DEMO Enterprise tours the nation looking for innovation
The team behind DEMO conferences stopped by 1871 Wednesday to hear pitches, or “pre-pitches” to be more precise, from companies solving big problems facing enterprises. The companies had a chance to give DEMO a glimpse of their pitches and products and received direct feedback before they apply to launch at DEMO Enterprise 2014.
DEMO Senior VP Neal Silverman and Executive Producer Erick Schonfeld are the DEMO team members that gave feedback to Chicago’s pre-launch products and will be continuing their tour to four more cities in February.
Betty Jones, VP of Sales and Marketing at ProcureApp, pitched her team’s corporate travel product to the DEMO team Wednesday at 1871: “We received great questions and feedback. Neal from DEMO was very engaged and asked great questions to fully understand our technology. We really left feeling that they were genuinely interested in us and what we have to offer.”
If ProcureApp is selected to be one of the roughly 25 products launching at DEMO’s next conference, which will take place in April in San Francisco, Jones said it will surely be a “fantastic forum” to showcase their technology.
Although the feedback given at Wednesday’s meetings with DEMO is kept confidential, Schonfeld did comment that “1871 was an amazing host and we met some great founding teams.” As he is touring the country looking for new technologies and new approaches to solving big problems, Schonfeld said he is looking for companies that:
- Lead with product, not a PowerPoint. (Show, don't tell.)
- Go after big problems.
- Do not consider design an afterthought. Good design is core to getting people to use your product.
- Tell him why now. (Why does the world need your product right now?)
When considering applications, DEMO defines “enterprise” broadly to include any company selling to a business, not a consumer. The team’s areas of particular interest include: SaaS/cloud services in new industries, mobile enterprise, Big Data, 3D printing, drones, robotics and Bitcoin. Companies that missed the DEMO team at 1871 this week and are looking to launch at DEMO Enterprise 2014 can apply online or can catch up with the tour in one of these cities in February.