I was fortunate enough to attend both TC50 (thank you Heather, Michael, and Jason) and Demo (thank you Matt and Chris) and have a booth at one. Thoughts:

If you’re presenting or have a booth,

Have something to say. Don’t look confused, wondering how to describe your company – you should’ve practiced this ad nauseum by the time you get to the show. That goes for everybody at your booth – if they’re at the booth, they should know what to say.

Say it. Briefly. Tell me what you do and why I should care in 30 seconds. Have a 3 minute version. Give me a chance to escape after 3 minutes. If I still care, delve into details and exchange contact info.

Have a Hollywood pitch. Nivi of Venture Hacks came up with ours – the first time I described Xpenser to him he said “cool – Tripit for expenses”. I’ve been using it since. You want to be “the something of something”. Sounds silly but it really works – Jason Calacanis, for example, told me he got what we did the moment I told him our hollywood pitch.

Pick one thing. You’re three people. You can’t possibly be solving all of the world’s problems. Pick one problem, present a solution for it. If you find yourself saying “or, we could do XYZ”, then you’re probably screwing up.

Demo. Don’t talk about it, show it. Both Demo and TC50 companies have been very good with this actually.

Explain how you will make money. Maybe you haven’t figured it out yet; that’s probably ok. But you will be asked, so have something to say.

Address the competition, particularly if they’re 900 pound gorillas. If your product is a better facebook, google reader, twitter, yelp, etc, at least acknowledge the competitor. If you’re showing me a page that looks just like facebook updates, I’m going to be thinking you’re competing with facebook. Tell me how you are not, of if you are how you’ll beat them.

Don’t look glum. I don’t care if you’ve had a bad day. I was having a particularly rough day when we had our booth at TC50, and was derailed from my plans to mope all day only by my partner’s persistent professionalism. Suck it up and present. I did and we ended up getting some fantastic coverage for Xpenser.

Don’t look bored. If you’re bored how do you expect people to be interested?

Don’t be shy. If you see someone wandering around and somewhat receptive, grab them. If you’re sitting in your chair as people walk by you’re doing it wrong.

Attendees and presenters alike:

Network. Meet someone new, shake a few hands. This is the main reason you’re at the conference. Some conferences do a good job of providing you with opportunities – O’Reilly conferences, for example, include an online app that allows you to find other attendees and connect with them. All conferences should do this. Demo in particular would be a great candidate for this, since the attendees are likely to be interesting to each other.

At the last Hadoop conference, for example, where I was actually very interested in the presentations, I ended up catching only 4 presentations in person. The rest of the time I was talking to people in the hallway, catching up with old colleagues, etc. Best conference I’ve been to in a while.

VCs and investors working booths: good on you. I’ve been impressed by the number of investors actually putting in real work. Henry Oh, for example, was absolutely a machine and left me very impressed. If you’re an investor, what better opportunity to see your investment in action, gauge feedback, and see how your team interacts with people? Take the time to show up and man a booth; the golf course will still be there tomorrow.

…

So how would I compare TC50 and Demo? Bottom line is they’re both excellent shows and you should do your very best to get into either. If you get accepted to either you can’t lose. Each reflects the personality of its founders; TC50 is louder and has more ambient energy, Demo is more professional and structured. TC50 is very web/online focused, Demo has a broader range of technologies.

I preferred TC50’s approach to the presentations. After each company presents they get immediate feedback from a panel of experts. At Demo the feedback comes in a lump after all of the session’s companies have presented. Having the immediate feedback helps complete the story on each company and provides a natural break.

I preferred Demo’s scheduling and focus on the booths. At Demo attendees spend  a good bit of time at the Pavilion where the presenter booths are. This is a very good thing – they get a chance to actually interact with and touch the products. At TC50 the booths seemed a bit more like an obstacle on the way to and from the main presentation area.