SlideMagic Blog

Here is a nice post on the Stripe Atlas site about pitching your startup. It is written from the perspective of a very early-stage startup pitching for a seat in an incubator such as Y Combinator. (If the entrepreneur is not yet that experienced, an achievement like having climbed Mount Everest adds a datapoint about persistence).

Here are some quotes that struck me from the post:

• “Explain assumptions in your pitch like you would to a smart friend in a different field.”
• “The investor is not your user, so pitching users and pitching investors are completely different.”
• “This pitch says nothing, in 18 words: COMPANY will help e-commerce stores sell more products using cutting-edge AI-enabled algorithms and machine learning.”
• “Clarity is particularly important when you’re tackling recently popular ideas, like blockchains or machine learning”
• ‘Your reviewer will read literally thousands of data points today–the average pitch includes more than 10. No one can remember that many arbitrary numbers, so reviewers compress them to “zero”, “non-zero”, and “impressive.”’
• 'Nobody has ever written in their comments on a company “Wow, their sign-in screen blew me away. I want to invest in that sign-in screen.” ’
• “Risk-taking is encouraged in startups; stupid risks are not. Walking into the office of a person in a position of authority without a meeting scheduled is a risk, but it suggests ambition and sales ability. Describing crimes you’ve committed generally suggests poor judgment.”

The people evaluation bit of this Y Combinator screening process seems very similar to the way we were on the lookout for new talent in McKinsey. Especially for young hires with little work experience, you had to comb for indicators of possible future success, fit. In every interview you really wanted the candidate to succeed. And the dialogue with the candidate, the way she responded and thought was very important.

Investors keep on insisting on simple and short pitches, cut pages, cut time, simplify. I don’t think that there is a problem with the investor’s IQ, there is not reason to dumb down your story.

What might be happening is that your business actually is very familiar to the investor. She has heard similar stories a thousand times before. A gig economy idea in a new market segment, a me-too business in a different country, a new Internet security technology, semi conductors that are a factor 10 faster, a new private equity fund that promises to be really hands on with portfolio companies.

While your business is new, the investor has learned 90% of the context in previous presentations. Talking 10 minutes about how successful Uber is and how this idea can be applied to other sectors is a waste of time.

Simplify/shorten your deck means: I understand already a lot, let’s go to the interesting bit.

Cover image by Dan Gold on Unsplash

Today, I added 2 slides that show a balance sheet to the template store.

The first is a traditional table format. But this PowerPoint version is a bit different from the a typical balance sheet in an annual report to improve the readability. Usually, the PowerPoint presentation with the financials is not the legally binding one, so we can omit some details that clutter up the page. This table has fewer lines (consolidating multiple entries into one), and the amounts are rounded up.

The second chart is a balance sheet represented as a column chart. Even more details has been taken out and the result is a nice and unusual way to visualise the key balance sheet ratios. Instantly you can see the proportion between current and non-current assets (and liabilities), and you can see the leverage of the company (ratio between debt and equity). This chart is probably easier to follow than the Profit and Loss statement as a column chart which I discussed earlier.

Click on the image to download the slides from the template store. Subscribers can do so at no extra cost.

Cover image by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

Recently, someone searched for a Pareto chart on my site. I must admit, I had to consult WikiPedia about this type of slide. A Pareto chart shows 2 data series, each with their own vertical axis; the first show the absolute frequency count of something, the second one the cumulative occurrence of the data series, adding up to hundred for the last entry. I have added the Pareto chart to the store.

I love to use this golf-related concept to visualise a situation where something is almost done, it just needs a little push.

Visually, the image is highly recognisable. Similar to resolution in music (the listener is just craving the moment when the unstable note resolves into a stable / root one), here the eye can already mentally see the ball disappearing in the hole. There is tension, anticipation of movement in the chart without any video or animation effects.

The second advantage of this composition is that golf courts by design provide an abundant amount of white space (the grass) on which to put your text.

In my slide, I reconstructed the golf ball using a PowerPoint shape, a circle with a touch of gradient and a shadow constructed from an oval shape. As a result, you can control the size, position, and colour of the ball precisely. Feel free to borrow the design or download the ready slide here. Subscribers can do this free of charge.

