Yesterday I gave a 10-minute talk at Seattle Tech Startups about Instacalc. If you’re in the Seattle area I encourage you to check it out as a chance to see what the community is up to.

The talk was a lot of fun and I got a chance to meet several people afterwards. One reason I enjoyed the demo was because of Toastmasters. I’ve never really liked public speaking, but through the club I learned what aspects I do like (storytelling, humor, relaxed approach) and I tailored my presentation around that. And I’ve grown to like speaking as a result.

The format was pretty straightforward: I started with stories of how Windows Calc is too simple (it emulates a pocket calculator), Excel is too much (it emulates a spreadsheet and hasn’t changed in 30 years), and there’s a need for something in-between. The slides had a single screenshot or word, Steve Jobs style, to keep it simple.

I then did a mini tour of the features, such as instant results, natural language entry, unit conversion, sharing links and using the shared calcs. I compared the before-and-after: what you’d have to do in Excel (”=D3 * (1 + .5)”) and what you can do in InstaCalc (”sales + 50%”). Time flies when you talk about what you enjoy — go with what you know!

The best part was being able to chat with people afterwards — we stayed up till 12:30 (the talk ended at 8pm), at which point I stumbled to a burger joint and stuffed myself.

Here’s a few writeups related to the event:

• Drew Meyer’s Blog
• A startup a day
• Bryan Starbucks’ Blog

Never underestimate the fun of stepping out into the real world — I should do it more often .