Presenter passion and presentation design on reviewer assessment and subsequent success: An empirical study of high technology proposal and business plan presentations

We investigate two fundamental research questions related to the funding of early-stage technology enterprises. First, does presentation design, and the presenting entrepreneur's passion and preparedness, influence experts' assessment of the merit and commercialization potential of an emerging firm's technology? Second, are the entrepreneur's passion and preparedness during a formal presentation associated with future technology success? We analyze twenty-two video-taped presentations to a U.S. Department of Defense technology transfer and granting consortium, and track subsequent technology success. From the data it appears that both entrepreneurial passion and presentation design does influence expert assessment of a technology, and future commercialization success can be predicted to some extent by the level of entrepreneurial passion exhibited during the presentation.