Creating your deck: 5 tips to avoid common pitfalls
A deck is often the first impression a VC, Angel or potential customer has of your product or company. It’s important to make it a great one.
We’d like to believe that a story of our past struggles demonstrates our ability to overcome future obstacles. We would hope that explaining the complexity and brilliance of how our solution works would demonstrate the power of what our product can achieve. It would be great if we could just throw all our information on a board and our audience could pick out the pieces that fit their interests most. Sadly, it doesn’t work that way.
People aren’t interested in how you got here, and would rather not have to understand how an engine works to buy a car. They surely don’t want to do your work for you, and dig into your deck to figure out what interests them the most.
Your ability to clearly state a problem, its solutions, and potential obstacles, concisely is the most compelling way to let your audience know how well you can execute on your vision. After all, that is a large part of what executing on a vision entails. Give them that confidence and spark their curiosity with a great deck.
Here are some tips to help make your deck do exactly that:
Tip #1 — Less is More.
Your deck is an intro to your business. It tells the reader what the problem is, how you’re solving it and how they can benefit from your success. Everything else is a peripheral to those points and are better located in an appendix or follow up.
If you don’t think you can convey your problem and solution clearly, or you feel the need to say more to convey your value, then take a step back and try to find ways prioritize your messaging. Then, trim what falls to the bottom of the list.
Worried your reader will miss out on some great nuggets? Maybe this will ease that nagging feeling: if you’ve grabbed someone’s attention in your deck then rest assured — they will have follow up questions. All that extra data you are eager to show off will find its way to the surface eventually, and at a time when it will make a greater impact.
Here is an old adage that hopefully drives the point home: “if everything is important then nothing is.”
Tip #2: You Will Not Just “Get Through All the Slides Quickly.”
A common rebuttal to #1 is, “Yes, there is a lot of information but it’s necessary. We will get through the slides quickly.” Heck, I use to say that too when working on my decks. The truth is, that’s bass akwards.
Ask yourself: when have I ever found any points impactful or important when I was being rushed through them? Could you imagine the climax of your favorite movie in fast-forward? If anything, “let’s get through it quickly” is a clear sign that someone has other more important things to do.
Think about the mixed signals you are sending if your plan of attack is to rush through slides. “I want you to see these slides because they are important, but not important enough to allow you to take the time to understand them.” or “I want to make an impact on this point, but I also think my time is better spent elsewhere.”
If your points are important then give them due justice. Be sure to convey them impactfully. Pauses in speech can create that, and leveraging a few carefully selected words and images do too.
I understand that you have 15–30 minutes to make your pitch, maybe less; it doesn’t ever feel like enough time. What I am trying to impress upon you is that speed is not your saviour. Prioritizing your key points, and trimming out the rest, are.
If you are rushing through something, then maybe that is the very thing you should be trimming.
Tip #3: Follow Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule
Guy Kawasaki has a great rule of thumb for creating a slides:
10 Slides
20 Minutes
30 point font
You can dive deeper into his 10/20/30 rule here: http://guykawasaki.com/the_102030_rule/
Tip #4: If the information you present doesn’t impress the reader, move on or change the information
You will not change someone’s mind by adding more information to your core pitch. If they like your angle, they will be in touch to learn more. If they like what you have had to say, they will ask questions. If they can’t make the time to read it, then it’s over before it started.
Let’s look at it another way. What are some reasons people may pass on your deck?
- They are not interested in your space or industry
- They don’t understand what you are doing
- There is a conflict of interest
- They are not in a position to take action
It is hard to change the results for #1, #3 or #4 with your deck. It may be best to move on and find someone better suited for you. As for #2, it comes back to what we have stated above: you will likely need to step back and refine your messaging. Even if the reader is the wrong audience, their ability to understand your pitch may help push your deck to someone that is a better fit.
Tip #5: Be Critical. Get some perspective.
Assume you received your deck in an email on a busy day. Would you take the time to dive into each of its 30 slides filled with hefty bullet-point lists?
If this is the 5th pitch you have to watch today, would you want to hear a complex story that requires you to sift through the data for golden nuggets?
Ask people around you to pitch their ideas to you. See where your attentions drops or peaks. It could give you some interesting perspectives into your own structure and delivery.
These tips are based on my experience listening to and giving feedback on many first-time founder decks. Often the first line of feedback widdles down to the points above. Before going to anyone with your deck, see if these tips help you to make some adjustments. Best of luck!
