10-20-30
March 14th, 2007 by 
Amish Parashar
We see a fair number of formal and informal pitches (presentations to the uninitiated). I was asked to be part of a review panel today — my parting advice was the now famous 10-20-30 rule:
10 Slides
20 Minutes
30 Point Font
This rough guide is intended to help entrepreneurs hone their presentations to only the most applicable, most important kernels, keep the presentation on target & relatively brief, and leave ample room for questions. After all 90% of the time your goal is to get to the second meeting!
Today’s presentation did an excellent job of convincing us how they are going to change the world, even the best can improve…
What presentation advice have you heard?
Posted in Entrepreneurial, Start-up, Venture Capital | 
May 1st, 2007 at 5:08 am
The best advice I’ve heard could be boiled down to:
1. Tell a story, back it with professional illustration
2. Print advanced information, or just use PDF for presentations.
The first part is about making things “stick”. Imagery sticks, so do myths. If you can find a good metaphor, you can introduce advanced concepts quickly. Real information then builds off of the symbols.
The second part focuses on how bad the fidelity of Powerpoint/Keynote is. PDFs offer similar slideshow capabilities, and more resolution.
Finally, a good old handout works wonders. You just want to hand it out after the presentation, not before, for the same reason you don’t want a ton of text. People will read rather than listen.
And of course, there’s my favorite quote: “Bullets are for the NRA”
Useful links:
http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB&topic_id=1&topic=
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/01/really_bad_powe.html
May 28th, 2008 at 2:52 am
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