CNBC's show, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, is featuring a series of episodes entitled The Road to CES. Each segment brings in different companies and different experts discussing how to grow the businesses from their various stages. Bug Labs was selected for Episode 2: Becoming a Household Name. It was a two-day shoot, and I took a bunch of pictures for our own little "behind the scenes" blog post here.
We arrived at the CNBC studio in Jersey Tuesday morning, were brought to our green room, then into some briefings. The week prior to the show involved quite a few discussions about the show and Bug Labs as the segment producers went to work on creating a good flow for the episode. A discussion guide helped get all the other panelists quickly up to speed on the company so they could be comfortable talking about what we do on the air. The other panelists included executives from Kodak, TASER, Travelocity, and some independent consultants. Each brought a different perspective, from sales to marketing to PR, etc.
While watching the group chat, led by Donny himself (who was really engaging btw), I'd say as it started Peter was at about a C, maybe C minus. Now sure, it's a little nerve-racking being under a massively lit up stage, seeing the world through blurry glasses-free eyes (not even for posterity), and knowing you're the little guy in a roomful of people about to pounce on your startup. But it's another thing altogether to be told in the first 5 minutes that they don't like your name, your slogan, and your appearance could 'use some work'. We'll see how the edit comes out, but there was a moment where I'm pretty sure Peter felt like he had been sucker-punched.
That said, Peter really did rally through the second half of the shoot. Also, the execs from Travelocity and Kodak were extremely supportive and encouraging of the company's vision. It was also interesting listening to us getting told we need to talk to bloggers and local media if we want to have a good story! Anyhow, with his A-game on for the end, I'll call the overall performance a B. Not bad for Peter's first time on nationwide TV.
Yesterday I met with a production crew at Bug Labs HQ (NY) early in the morning for them to load in 3 tons of equipment into the office. The series of tables and workstations was transformed into a mini TV studio. Lights, camera, legos! (you'll see). The team that came out was really great to work with, and Peter had some great 1-on-1 interviews over the course of the day. I got to see a sample of the output that we could expect and the production quality was stunning. You'll see it air tonight, but it looked like one of those "behind the athlete" stories from the NBC Olympics coverage. Only with less tights. Here's some shots of the action:
The show airs tonight on CNBC at 10pm EST. I think the production quality will somewhat exceed our internal videos, but hey, ya never know. Hope it gives you another good bit of insight into the world of Bug Labs!
