Today was the Wayne Brown Institute Deal Forum. The forum is set up to expose early-stage deals to angel investors and to give the enetrepreneurs involved an opportunity to get feedback from the investors.
I was invited to sit on the investor panel. There were two presentations given. One was fantastic and the other wasn't.
The good presentation was well prepared and polished and not only made sense it made an impact. The company, Mountain West Energy, has developed technology to economically extract oil from oil shale found in abundance in Eastern Utah and Western Colorado.
The other one was poorly prepared. The second presenter was really an inventor, not an entrepreneur. His presentation left investors wondering what the technology was, whether it would work, how big the market might be and, as one investor put it, "why I should care."
This was a great reminder that entrepreneurs at a minimum need to be well prepared for such meetings so that investors don't feel their time has been wasted.
Great reminder, Devin. When I'm making a presentation anywhere and I see people getting queasy or restless, I just stop. There's a point where you just have to cut your losses. Then again, if you're well prepared and you have your specific audience in mind, you tend not to reach that point.
Posted by: Easton Ellsworth | June 22, 2007 10:19 AM | Permalink to Comment