Cover image by Andrew Rice on Unsplash

Below is an example of how you could stitch (I don’t want to call it “Frankenstein”) a startup pitch deck together using the slides that are available in the template store. It is tricky to design a generic startup up, the upfront bit of these decks is highly specific to the company and the marketing it is operating in. Towards the back, things get more generic (team, financials, pipeline, roadmap, etc.).

I will give this template a bit more thought, and I will also turn my attention to other standard presentations such as quarterly results presentations, kick off documents, Board meetings, etc.

The deck above can be pieced together from individual slides in the template store, or downloaded in one go here (4:3 PowerPoint only for the bundle). Have a close look before you do to make sure this is the flow that fits your company. Subscribers can download at no extra cost and experiment freely.

Cover image by Jomjakkapat Parrueng on Unsplash

Slowly, slowly, I am moving closer to the goal of creating a searchable slide bank bank that is actually useful. Here are the various steps that I have gone through:

• Designing a slide template that looks good/professional AND blends in easily with existing corporate PowerPoint templates
• Creating a “boxy” design language that is easy to manipulate and edit, even for non-designers
• Cutting down the universe of slides to come to a collection of basic slides that can cover almost every possible common business concept that is out there
• Anticipate the majority of possible search queries to find layouts for every possible angle
• And now: find a smart grouping slides that creates a really smart way of suggesting related/similar slides

Below is an example of a product page in the store now:

Now that I have automated subscriptions, plus sorted out the search algorithms it is time to clear the last automation hurdle: VAT management globally for both consumer and enterprise customers (the EU has created a nightmare for small digital content stores as it is going after tech giants such as Apple). After that, all attention will be focussed on adding more slide content.

Cover image by Anthony Martino on Unsplash

This variation on a 2x2 matrix slide can be a good way to visualise being stuck in a choice between two poor alternatives. Two balls move in a corridor and are trapped so they cannot reach that ultimate, best of both world position which sits at the top right of the chart.

In a follow-up chart you could use the exact same design as a basis, but have the corridor break open as you introduce your solution. Other layouts to show a best-of-both worlds situation are Venn diagrams or 2x2 matrices. You can download this trade off chart here, subscribers can do so free of charge.

Cover image by Martin Reisch on Unsplash

PowerPoint (and Keynote) can be very useful alternatives to word processors:

• It is easy to set up a document quickly, using empty pages with headers to organise your ideas
• It is easy to move things around
• It is easy to combine text, graphs, images, and data
• It is easy to collaborate with others in this well-known user interface

As a result, many of my clients use “slideocuments”, presentations that are meant for reading, discussing, and decision making, rather than being the backdrop of a stand-up presentation in front of an audience.

A good slideocument slide with dense text is different from a poorly designed bullet point slide (with dense text). It follows the layout principles of print design: white space, text in readable columns. Poor bullet point slides usually have a font size that is too small for a live presentation and too big for reading. Text runs from left to right across the entire screen, which makes it hard to read, especially in wide screen format. The structure of bullet points is not clear. The text of the bullet points is too long to be a headline, and too short to be a clear paragraph.

I added a few slideocuments to the SlideMagic store recently. Feel inspired to copy the design, or click on the images to purchase a ready slide. Of course, subscribers can add the slides to their collection at no cost.

Cover image by Laura Kapfer on Unsplash

Here is the cross post of an answer I gave on Quora:

No, don’t use Steve Job’s famous “one more thing” at the very end of your presentation

• When you are starting out with pitching your venture and you do not have the track record of Steve Jobs (yet), it is not smart to leave your biggest point to the last minute
• It is very hard to assess whether using humor in a presentations will work given the meeting dynamics. Hard-wiring a “joke” in the sequence of your slides removes the flexibility of playing it safe and pulling the joke when the mood in the room just does not feel right
• Around most of Apple’s releases there was some sort of anticipation of something big and new that was coming. Often, details of product were leaked in the press. The product had actually already been pitched before the presentation started. The audience was just hungry for the details. In a pitch or interview this is probably never the case.

Cover image by Ben Miller on Flickr