The Show and Tell Process

Present your product. Get structured feedback. Leave with evidence.

 

Founders Table Show & Tell gives founders the opportunity to put an actual product, service, prototype, feature, or customer experience in front of other founders and find out what they really think.
 

1. Each Show & Tell session includes eight presenters. That means you are not simply presenting your product. You are putting it in front of a group of founders who will evaluate what they see, experience, and understand—and provide you with structured written feedback.
 

At the conclusion of the event, you can receive written feedback from up to seven other founders in your session, giving you a body of qualitative research that can help you make better business decisions.
 

You may use that evidence to:
 

• Refine your product or customer experience

• Identify areas of confusion or friction

• Strengthen your value proposition and messaging

• Identify patterns in what potential users notice

• Support product-development decisions

• Document early market feedback

• Demonstrate product validation to potential partners, advisors, accelerators, or investors

• Compare feedback as your product evolves
  
   

2. And you don't have to participate only once.

A founder may return to future Show & Tell sessions with an updated product, a new feature, a revised customer experience, or another area they want evaluated. Over time, this can allow you to build a larger body of evidence showing how people respond to your product and how that response changes as the business develops.
 

3. Participation Fee: $30

The participation fee for Founders Table Show & Tell is $30 per presenter.

However, you cannot simply pay $30 and register for the event. Show & Tell is a curated experience. Every prospective presenter must first be accepted through the Founders Table Show & Tell selection process.
 

We do this because the quality of the feedback depends on the quality and readiness of what is being presented.
 

4. How the Process Works:
 

Step 1: Complete the Presenter Fit Assessment

Every prospective presenter begins by completing the Founders Table Show & Tell Presenter Fit Assessment.
 

The assessment helps us determine whether your product or service is at an appropriate stage for meaningful evaluation.
 

We consider factors such as whether:

• There is an actual product, service, prototype, demo, feature, or customer experience to evaluate.

• Participants will be able to meaningfully see, use, test, or experience what you are presenting.

• Your presentation can be understood within the Show & Tell format.

• You have a reasonably defined customer and value proposition.

• You are asking participants to evaluate something that exists rather than asking the group to determine what business you should create.

• You are prepared to receive candid feedback.
   

Submitting the assessment does not guarantee acceptance.
 

Founders Table will review your submission and notify you whether you have been accepted to participate.
 

Only accepted presenters move forward to registration and payment.
 

Step 2: Complete the Presenter Setup Form

Once accepted, you will complete the Show & Tell Presenter Setup Form.

This is where you tell us exactly what participants will experience during your presentation.
 

You may provide:

• Product or demonstration links

• Access instructions

• Files or supporting materials

• The sequence of your presentation

• Specific features or experiences you want participants to evaluate

• Questions you want the feedback to help answer

• Backup materials if something does not work during the live demonstration
   

This allows Founders Table to understand the presentation before the event and helps ensure that the session is focused on evaluating the product rather than figuring out what the presenter intends to show.
 

Step 3: Show Your Product

On the day of Show & Tell, each founder presents their product, service, prototype, feature, or experience to the group.
 

This is Show & Tell, not simply Tell.

Whenever possible, the other founders should be able to see, experience, interact with, or meaningfully evaluate what you have created.
 

Step 4: Evaluate the Other Presenters

Every presenter is also an evaluator. This is one of the most important parts of the Founders Table Show & Tell model.
 

You receive feedback from each member of the group, and you are responsible for providing thoughtful feedback to the other presenters.
 

Evaluators complete the Founders Table Product Feedback Form, which examines areas such as:
 

• Product clarity

• Customer clarity

• Importance of the problem

• Solution fit

• Value proposition

• Differentiation

• Customer experience

• Ease of use

• Trust and perceived quality

• Willingness to pay

• Likelihood of purchase or recommendation

• Strengths

• Concerns

• Areas of confusion

• Opportunities for improvement
   

Participants provide both ratings and written feedback.
 

5. Your Feedback Is Reviewed

After the event, The Founders Table reviews the evaluations before feedback is released to participants.
 

Why?
 

Because the integrity of Show & Tell depends on reciprocity. A founder should not be able to present first, receive thoughtful feedback from everyone else, and then leave—or provide minimal responses—without giving the same level of consideration to the other presenters.
 

Founders Table therefore reviews evaluations for completeness and whether the written responses demonstrate a reasonable effort to provide meaningful feedback.
 

6. The Reciprocity Requirement

When you participate in Show & Tell, you are making two commitments:
 

1. Present something that is ready for meaningful evaluation.

2. Provide meaningful evaluation to the other founders.
 

Both are requirements of participation.

If Founders Table determines that a presenter has not adequately completed the required evaluations or has provided substantially insufficient feedback, that presenter may be disqualified.
 

If this occurs:

• The presenter's $30 participation fee will be refunded.
   

• Founders Table may withhold the feedback submitted about that presenter's product.
   

This protects the founders who fulfilled their responsibilities and protects the integrity of the Show & Tell process.
 

7. Build Evidence Over Time

One Show & Tell can give you a snapshot. Multiple Show & Tell sessions can begin to give you a pattern. For example, you might test an early version of a product, make changes based on the feedback, return several months later, and test the revised version with another group of founders.
 

Over time, those evaluations can become part of your product-validation record.

Instead of simply telling someone:

“People like the idea.”
 

You can begin documenting:

• How many people evaluated the product

• What they understood

• What they valued

• What confused them

• Whether they would use it

• Whether they would pay for it

• Whether they would recommend it

• What changed between different versions of the product
   

That evidence can be useful internally as you build your company and externally when discussing your progress with advisors, accelerators, partners, or potential investors.
 

Show something real. Get evidence. Improve it. Then test it again.