We have mentioned in the post Your presentation for venture capitalist few simple rules you should follow – 10/20/30 – and top ten topics you should cover in your presentation.
The single most important factor in investors presentations is you. Yes, you.
But today, we would like to cover what David S. Rose, technology entrepreneur and world-class presenter, recommends about entrepreneurial fund-raising pitches (or investors presentations). The most important thing to remember is that investors will all the way try to figure out if you are the person behind whom they should invest their money. So, YOU are the single most important factor in investors presentation.
You have only first 30-60 seconds of your presentation to grab the attention of your audience.
Investors presentations should therefore always be done by the CEO himself. Maybe that is not so strict in the corporate world but my guess is that even there this rule should be applied. You have first 30-60 seconds to grab the attention of the audience. In this one minute you should:
- present your logo
- your name, and
- your title.
Always start your presentation with something dramatic and memorable.
Still in that one minute, after first screen you should start with something dramatic and memorable. It could be an anecdote, an unusual number or something similar.
After the openings you should set the context for the rest of the presentation. Present your elevator pitch (you have one, don’t you?), like: “We operate a search engine that finds anything on the Internet“; or: “We design and build custom made sales kiosk for mobile phones“. Although we allready mentioned in the Your presentation for venture capialist ten topics you should cover, here is one other sequence possibility, this time 13 topics:
- Company/Presenter overview
- Business overview
- Management team
- Market/Pain points
- Product (including images)
- Business model
- Customer (current and projected)
- Strategic relationships, if any
- Competition
- Barriers to entry
- Financial overview
- Capital, valuation and use of Proceeds
- Review.
Do not forget. The presentation is about you. Never hand out copies of your slides. And always say it first, then show it.
There are some other details to be remembered.
- You. Don’t forget. Its not about PowerPoint. It is about you. Some of the greatest speakers in the world have never used PowerPoint (or similar tools).
- Never, ever hand out copies of your slides. Certainly not before your presentation. Slides should be completely incapable to stand for themselves. So for the WWW presentation, consider doing a separate presentation. You should though prepare a complete leave-behind deck.
- Use “builds”. And say it first, then show it.
Also do not forget to use the preview/prompting capability of your software and so do not turn your head to the screen or even forget what is on the next slide. Good luck!
Source: David S. Rose in Reynolds, Garr: Presentation Zen Design. Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentation.
Tags: Interaction design, Investor presentations, Our bookshelf, Presentations
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