What about the actual interview?

Once 7pm rolls around you want to jump up on stage and kick the event off!

Welcome everyone to the event and explain a little about yourself and what you do, then go into a little about how that led into Startup Grind. After that that go into a short intro of the speaker before inviting him on stage. This is important because we want to make sure the speaker gets a proper Startup Grind welcome! As the speaker is walking up to the stage have everyone clap and cheer. This shows the speaker we appreciate his time and sets the tone for networking later among entrepreneurs.

During the interview it is important to try and keep it flowing and interesting. Studying your speaker, questions, and listening helps tremendously. If it can go in a more interesting direction, take it there and dig deeper.  Download & read this 2 page document, to help you with the interview format: General Interview Template

As the interview comes to a close open it up for Q&A depending on how much time is left over from the interview. Remember to encourage actual questions and not pitches.

Ending the event with a thank you to not only the speaker but awesome volunteers, sponsors, and friends (all by name) who make it possible is encouraged. After that open it up for Q&A by encouraging people to network, pointing a few interesting people who are working on cool projects is a great way to kick it off.

Learn more about how to conduct a great interview by watching this video from our Office Hours in September 2017.