7 Tips for Demoing at the New York Tech Meetup

Here are 7 Tips for demoing at the New York Tech Meetup. This list is definitely not exhaustive, but it should help people out a bit. In the spirit of the advice I'm going to give, I'm going to get right to the tips.

No one cares who your partners are, they just want to see cool tech now.

This is the most important thing I can tell you. People don't give a damn about your Steve Jobs-esque Keynote deck, make sure everything you do shows off your product for real.

You want to avoid a distracted audience, the best way to do that is to have them do something that requires thinking and physical activity, even if it's just something small like raising a hand.

Sometimes things don't go as planned, take my little typo for example. Pay attention to the crowd and use their reactions to your advantage.

If the audience knows where you're going they may get bored. Also it's great to catch people off-guard and give them something to remember.

Literally. I have to thank Danielle for this tip because I tend to be a teacher. The crowd doesn't have to understand how things work to be amazed. The fact that they know it works is enough to get them to use your product.

You're demoing to The New York Tech Meetup, your product better be good. If it's not, don't do a demo until it is. You've got more important things to do.

I gave a demo of Twilio at the August 2010 NYTM and it went over pretty well. See my summary blog post for a video and recap.