The 20-Minute Presentation Guidelines for Presenters

Slides are Memory Aids Keep the entire presentation short! Keep the language and design simple! Clean slides are better than clutter! Content, not bells and whistles, matters the most

How Many Slides? Believe it or not: 12!

Slide #1 Name of Company Name of Speaker What You Want [optional]

Slide #2 Company Overview The Mission Statement and Elevator Pitch

Slide #3 The Market What’s the problem / pain ? Why should I care? What’s the Opportunity? What’s the size of the opportunity?

Slides #4 and #5 The Solution and Benefits

Slide #6 The Technology What is it? How Protected Is it? Where is it in development?

Slide #7 The Competition Who are they? Barriers to Entry? How ahead or behind are they? Don’t ever say there isn’t any!

Slide #8 Marketing and Leverage Points How are You going to get the customer to buy your stuff?

Slide #9 Money How are you going to make money, i.e., what is the business model? How much money will you make?

Slide #10 Team What expertise do you have? What expertise do you need?

Slide #11 Current situation What’s the company’s status now? What is the company’s time line? Use of funds?

Slide #12 Recap The three things you want them to remember!

Practice!!!!! You should be able to do the presentation in 15 minutes. Practice before people who are intimately acquainted with the company and people who are not. Videotape yourself, if possible Watch the “ums”, “Likes”, “you knows”

Slide Design No more than 3-4 bullets per slide No tiny type or complicated tables Keep the sentences short and to the point. Edit, edit, edit, then edit some more.

Slide Content The audience will retain only about 10% of what you say - repeat often! No “geek” or “MBA speak” Make sure the presentation has substance; fancy lovely slides with nothing underpinning them will get you nowhere

Always Remember It’s about the business, not the technology - that’s why there is only one technology slide.