Wednesday 16 June 2010

Basic Rules of Startup Presentation

Font AmalmagationImage by L Hollis Photography via Flickr
I often see presentations by startups that even if they are content wise thought through, they fail on some basic presentation rulse. So here they are:

- do not read from slides... present them!
- 3 items per slide ... exceptions are possible, however people tend to remember three things not 4, 5 or 6...so help them remember your presentation
- use one liners on slides,  not whole sentences, explain the lines if they aren't completely straightforward
- 2-3 minutes per slide...do not jam 15 slides into 5 mins presentation
- product ...show the product, you do not need live presentation (screenshot is enough)
- readable fonts, 4 fonts changes per slide/presentation max! font change is anything that changes a font: size, bold, italics!

That's it, it's very simple, but often neglected. Check your last presentation you did and try to apply the above rules. You want you're listeners to be engaged not annoyed.


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's so basic, but so many people screw it up! Thanks for posting!

Ian

trejrco said...

Especially agree on the don't read the slides ... once someone starts reading from their slides I start to tune out :).

/TJ
(sidenote: I am teaching a class all this week, using Powerpoint for the slideware - and not reading from them! (Although I may have a heavy slide or five (too much content) ))