We’re going on a family vacation driving an RV to the pacific northwest. We don’t have any firm plans – just a desire to hit Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Not sure we’ll make it that far though. We’ve been there 10 years ago, and can’t wait to visit again. It was before the age of digital cameras, so the photos are fading away in some old misplaced album. Besides, it should be fun to take the ferry from Port Angeles to the island. I’ll post some pictures when we’re back.

Meet Jo-Ping (pictured above). He was instrumental in my presentation practice, serving as a camera-mounted mock investor. I gave my 7 minute pitch to him over and over again, and he listened carefully every time. He never checked his Blackberry during the presentation, and was very attentive. I could always see what’s on his mind by simply rewinding my tape and replaying it. Though he didn’t give me any feedback about the content of my presentation, he did give me some actionable feedback on eye contact, posture, intonation, and volume.

The presentation itself went well. After practicing for dozens of time, I was definitely ready to go. Jo-Ping was honorably discharged and turned into a temporary coaster. I won’t make you see the picture of the poor guy with coffee stains all over his face. It’s too devastating.

I’m back after taking a short break from posting.

We (Tripio) are very excited about being selected to present at the SD Forum’s VC pitch event next week. We have lots of homework to do before the event. The first challenge was to condense our executive summary into 50 words. This took me about a day to complete, and it kept reminding me of a Blaise Pascal quote: “I have only made this letter rather long because I haven’t had time to make it shorter.” I couldn’t put it any better.

The next mission is to cram our 30 minute presentation into seven. The trick is to keep it short, interesting, and informative at the same time. Most importantly – make sure the audience is intrigued and wants to hear more. I’m pretty much done with the slides after changing them for the 999th time. Next, I’m going to practice in front of a video camera over and over again until I’m happy with what I see.

As for what we do at Tripio – we’re basically trying to solve the problem captured so succinctly in this old New York Times cartoon: