The second day of Red Herring ushered in the presentation and panel section of the conference. Unfortunately, we did not make it to many presentations or panel discussions, because we had to prepare our own presentation, which was scheduled for 5:15PM. And from about 3:30PM to 5:00PM, we’d be meeting with various VCs with whom we’d scheduled meetings. So I was a bit nervous.

The conference really drove home that a lot of times, the better you are in your personal life, the freer and looser you are in your professional life. For example, on the day of our presentation, we got up at about 9AM. We were already freaking out. The developers and designers didn’t have the website up to the level that we felt comfortable with, and we wanted to show the website to the VCs with whom we’d scheduled meetings. It was really an issue of cleaning up some simple errors, but sometimes it seems that programmers don’t think with a marketing filter. In other words, it’s not always enough that something works. It should also be pretty and/or look user-friendly. And since the web wasn’t at the level that we’d agreed with the developers, we started to freak out a bit. So at first, I started chain-smoking. I really wanted to go the gym to burn off the nervous energy, but we didn’t have enough time. So I made a couple of phone calls to key friends / love interest who knew exactly how to calm me down. Nothing magical. Just a fun chat that distracted me for 15 minutes and led me to think about other things and put things in perspective. And then I felt calm.

So we met with one VC who succintly explained his theory to us: a successful start-up needs to demonstrate one of three things: i) an exceptional and experienced team; ii) a technology that is clearly above its peers; or iii) interesting traffic numbers. Nothing too surprising here, but the formula was so succint and clear that it really helped us to clarify our priorities.

I didn’t have much time to practice the presentation beforehand, but luckily 7 years of debate experience (high school and college) and 1 year of explaining the product meant that the presentation came off very smoothly. Once I start talking, I lose most of my nervousness. Usually, it’s the waiting that’s the worst thing. Once I get into it, it’s almost reflexsive. The goal is simply to have an interesting conversation with an audience without boring them to death and presenting the product in appealing but simple, layman’s terms.

After the presentation, a few more VCs came to speak with us, and various of the VCs with whom we’d scheduled meetings came to see our presentation. One seemed particularly interested. That made me happy.

Walking back to our hotel room from the presentation, we bumped into Andreas Rührig, the CEO of Wazap!, a vertical search engine for video games that is supported by two German VCs. Andreas’ company launched in 2006, but they already have impressive traffic numbers. Andreas was very nice, very friendly and very relaxed. He approached us after our presentation and told us that he also had a similar product. As a sign of his increased recognition within the search community, he was invited to be a Red Herring panelist to speak on the future of search. Andreas is definitely one to watch, not just because his product seems to be so successful, but also because he’s such a good guy.

At dinner that night, we were a lot more relaxed. We chose a random table of French entrepreneurs and just laughed and enjoyed ourselves. We had had a few more VC meetings, and after the dinner we went outside to smoke a cigarette and enjoy the view. We took some pictures with our mobile phones and one of me pretending to get into a Bentley convertible that was parked outside the hotel.

When we went back into the hotel, we went straight for the bar. A couple of VCs came to speak with us informally about our website, and their comments were very useful. I don’t what to get into too much detail, but suffice it to say that it’s astonishing the extent to which some VCs really condition their investments on the potential exit, even to the extent of redefining the product to faciliate an easier exit. We’re not really sure the extent to which we buy all of the arguments, but it was an interesting exercise nonetheless.

To me, the most fun part of the night came when we met Andrej Nabergoj, a successful Slovenian entrepreneur. We started speaking with Andrej, because he was standing next to us and introduced himself. I told him that I knew he had to be successful, because he was drinking a caipirinha, and given the price of my €18 Smirnoff Screwdriver, I could only imagine what a caipirinha must cost. So he invited me to a caipirinha and that set off a 3-hour discussion about VCs, entrepreneurs and staying true to yourself and your project. I remember one VC saying that he didn’t know where or when, but he knew that eventually he wanted to invest in one of Andrej’s companies, because Andrej is carismatic, very obviously intelligent but down-to-earth. He is definitely one to watch.