stage, all of the lights went out when the CEO walked out. He came out with a flashlight and shined it around asking people if they feel like this when looking for their data in the cloud. It was quite funny and made the audience crack up! Take a look here:

I recommend you take a look at Primadesk because it can really simplify your on-line cloud life!

September 11, 2011 – Ride 2 Recovery

Nathan Gold — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 01:23:23 +0000

If you have ever watched the TV show Extreme Makeover Home Edition, you know you usually need a box of tissues towards the end of the show. Why? Because it’s one of those shows where the story is told in a way that reaches down into your heart and reminds you how fortunate we all are. While the family in need gets a new house build in 7 days, hundreds and hundreds of volunteers get the satisfaction of helping their neighbors in need. It’s amazing and has changed our lives especially in the way we think of giving back and doing what we can to help others.

Speaking of helping others, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting the Executive Producer of Extreme Makeover Home Edition a few weeks ago. His name is Conrad Ricketts and he is on a mission to tell another story. You’ll want to hear about this, especially if you want to associate yourself to a master storyteller. Watch this:

The Emmy winning Executive Producer of Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Conrad Ricketts, and YouTube present a historic webcast. On 9/11/11, Ride 2 Recovery and hundreds of servicemen and women injured serving our country will leave from the shadow of Ground Zero for an eight day bike ride through Valley Forge, the Gettysburg Battlefield, to the United 93 Memorial, finishing at the Pentagon.

These eight days will be webcast 6 to 8 hours a day live to millions here and around the world as we ride along with these heroes, meet them, and tell their stories of American courage. The ride is filled with pride, hope, tears, and the strength of one and family. There will be thousands cheering and standing on the street corners as they ride by, and you can support and join Ride 2 Recovery the 9/11/ American Challenge as a webcast sponsor. Celebrities, news makers, and politicians will join in the ride daily and provide entertainment and nightly music. By engaging social media, Facebook and Twitter we will raise money and awareness by weaving in hundreds of organizations that support military veterans.

The webcast costs less than a one hour prime time television show. 48 to 52 hours over 8 days has a total cost of 2 million dollars, and breaks down to $250.000 a day for 6 to 8 hours of webcasting. Sponsors will have many opportunities including; Pre-roll Promo Spots, Lower Third Ads, Call To Action, Banner Ads, Merchandising, and Staging.

Ride 2 Recovery is a simple idea that has profound effects. With over 40,000 service members returning injured and 300,000 suffering with Post-Traumatic Stress disorder R2R in partnership with the Military and Veterans Affairs Service offers service men and woman mental and physical rehabilitation programs featuring cycling as the core activity. R2R is a 501(c)3 and funds raised by events are used to purchase and build custom bikes, helmets, and technical equipment. R2R serves all 4 branches of the Military at no cost to the injured veterans. In 2008 their first year, there were 2 bike challenge events, 55 participants, and 20 bikes purchased. In 2010 there were 6 challenge rides, 3000 participants, 275 bikes, and 785 volunteers. The National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., announced that every veteran who goes through rehabilitation at the new Walter Reed Hospital would be given a bike from R2R, and the opportunity to join in its rides. Join us in sponsoring these American Heroes, getting them a bike, and showing your support by becoming a webcast sponsor.

Contact: Conrad L. Ricketts Productions, Inc. at Mark.Measures@abramsart.com.

3 Demo Coach clients win 4 awards in 3 weeks

Nathan Gold — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 17:03:24 +0000

Over the past few weeks, there has been a huge demand in Silicon Valley for 2 minute pitches. I don’t know what’s going on right now, but the momentum in the Bay Area is vibrant and filled with tremendous energy and hope for raising money and finding great resources for start-up companies of all shapes and sizes.

In their search, they usually find themselves at places like VCTaskforce or PlugandPlayTechCenter pitching for exactly 2 minutes to a panel of investor judges. It’s a little like Dancing With The Stars in that each investor holds up a card to vote on the company they just heard. The winner, like in the TV program, gets the prize. And, the prize is usually a plague, trophy, or even a cash award!

It’s humbling to me that over that last few weeks, I have had the distinct honor of working with three companies who all achieved high honors with their presentations. Take a look:

Yesterday, at gigaOm Structure 2011, there were 11 companies in the cloud arena that went up on stage for 4 minutes to pitch to an audience of about 1,000. At the end of the presentation, the venture investors handed out a score of 1-10 followed by one investor giving feedback. dotCloud hired me a few weeks before to coach them for the event.

The results were unexpected. While Solomon did really well on stage, there was one other company that seemed to come very close to dotCloud in the judges scores. But, in the end, dotCloud took home the top prize out of the 11 companies AND they took home the People’s Choice award too! The voting was from the audience and people who were watching on-line. It was sooooooooooooo fun to see the bar graph growing when the voting starting coming in. dotCloud’s votes were at least 10x everyone else on stage.

Well done Solomon! And, thank you Patrick McGovern for finding me since we met at DEMO many years ago.

On June 20, at the Rocketspace incubator in San Francisco, 12 young start-ups were given a chance to pitch to 3 angels and 2 venture capital investors hosted by Keiretsu Forum. Guess how much time each presenter had? You got it. They had 2 minutes! The results?

I started working with Andreas Wilkens at MediaFunnel for about 2 weeks before the event. Once he was invited to pitch, we spent numerous hours rehearsing the pitch so that it sounded natural and engaging. Andreas won first place and he is also an IBM Smartcamp finalist headed to N.Y.C. to battle it out with 3 other companies!

To see what Mediafunnel is doing with IBM Smartcamp, check out Andreas’ 1 minute pitch. The intent of this short pitch is to find people who will “Like” the idea and vote for him. If you use social media in business, you need to hear what MediaFunnel can do for you. And, if you like what you see, please send Andreas and his team a Like vote!

On June 13, at the VCTaskforce, 12 companies went up in front of a panel of angel investors for their 2 minute pitch followed by 4 minutes of Q&A followed by a few more minutes of non-defensible feedback from each investor. The results?

Jostein Svendsen, CEO of Creaza, won first place! Jostein is the man in the light blue shirt at the front of the room. He has an amazing product that lets people edit video and render video in the cloud. It’s fun and easy to learn how to use. Unfortunately, they are still in a private beta and it requires a special code to get in and play around. They should be generally available soon. Way to go Jostein!

On June 9, 2011, PlugandPlayTechCenter held an investor expo where 32 companies were given 2 minutes on stage to pitch their company opportunity to an audience of about 500 people with 50 or so investor VIP judges. Jostein Svendsen, the CEO of Creaza came out on top!