PitchDeck101
@clearpreso

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I typically work with startups
when they are pitching for investment, and pitching on a big stage

packaging counts - a
lot - in a crowded world ! Tom Peters

It seems like everyone has
a startup these days, it’s very easy to get lost in the crowd!

Don’t Judge a book by
its cover The reason why we have this phrase… is because this is what we do!

Don’t Judge a book by
its cover Your presentation is your business’s cover

Awesome is the new Normal
High quality messaging in a high quality presentation is the new normal

67 words on a slide
ensures that people reach for…

Their phone, where a world
of interesting stuff lies!

First thing’s first
@clearpreso

Slide count is Totally irrelevant
Forget the “10 slide” rule, or any other rule, slide count is irrelevant.

Slide count is Totally irrelevant
I back this up using a quote from the Irish comedy Father Ted…

“Wouldyoulikeyour pizzacutinto6or8 slicesDougal?” “Ohjust6,Idon't
thinkIcouldeat8”

Think of your presentation as
a pie, split it however many times makes sense

The amount of content doesn’t
change, but it might become easier to digest!

“Sendmeyourslides” The problem is people
try and make a deck that works as both a live deck, and a “send me your slides” deck

ONESIZE NEVER! FITSALL They are
two different things!

It’s like the book “Life
of Pi” and the movie of the same name, Both are optimised for different consumption cases.

The opening slide
@clearpreso

Here’s a good formula…

Nice, high quality, relevant background

A one liner that makes
sense in plain English

Twitter handle

Cameras Made Programmable Keep it
simple, and don’t start throwing in non-core info… like the next slide

Cameras Made Programmable New York,
6th June 2014 Marco Herbst - CEO Presented at: TechCrunch

Cameras Made Programmable Keep it
simple

Storify the
Problem

Easy to understand, easy to
remember Frame your proposition as a story, like the pitch for “Venuebooker” in the next few slides

TEN
YEARS
experience
in
hospitality

THE PROBLEM Hotels have this
problem, empty event spaces

THE PROBLEM

THE PROBLEM

OUTDATED METHODS FISTS FULL OF
DOLLARS &

No easy way to compare
APPLES WITH APPLES Customers have a problem too

INFO,
MENUS,
PAYMENTS,
PREORDERS,
CHANGES,

HOSPITALITY EVOLUTION We’re going to
fix all that, with Venuebooker

Easy to understand, easy to
remember

Show the solution @clearpresoThere’s a
few good ways to do this

This dashboard makes sense to
some people, but to a first time viewer it’s intimidating, your app is the same

Show by walk through So
it can be a good idea to walk people through stuff step by unavoidable step

Here is an example of
a walkthrough for creche management software

One
Food
Tracking

One
Food
Tracking

Two
Activity
Capture

Two
Activity
Capture

Two
Activity
Capture

Show by chart Some times
a simplified diagram can be good at giving a high level overview of how something works

Show by example Or you
could show examples of how your product/service is currently used by customers. For example with Evercam who have a smart camera API…

A beef producer uses the
camera API to monitor quality along the production line

You can add visual accountability
to invoices

#wicklowcam And it’s so simple
to use that this 12 year old kid has written some cool functionality for it!

Make the Data Clear &
Obvious @clearpreso

“Beclearfirst andcleversecond. Ifyouhavetothrow oneofthoseout,
throwoutclever” JasonFried 37Signals

Ifithastobeexplained… Charts are like jokes…
if you have to explain it, it means it’s no good

BorF? Quick quiz, in the
next slide which section is bigger?

A B C D E
F Hard to tell for a number of reasons…

Steve Jobs used to do
similar to make the green section look bigger than the purple section

F E D C B
A A B C D E F We could flatten and label it… that helps.

0 25 50 75 100
A B C D E F But bar charts are always better…

0 25 50 75 100
A B C D E F And lets cut out the noise… now much easier

A B C D E
F Than this…

96 Populationin000’s Population Of Limerick
City If you have 1 data point, you don’t need a graph

96 Populationin000’s Population Of Limerick
City If you can remove the bar but not lose info… it wasn’t needed

96,000 Population of Limerick City
Just mix the number with a nice, crisp, relevant image instead

Justkeepit SIMPLE So when in
doubt, just keep it simple

The Team
@clearpreso

The TEAM Great photo to
begin with, then we split by function over the next few slides

Product Development

Development & Testing

Customer Service

The other bits
@clearpreso

Designforthe
backoftheroom

Notautocue

Notautocue If your presenting in
a big room the screens are going to be quite small for people at the back! Make it big!

JustSayno
toPrezi

This is what Prezi’s marketing
director makes with prezi, looks familiar

This guy puts it perfectly.

REHEARSE
REHEARSE
REHEARSE

“Ifpeopleonlyknewhow hardIworktogainmy mastery, itwouldn'tseemtoo wonderfulatall”
Michelangelo

Steve Jobs rehearsed to a
completely unnatural level, in order to appear natural

Realrehearsalis OUTLOUD Real rehearsal is
out loud, even if it’s just you talking to yourself in a room on your own, it’s important to hear things said out loud

JUSTASSUME SOMETHING WILLGOWRONG Very, very
wrong

What will you do if
your computer won’t turn on?

Put it on a memory
stick… or two

Have it online somewhere

Video Audio Fonts There are
all ticking time bombs and might go wrong unless you can be sure that you can test them ahead of time, stay away from them

Paper-based Backup The projector might
be broken! Have a backup for the worst case scenario

Get one of these Its
worth buying your own one of these

Make it shareable @clearpresoTry and
make it shareable!

IDEASTHAT
SPREAD
WIN

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