Seth Godin nailed the perfect format for a one-on-one presentation in a recent blog post.
- Full-blown PowerPoint presentations are overkill in an intimate coffee chat
- Taking an empty note pad and sketching the entire presentation from scratch while you are talking is definitely more intimate, but also high risk. (A bit like the concept used in the book “The back of the napkin”
- Seth’s hybrid of a print out of PowerPoint slides with key numbers, circles, and marks missing is the perfect compromise. Hand-write the key missing pieces during the meeting. Your meeting partner will remember them better, and he can take a nice and personal “coloring book” home.
This type of presentation is ideal for short 15 minute coffee chats with venture capitalists where you try to pitch for a more in-depth meeting.
To make a hybrid napkin presentation, I suggest that you actually design all the slides, including the version with the comments and drawings put on them electronically so that the story flows logically and it is easy to prepare for the meeting. Just before your presentation, you decide which slides to print or not.