Demos help us experience the product in a way that's not lines of code or marketing bullet points or concepts.

To help us unpack why demos are an essential craft that needs to be honed in start-ups, we talked to four product legends to get their insights, thoughts, and opinions.

• Sherif Mansour: Distinguished Product Manager at Atlassian.
• Mindy Eiermann: Director of Product Management at Intuit.
• Jens Schumacher: Chief Product Officer at Search.io.
• Somya Kapoor: CEO & Co-Founder at TheLoops.

All were kind enough to share their take on The Art of the Demo.

Demos simulate the customer experience

When we asked why they think demos are important, Jens and Somya both spoke of demos as breathing life into projects. Jens believes they make the abstract tangible and provide an opportunity to clearly demonstrate how specific problems are solved. Somya thinks of demos as "windows into the vision", where you distil the idea potential and capture the audience.

Sherif and Mindy agreed. For Sherif, the demo audience simulates the customer, so the presenter has to be very aware of the customer experience during delivery, more than with other modes of presentation. He added that "it’s much more effective to have a meaningful discussion and make prioritisation decisions when you use your demo as a shared language, rather than using a bunch of text and bullet points". Demos simulate reality, whereas bullet points abstract it.

Demos are an opportunity to tell a story

Mindy puts it beautifully when she says that "giving a demo is so much more than showing someone your product. It's about telling a story and doing so in a way that marries customer insights, data, and a product experience to take your audience on the journey." We love this and we wholeheartedly agree.

Demos are a story. A very important part of your product story. They allow you to empathise with customers, understand their challenges and see how to solve their problems. You can't get this effect with a slide deck. Empathy is built when you can put yourself in the shoes of the customer. As Mindy says, "the more effective you can be with creating that empathy and understanding, the more likely you will be to get the support you need to be successful".

Three key demo use cases

1. Transfer knowledge to internal teams
   Demos show how a customer problem has been solved and explain the steps taken to arrive at the solution. This is valuable knowledge that can be used to impact other customer problems, and enable marketing and support teams to explain features more clearly to customers.
2. Drive customer sales
   Demos are a visual and engaging way for the target audience to understand a feature, a whole product and the experience they will receive. The old adage of 'show don't tell' applies here, because it enables the customer to 'see themselves' using a product, achieving a task, solving a problem. Demos create a connection which (hopefully) leads to sales.
3. Show investors your value
   Demos are essential for telling the success story of your product, what it does now, what it can do soon, and where it fits in a customer's life and the market. Investors look for ideas that loudly communicate potential, have a clear purpose and reflect a better reality. Investors want to put their money in a product they can see, not a bullet list of nebulous benefits.