Yesterday I had the great pleasure of introducing the Keen (www.keen.to) team to a room over around 300 investors and people in the start-up / entrepreneurial business environment.
The event was held in the auditorium at Te Papa and was a sell out event.
Here I am introducing Laxman Popli keen.
And this is Laxman, wowing the audience:
I prepared my speech at 5.30am yesterday morning and had around 5 hours to get it right – I wanted to be sure that I did the best job ever of introducing this amazing team.
At the last minute I realised it was too long and had to dramatically cut it back. And then I spent an hour or so in the Te Papa Cafe talking out loud, practising my speech, while people looked at me as if I were a mad woman 🙂
Here is the final speech that I gave:
My name is Debra Chantry & I am passionate about growing the New Zealand economy.
 I am a Business Coach, specialising in the start-up and owner managed business space.
 I help businesses to commercialise their ideas and take them to the next level.
 It is my great pleasure to be introducing you to the Keen team, whom I have worked with over the last 13 weeks.
 Laxman will paint the picture & tell you the business story but I would like to first tell you a little about the process that they have been through to get to where they are now & why I believe that they are worth investing in.
 It started it with an idea, that came from a real life problem.
 However, we all know that good ideas don’t always make great businesses.
 What Keen did do was follow sound market validation & business planning principles to validate, test & launch this idea.
 Their pain point has proven to be Urgent, Pervasive & Compelling enough to make people open their wallets & change their behaviour….
 They clearly defined their target market, identified the low hanging fruit and established the best channels to get this to market.
 Keen then launched a Minimum Viable Product & tested it with the marketplace. Their 2nd iteration, based on customer feedback is ready to launch.
 Keen’s vision is to use the online environment to help friends connect & have better experiences in the offline & real world.
 They have the passion, the drive, the skills & the ability to work effectively as a team to make this happen.
 They have been a pleasure to work with, remaining committed to that vision whilst being open to feedback.
 Developed from New Zealand for the world, I am very proud to introduce you to the Keen team representative – Laxman Popli.
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And here was my original speech:
My name is Debra Chantry & I am passionate about growing the New Zealand economy, through helping Kiwi businesses grow profitably!
 I am a Business Coach, specialising in the start-up and owner managed business space, utilising the combined knowledge that comes from years of Corporate experience along with owning a number of my own companies.
 I help businesses to commercialise their ideas and take them to the next level of profitable growth, either through my own private coaching and consulting practice, Ventell, or through the Icehouse in Auckland and the Lightning Lab in Wellington.
 It is my great pleasure to be introducing you to the Keen team, whom I have worked with over the last 13 weeks.
 Laxman will paint the picture & tell you the business story but I would like to first tell you a little about the process that they have been through to get to where they are now & why I believe that they are worth investing in.
 It started it with an idea, that came from a real life problem – to use the online social environment to connect people into offline, real world experiences.
 However, we all know that good ideas don’t always make great businesses.
 What Keen did do was follow sound market validation & business planning principles to validate, test & launch this idea.
 Their pain point has proven to be Urgent, Pervasive & Compelling enough to make people open their wallets….
 They clearly defined their target market, both on the end consumer & business side, identified the low hanging fruit and established the best channels to get this to market.
 Keen then launched a Minimum Viable Product & tested it with the marketplace. Their 2nd iteration, based on customer feedback is ready to launch.
 Keen’s vision is to use the online environment to help people connect & have better experiences in the offline & real world. help the world spontaneously connect with friends locally in the online environment to allow them to have better offline, real-world experiences.
 They have the passion, the drive, the skills & the ability to work effectively as a team to make this happen. They have been a pleasure to work with, remaining committed to that vision whilst being open to feedback, both from end customers and their coaches.
 Developed from New Zealand for the world, I am very proud to introduce you to the Keen team representative – Laxman Popli.
And finally, here we are celebrating afterwards:
