Investment Pitch The Power Point Deck

The deck the PowerPoint deck the keynote deck.

Let’s face it.

In entrepreneurial communities especially in the high tech world you have to have a deck to really present your new idea your business opportunity.

But let’s make one thing very clear your pitch your presentation is not the deck it is you people do not give million dollar checks or even five thousand dollar checks to a deck.

They give it to a real life human being or a team of human beings so yes you have to have a deck your deck is not going to make a penny for you it’s not going to raise a single dollar you are going to do that.

So by all means have a deck but you are the one who asked to breathe life into this business.

You are the one who has to excite people and show your passion.

A deck is not going to do that.

How should you structure your deck.

There are a lot of different schools of thought on decks what goes in them what shouldn’t go in them.

Guy Kawasaki very famous in entrepreneurial circles has his famous 10 20 30 rule.

He believes you should never have more than 10 slides.

You should never speak for more than 20 minutes.

Even if a venture capitalist has given you an hour on the calendar use the other 40 minutes for conversation and Q and A.

The 30 stands for 30 point font.

That means means make the font Large because I can tell you right now most rich people with money to invest they look more like me than proudly.

They have gray hair or no hair and what are those of us over 50 need to read.

Well I’m not going to want to strain 20 30 feet away looking at a slide deck projection to read.

So you’re giving me an opportunity to just tune out if you’ve got really big letters and really just a few words per slide you increase the odds that the person in the audience will read it and understand it.

Now you can also give the deck in advance you can also leave it behind but do not I beg of you do not try to explain every single thing about your business.

Every nuance of the product every element of the engineering.

No one is going to give you money for that.

It’s just an opportunity to throw it in the trash can or have the eyes glaze over if you are trying to present it.

I’m a big believer in the power of visuals not because I like pretty pictures but because I’ve tested audiences all over the world by and large they do not remember text they do remember picture.

So if you have some new drug and it’s going to help a following people over 80 with Alzheimer’s don’t just put a bullet point of text saying Alzheimer’s now affects all sorts of affluent people in the US including politically well-connected have a picture of Ronald Reagan.

He had Alzheimer’s.

People will remember the picture much more than the text so use pictures for that.

Also realize that the second you stand up you need to be speaking to your audience.

The PowerPoint is for your audience it’s not for you.

The PowerPoint is not your poor man’s teleprompter it’s not the poor woman’s teleprompter.

It’s simply a way of reinforcing some key concepts for your audience.

So don’t make the mistake of using as a crutch for goodness sake don’t right.

You heard me say it before I’ll say it again.

Do not read your PowerPoint people will hate you and they will think you’re a fool.

And if you’re an expert on this business you should be so passionate about it that at the PowerPoint fell over the bulb burned out that someone kicked over your laptop you couldn’t care less you’re happy to just talk to people about this fantastic business opportunity so never lose sight of that.

The PowerPoint is not the presentation.

You are the presentation PowerPoint is not running the show you’re not the assistant of the slide deck to your show it’s your presentation the slides are simply an enhancement.

Focus on that and your slides will help you and they certainly won’t hurt you the way they do for many entrepreneurs.

So that’s your homework assignment right now.

I want you to come up with a slide deck and let’s limit it to 10 slides.

I would like you to have a picture an image of something on each slide you have to use text.

Do it.

But make sure the font is large at least 30 points.

Do it now.