On behalf of VLAB, it’s my pleasure to invite you to join our panel even. We truly appreciate your time and patience as we work through our process for assembling the panel and look forward to having the audience hear your ideas and insights.

 

We need a few items from you to complete the panelist registration process:
  1. Confirm Your Availability. Please reply by email to confirm your availability for the event date and time. Please plan to arrive at 5:30 PM on the day of the event. Please refer to your invitation email for the exact date and other logistics. Please provide your name, title, and contact information (cell phone preferred in case we need to reach you on the day of the event.) Please email program@vlab.org, media@vlab.org, and marketing@vlab.org.
  2. Review Logistics. Please review the event timing for details on event logistics and the plan for the evening.
  3. Send your Bio, Photo, and Company Logo. Please send a high resolution face photo (mug shot) and company logo, and bio about yourself to program@vlab.org, media@vlab.org, and marketing@vlab.org. We use these items for our website and program guide. Requirements for the pictures and bio content can be found here.
  4. Sign the Media Waiver. Please download, print and sign our media waiver and email the signed copy as an attachment to  program@vlab.org, media@vlab.org, and marketing@vlab.org.
  5. Submit your Presentation if Required. If you are doing a presentation (we will let you know if you are a presenting company or you are a moderator) then please submit your presentation to program@vlab.org and media@vlab.org no later than 2 weeks prior to the event. Requirements for the content and format of the presentation can be found below.
  6. Invite your Guests. All panelists can bring up to 2 guests. Please e-mail each guests name, title, and e-mail address to  program@vlab.org, media@vlab.org, and marketing@vlab.org no later than 1 week prior to the event.
  7. Attend Kickoff Run Call. We will have a 1 hour kick-off conference call to get acquainted with the Moderator and Panelists no later than 1 week prior to the event. Stay tuned for details.

If you have any questions or concerns please reach out to your event team contact or send an email to program@vlab.org and we will be happy to answer.
For now we’re excited to have you join us and look forward to a great conversation.

Our VLAB event page is at http://www.vlab.org/events.html

 

 

 

Presentation guidelines (For Moderator and Presenting Startup)

When planning your presentation please keep in mind the following bullet points as you think about what to say.  These guidelines have been developed as a result of years of customer satisfaction surveys (VLAB conducts an audience  satisfaction survey after every event).  When you follow these guidelines, you will be successful with the VLAB audience.

We’re expecting approximately 350 people in the audience.  The VLAB audience is more technical and more demanding than the typical panel discussion audience.
FEED THEIR THIRST for knowledge and SUBSTANCE!

These are your guaranteed, time-tested tips to avoid bad reviews:

  • DO talk about your business model, your basic
    operations and financial plan.
  • DON’T present brochure-ware (the less marketing speak,
    the better).  DON’T
    SELL YOUR PRODUCT.  Talk about
    your business.
  • DO discuss your biggest challenges and failures as
    well as your greatest accomplishments.
    People want to LEARN from your personal war stories.
  • DON’T go over 8-9 slides.  MAXIMUM.
  • DO show your roadmap: Where are you going as a
    business?  What are the major challenges
    and opportunities in the space?
  • DON’T spend too much time talking about 30,000 foot
    level issues — err on the side of the nitty gritty business issues instead.
  • DO think about the entrepreneurs in the audience:
    If you were thinking about your next business, what would YOU most want to
    know?  What piece of your personal
    experience as an entrepreneur would be most helpful to others?
  • DON’T talk about any 101 level items.  Your audience consists of technically savvy
    and business-focused entrepreneurs, VCs, academics and technologists.
  • DO have fun.
    Be visual.  Tell stories.  Use photos.  Show demos.
    Get people engaged in the passion you have for your business.  Tell people WHY you do what you do every day!

PLEASE REMEMBER TO SHARE YOUR PRESENTATION WITH THE EVENT CHAIR NO LATER THAN 2 WEEKS PRIOR TO YOUR APPEARANCE DATE.  This checkpoint is in place to help you refine your presentation in order to assure
that you, your team and your company are presented in the best possible light in front of the VLAB audience.

 

Presentation Format

PRESENTATION FORMAT

○   Microsoft Power 2007 or Above Preferred

○   If you are using Keynote please export to Microsoft PowerPoint format

PROVIDING PRESENTATION SLIDES

○    Moderator/Panelist presentations will integrate into VLAB master deck. This minimizes technical issues and ensures smooth, error free presentations throughout the day.

● Fonts: If you are using special fonts, they need to be provided also

PRESENTATION FORMATS AND DIMENSIONS

○    Presentation slides will be projected on a main screen at 1280×720 HD (a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio) (Note this is NOT the standard aspect ratio by default in Microsoft Powerpoint or Apple Keynote)

● You can place content anywhere from Edge to Edge (this is the whole area that will shown on screen)

● If you transfer your presentation content from a standard 800 x 600 or a 1024 x 768 to this blank slate, you’ll find that you have space to increase font sizes and to include larger graphics if you choose to do so.

VIDEOS

○    Videos are welcome, but our experience is it is best to keep these in separate files to maintain high resolution

○    Please give us video files that we can download (no YouTube or Flash Video links.) We have WiFi but the internet  connection can be slow at times.