PresEngage founder Tony Adams has been giving presentations, like this one, since he started his career at age 19. (Courtesy PresEngage)
According to Tony Adams, four out of five professionals admit to zoning out during a work presentation.
His startup is raising $1 million to change that.
PresEngage, which Adams founded last year, lets audiences ask questions of an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot during a talk to engage them more with the content.
Before the event, lecturers feed their slide deck and any other relevant information — notes, papers, datasets — to the tool to give it a knowledge base. On presentation day, watchers connect by scanning a QR code and then can get their questions answered through text.
“When you include the phone in your presentation, you can use it as a tool rather than a detriment,” Adams said.
A good chunk of the 40 users PresEngage has amassed since its Feb. 11 launch are keynote conference speakers — Adams’ main target demographic. He thinks his tool allows for a more interactive and expansive Q&A than a speaker taking individual questions from the stage.
“We joke a little bit, but it’s true that it knows your presentation better than you do,” Adams said.
After the talk, PresEngage lets the presenter see the conversations that happened with the bot. The tool tracks common questions and engagement and offers suggestions to improve the slideshow.
And if a query pops up days, weeks or even years later, the channel is open indefinitely and can be accessed anytime.
Subscriptions cost $16 to $54 a month, with more features on higher-priced tiers. PresEngage also can be purchased for a single slideshow for $9 to $29.
Adams said Digital Summit, a digital marketing conference coming to Denver’s convention center in early June, will be one where PresEngage will have a big marketing presence. He wants to get the tech in front of large audiences.
“It has virality similar to Dropbox,” he said. “In the early days, it had a few users brave enough to sign on and share something with someone else, someone who’d never been able to get that big video via email.
An example text thread with PresEngage. (Courtesy PresEngage)
“For us, it’s even compounded because it’s not one-to-one, it’s one-to-many,” he added.
Though PresEngage has competitors, Adams said they can’t match the speed and ease with which PresEngage can answer questions. Most are moderated by a person, meaning answers come only as fast as they can be sourced and typed.
Some companies also offer in-presentation, multiple-choice surveys to drive engagement, but those pre-selected answers are inherently limiting, Adams said.
“One, it’s not the audience’s question, and two, those answers are already determined,” he said of the practice. “You’re really putting guardrails on the information that’s available to get. We are unfiltered. You ask any questions, and you get any information.”
Adams sees sales, training and development as other areas where PresEngage can shine.
Complicated products could be explained over instant text rather than tedious back-and-forth emails. Onboarding questions could be quickly answered by a chatbot rather than someone from HR.
Education is another area to break into. But after not even three months of business, Adams is being more methodical.
“We have so many different opportunities to chase, but because we’re you,ng we want to focus on a few of them,” he said, noting that integrations with the likes of Hubspot, Salesforce, Zapier and Zoom add to its utility.
Adams is a U.S. Army veteran with decades of experience in real estate; he worked as recruiting, retention and customer experience head for Re/Max for several years. After leaving in 2018, he founded an advisory firm, Truvisory, where he continues to consult on real estate marketing and technology.
Giving talks has been a mainstay in his professional career, and he always saw the opportunity for the experience to be better. He hopes to deliver that with PresEngage.
“I’ve been giving presentations since I was 19,” he said. “I’ve always had to present something to someone.”Â
He is just beginning a $1 million raise, which he said he hopes to close in the next two or three months. It will be the first outside investment for PresEngage, which Adams said was built off $15,000 to $20,000 of his own cash.
Most of the money raised, he said, will be spent on marketing.
“We really want to get into different events and conferences and be very focal across the podium,” Adams said. “Marketing in this space isn’t cheap. But boots on the ground is a big opportunity for us.”
PresEngage founder Tony Adams has been giving presentations, like this one, since he started his career at age 19. (Courtesy PresEngage)
According to Tony Adams, four out of five professionals admit to zoning out during a work presentation.
His startup is raising $1 million to change that.
PresEngage, which Adams founded last year, lets audiences ask questions of an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot during a talk to engage them more with the content.
Before the event, lecturers feed their slide deck and any other relevant information — notes, papers, datasets — to the tool to give it a knowledge base. On presentation day, watchers connect by scanning a QR code and then can get their questions answered through text.
“When you include the phone in your presentation, you can use it as a tool rather than a detriment,” Adams said.
A good chunk of the 40 users PresEngage has amassed since its Feb. 11 launch are keynote conference speakers — Adams’ main target demographic. He thinks his tool allows for a more interactive and expansive Q&A than a speaker taking individual questions from the stage.
“We joke a little bit, but it’s true that it knows your presentation better than you do,” Adams said.
After the talk, PresEngage lets the presenter see the conversations that happened with the bot. The tool tracks common questions and engagement and offers suggestions to improve the slideshow.
And if a query pops up days, weeks or even years later, the channel is open indefinitely and can be accessed anytime.
Subscriptions cost $16 to $54 a month, with more features on higher-priced tiers. PresEngage also can be purchased for a single slideshow for $9 to $29.
Adams said Digital Summit, a digital marketing conference coming to Denver’s convention center in early June, will be one where PresEngage will have a big marketing presence. He wants to get the tech in front of large audiences.
“It has virality similar to Dropbox,” he said. “In the early days, it had a few users brave enough to sign on and share something with someone else, someone who’d never been able to get that big video via email.
An example text thread with PresEngage. (Courtesy PresEngage)
“For us, it’s even compounded because it’s not one-to-one, it’s one-to-many,” he added.
Though PresEngage has competitors, Adams said they can’t match the speed and ease with which PresEngage can answer questions. Most are moderated by a person, meaning answers come only as fast as they can be sourced and typed.
Some companies also offer in-presentation, multiple-choice surveys to drive engagement, but those pre-selected answers are inherently limiting, Adams said.
“One, it’s not the audience’s question, and two, those answers are already determined,” he said of the practice. “You’re really putting guardrails on the information that’s available to get. We are unfiltered. You ask any questions, and you get any information.”
Adams sees sales, training and development as other areas where PresEngage can shine.
Complicated products could be explained over instant text rather than tedious back-and-forth emails. Onboarding questions could be quickly answered by a chatbot rather than someone from HR.
Education is another area to break into. But after not even three months of business, Adams is being more methodical.
“We have so many different opportunities to chase, but because we’re you,ng we want to focus on a few of them,” he said, noting that integrations with the likes of Hubspot, Salesforce, Zapier and Zoom add to its utility.
Adams is a U.S. Army veteran with decades of experience in real estate; he worked as recruiting, retention and customer experience head for Re/Max for several years. After leaving in 2018, he founded an advisory firm, Truvisory, where he continues to consult on real estate marketing and technology.
Giving talks has been a mainstay in his professional career, and he always saw the opportunity for the experience to be better. He hopes to deliver that with PresEngage.
“I’ve been giving presentations since I was 19,” he said. “I’ve always had to present something to someone.”Â
He is just beginning a $1 million raise, which he said he hopes to close in the next two or three months. It will be the first outside investment for PresEngage, which Adams said was built off $15,000 to $20,000 of his own cash.
Most of the money raised, he said, will be spent on marketing.
“We really want to get into different events and conferences and be very focal across the podium,” Adams said. “Marketing in this space isn’t cheap. But boots on the ground is a big opportunity for us.”
