Thursday was terrible.
My mood Thursday afternoon can best be described as paranoid enthusiasm. In everything I do, I hope for the best but consider all potential outcomes.
I thought Thursday would be on of the proudest days of my life. I’ve been attending startup demo events for months and would always watch the presenters with envy. I wanted to be the guy on stage. I wanted a line of people wanting to talk to me about MY company after the demos were over. Thursday evening, I had the opportunity.
The NY Tech Mixer Demos and Drinks event was supposed to start at 7:00pm. I left a promotional event in Manhattan at 6:15 arrive on time (for presenters, this means 6:30). Through the turnstyles at the subway station, I see my train pulling away without me. “Not a big deal,” I thought to myself, “this train comes every five minutes.” A half hour and three other trains later, I hope on board. I’m now late and still waiting to get off and run to the event (btw, it’s also pouring rain – Hard).
As I arrive at the event, I’m relieved to see very few people in the room and people setting up. I breathe a sigh of relief as I realize the situation isn’t too bad.
We’re schedule to demo first, and that’s when disaster strikes. That’s right, technical difficulties. I wish it was a technical difficulty where I can say “Screw It” and just keep going without the screen in the background, but the screen would go in, then out, then in, then out. Each time I thought we were back on track, the screen would fade out again. This happened maybe four or five times until I decided “this won’t work” and I need to just talk without a demo.
Instead of the rock star with the crowd of interested audience members, I was the goat standing around hoping there would be some interest.
But there were some people standing around to talk to me. The people there were my entrepreneur friends who I’ve met over the last three months. Guys who told me I did a great job fighting through the issues and offered me some inspiration and advice for next time. I’m really glad I’ve been able to get to events over the past few months and meet so many great entrepreneurs and friends in the NYC startup community.
Here’s two pieces of advice for everyone…
- Make sure there’s always three backup plans. We had screenshots ready, but I didn’t anticipate projector malfunctions (#FAIL).
- Get to events and meet other entrepreneurs. Not only will it help building your business, but also for distressful failures like this one.
In the end, yes, I was upset. Yes, I wish we had done better. But, I’m thankful for the experience and the practice. I left the venue with a smile on my face and an experience that money can’t buy (would you want to buy it?).
