Wednesday, 10 June 2009

Start Me Up

By Amanda Neville2 Comments

Last Thursday, my friend and colleague, Brendan Killackey, and I hit up an event sponsored by Ultra Light Startups. We got to see a bunch of pitches by folks with varying degrees of presentation skills for business concepts of varying degrees of potential. I thought it would be fun to share my faves:

Ideas I liked

• UMOO: “Financial entertainment” — games based on financial stock picks, linked to actual stock performance
• Fan Feedr: personalized sports news aggregator
• Mobify: creates mobile sites for existing websites; supports 4000 devices; pricing ranges from free to $99/month
• On-time Rx: mobile device medication reminders (does not work on iPhones, however)
• Mash-up Magazine: make a magazine comprised of topics you choose

I especially like UMOO and OnTime-Rx. Both are smart ideas, and indeed, both are already well on their way to success. Would love to help them with their website design, though. (Call me!)

Ideas that made me laugh

• The Pickle Club: pickle appreciation, recipes and contests (pickles?)
• Belles Celebrity: answering service (mostly because I can’t believe this is still relevant)
• My Twitter Butler: autofollow based on keywords for “$10 and no support” (has it come to this already?)

The best part was observing lots of different presentation styles. It reminded me how important the basics of public speaking are. Here are the notes I made on presenting an idea — whether you’re pitching a business or making a presentation:

1. Dress professionally and remember to smile.
2. Create visuals that are meaningful and well designed.
3. Formulate a short, non-technical description of the idea.
4. Make a short list of interesting talking points and don’t ramble.
5. Prepare for questions and admit when you don’t know an answer.

Any of these startups sound interesting to you? Have you encountered any new businesses that you thought were particularly interesting? Got any presentation tips to add to my list? Share your thoughts in the comment section — I want to know what you think!