What do I as a start-up have to consider in order to optimally position my ideas and appeal to potential investors? So that they may be interested in investing in my company and my ideas? How do I find the right messages and how do I tell a riveting story around my genius idea? These and other questions pertaining to positioning and corporate communication were thoroughly discussed during the EU-supported workshop Realize IT on September 5 & 6, 2013 in Lisbon. Dr. Manz-Christ personally coached each start-up. The young entrepreneurs’ presentations at the end of the two-day workshop were persuasive and left the audience wanting more.

For presentations as well as media, the following holds true: Information must be mixed with entertainment to keep people from disconnecting. Suspense that simplifies complicated facts and makes them understandable to laymen must be built. For this purpose, Dr. Manz-Christ showed the young entrepreneurs during the workshop how they could achieve greater effect without PowerPoint and how they could capture their audience on the emotional rather than the factual plane. In a way that would make their listeners – media, investors or other target groups – say “Sold!” in the end.

The Workshop Realize IT was organized by the European Alumni Networks EMA and OCEANS as well as ICUnet and was supported by the EU.