How to Run a Startup’s Demo Meetings

Amir Shevat
6 min readAug 12, 2024

So, you’ve created an initial product or your first mockups in Figma, and now you want to source feedback and get your initial design partners or even customers. It’s time to set up and run your first demo meetings. While this is an exciting time for your startup, it can also be very frustrating if not done properly. Many times, startup founders mishandle this process and end up with inaccurate data or suboptimal outcomes.

Here are some tips to run a successful demo meeting:

Source the Right Audience

Make sure you clearly define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) as well as the persona within that ICP. This is the person you want to invite to the demo meeting.

For example:

  • ICP: 100–200 engineering organizations in American-based banks.
  • Persona: VP/Director of Engineering

Once you define that ICP and persona, you can source them through your network, LinkedIn, other social engagements, and events. Remember, inviting people who are not in that ICP or persona might yield bad data, so try to focus only on this group.

Do Your Research About the Customer

Now that you’ve sourced a potential customer, it’s time to come prepared for that meeting. You may know a lot about your product, but how much do you know about the customer? Doing your research will help you deliver a better demo and have a more engaging conversation.

For example:

  • How long has this person been with the company? Have they grown there or moved from another company?
  • Have they always been in that profession, or have they moved from another domain?
  • Do you have mutual connections? Same school? Mutual previous workplaces?
  • Which state does this person live in? What sports teams are popular there?
  • Has this person written something interesting lately, presented somewhere, written an interesting blog, or posted a relatable Tweet?

All these are examples of things that can create a personal connection at the start of the conversation, as well as provide insights into the person’s wants and needs.

Set and Communicate an Agenda and Outcomes

At the start of the meeting, after some small talk to establish an initial connection, make sure to set up the agenda and desired outcomes of the meeting. Remember, the person you’re meeting might not have the full context. They might have agreed to the meeting as a favor but likely have much less context than you.

For example:

“Thank you for taking the time to meet with us. Our investor, Amir Shevat, who made the connection, has spoken very highly of you. Our goal in this meeting is to understand how you manage the day-to-day of your team, show you our product that aims to improve that task, and get your feedback. If you’re interested, we’d love to set up a deeper dive with you and your team at the end of the meeting.”

As you can see, I’ve added context, an agenda, and a desired outcome for the meeting. Some people like to use a slide with the agenda; I’m personally less of a fan of that, but it’s a personal choice.

Ask Questions, Let the Customer Talk

You’re eager to show your product, and it might feel like a waste of time to do anything else, but this next step is critical for a good demo. In this step, ask questions about the customer, their day-to-day, the problems they have in your domain, their top goals, and challenges.

Example:

  • Tell me a little about your role.
  • How many people do you manage, and are you growing?
  • What is the biggest goal you want to achieve this year?
  • What is your biggest challenge in meeting that goal?
  • What are the current workflows you use today to meet your goal?

These questions are phrased very directly, and you might want to rephrase them in your own words to fit the situation. It’s important to extract the pains and needs of the potential customer so the next stage can be successful.

Top tip: Write down the answers you hear. This will help you reflect on the meeting later, collect and analyze common pains and needs, and fine-tune your demo to the customer.

Run the Demo While Connecting It to the Needs and Pains

Now it’s your time to shine! Show the demo or mockups, explain your motivation (to solve the pain you heard in the last step), and why your product is a great solution for that need. Try to reflect what you heard from the customer back to them so that they feel heard and see that you’re addressing what’s important to them.

Example:

“Thank you for all those useful insights. Many people we talk to share this pain of managing big teams effectively and getting clear visibility on who is doing what. This is why we created this product. Let me show you how, with our solution, you can get better visibility and make your team more productive.”

It might be that there’s no perfect fit between the customer’s needs and your solution. You might need to ask guiding questions about the pain that your product is solving to direct the customer on the right pain and need.

Pro tip: (from my good friend and partner Rapha) You might be tempted to show all the features in your product, but try to focus only on the ones that truly connect to the customer pain and workflows discovered in the last section.

Ask for Feedback and Questions

Throughout the demo or at the end, ensure you give ample time for your potential customer to ask questions and give feedback. While you have a deep understanding of your solution, your customer might not. Moreover, they might have insights that will improve your product and make your demo clearer. Remember to write down every question and piece of feedback so you can analyze it later.

For example:

  • Do you think this kind of report would be valuable for you?
  • What would be the top value you would get from this feature?
  • What questions would you anticipate your team having about this solution?

Try to find hooks you can use for follow-up. If a customer has requested something you know is on the roadmap, note them in the Jira ticket for that feature so that you can let them know when it’s ready, for example.

Set Next Steps and Action Items

At the end of the demo session, after you’ve given ample time for your customer to provide feedback and ask questions, summarize the meeting and set follow-ups and action items.

For example: “OK, we’re getting close to the end of our session. Thank you for your valuable feedback. It seems like this solution addresses many of the pains you shared. I’ll follow up regarding your question about compliance and send you the PDF we have on the topic. Let’s set a time for a broader meeting with your team so we can chart the requirements for a pilot.”

It might feel uncomfortable to set action items and ask for a follow-up, but remember, it’s also uncomfortable for the customer to say no to these requests.

Follow Up

Always follow up, even if the customer said this is not a good fit at this time. Thank them for their time, send them updates from time to time, and maintain the relationship. If the customer has shown interest and excitement, act fast to capture that excitement and turn it into a pilot or proof of concept. These customers are your greatest assets! They will help make your product better, validate your startup, help you discover more needs and pains, and make your company successful.

This should not be perceived as prescriptive instructions for running a demo meeting, you might want to add steps, change steps, or even remove some of the steps. This is a method that worked for me in several startups and even big companies I worked at.

Now go and excite your potential customers, delight them with an awesome product that solves their big pain and needs, and make them your happy customers!

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Amir Shevat

Investor in early stage startups. Previously: Head of Product, Twitter Dev Platform, VP product at Twitch, Slack, Google, Microsoft. Author at O'Reilly.