I was just at the World Blockchain Forum in London.
And I saw a lot of terrible ICO pitches. The companies themselves might have been fine — the terribleness was in the presentations.
So for example, there was one poor woman, I think the founder of her company, who had to talk right before lunch on the second day of the conference.
For a good five minutes, she ran on enthusiastically about the amazing opportunity that is the blockchain, and statistics about the growth of the technology, and this wonderful whole community of people, and freedom and decentralization and so on.
By the time she got to talking about her actual product, half the room had emptied out to get an early start on the lunch. The other half were talking at full volume or checking their phones.
And the poor founder on stage was visibly shaken because she realized she had just blown her big pitch. She talked faster and faster, at a higher and higher volume, but there was nothing she could do now to win the audience back. Even though I was doing my best to pay attention, I still don't know the name of her company or what it actually does.
So what could she have done to make this presentation more effective?
Well one big thing is to have a much stronger opening.
This is something I learned from marketing contrarian Sean D'Souza. Says Sean: everybody, particularly in the business world, focuses on the SOLUTION. They want to tell you about the cool thing they've built and how they came up with the idea and all about their team. Or like in the case of the pre-lunch ICO pitch above, about freedom and decentralization.
That's a big mistake, because the human mind reacts to PROBLEMS. Just look at newspapers and magazines and evening news. Full of problems, because problems command attention. And without attention, you have nothing.
So what does this mean for ICO pitches?
Simple. Start your pitch in a big way, and talk about the problem you're solving. And make it vivid. Tell a story. Have some shocking statistics. Illustrate the pain and frustration of the status quo.
And only once you've done that, and once you have your audience's attention, then talk about your solution and your team and your future plans and whatever else might be important.