During the last week of our Build programs, hundreds of builders create demos showcasing their products. So we’ve learned from a lot of experience about what makes demos effective, and how to create them without too much work. 

We are constantly helping builders in this process, so we figured we’d put together a quick post on our learnings as well as the tools we see builders using and loving. We’ll keep this updated as things change! 

The bottom line is that standing in front of your product is one of the most valuable things you can do, and builders who find ways to do it successfully — especially at early stages — open a lot of doors for themselves. And the good news is that if you follow this guide it really doesn’t have to be scary or time intensive. 

Structuring the demo

Generally speaking this is the structure we recommend:

• Introduce the problem, who has it, what that matters, and why you’re on a mission to solve it

• Showcase the product, focusing on the “aha” moment

• Talk about what comes next and invite people into the process

To break that down a bit:

Say Why You're Building It

Builder energy is infectious. Convey your passion for building the product instead of focusing on a grand vision or market opportunity. Explain your personal motivation for starting the project.

Put the Problem First

This might seem obvious, but it's surprising how many demos dive straight into the solution. Always start with the problem. Who has this problem? Be insanely specific. Describe the issue in detail before presenting your solution. This helps the audience understand the context and the need for your product.

It's perfectly fine if your problem is "I just wanted to learn this new tech" or "I wanted to build my first-gen AI app." Just say that! Clarity about the problem keeps viewers from getting distracted trying to figure out what issue you're addressing.

Skip the Login Step–Please!

For most products, it makes sense to skip the login step in the video demo. Builders assume they should just walk through their product from start to finish, but nobody needs to see your login flow — we’ve seen a million of them that are all the same. By the time you get to the good stuff, people aren’t paying attention anymore.

Instead, jump straight to the exciting parts that showcase your product's "aha" moment. This keeps your demo concise and focused on what really matters to your audience.

Keep It Short

There’s a steep dropoff in attention after about 3 minutes in a product demo. Try and keep it within that! Then point people that are interested to the next step you want them to take.

Give People a Next Step

We see a lot of builders that get to the end of the demo and just sign off. You may be missing that collaborator/user/supporter who could really change things for you. So make sure to tell them what you have planned next and how they can follow along/participate if they are interested — be a beta tester, connect with you in a certain place, collaborate with you on something specific, etc!

Helpful tools

These days the tools to create demo videos make it a total breeze, no matter what setup you have or what language you speak. These are a few of our favorites:

Scripting:

You can use a tool like Scribe to document the steps you want to take in your demo and draft a rough script. Practicing what you are going to say and do will save you a lot of recording time!

Video:

Most computers have a ready-to-use tool like Quicktime Player that gives you lightweight screen recording and editing capabilities. If you have an Apple computer, iMovie works too. Other popular tools for recording videos are Loom, Mmhmm, and Tella.

Translation:

We have builders from all over the world in our program. We want the demo experience to be accessible no matter what language you speak. You can easily dub audio and video files into various languages with ElevenLabs, VoiceCheap or Pipio.

Voiceovers and avatars: 

If you’re not ready to make your camera debut yet, you can utilize tools to create AI avatars and voiceovers using Synthesia or HeyGen.

If you have any other tools you love, send them to us and we’ll add them here! And if you want to get inspired from some of the demos from Build, head to https://backdropbuild.com/builds. Or apply to an upcoming program and add yourself to that list :)