Organizing and Preparing your presentation
In your slides and presentation you must demonstrate solid understanding of your product and convey this to your audience.
Know your product:
- Everyone on your team must know all the fundamentals of your product (what is it and what is it not)
- What technical things must you tackle?
- You’ve done a lot more than what can be shown in the presentation.
- Be ready to bring in research, numbers, out of the building results, into the conversation.
Describe your product very clearly:
- Make sure your audience understand the basics of your product as well as you do
- Be able to answer rudimentary questions about your product
- Is there a big need for your product? Be specific.
- Does your product solve the problem? How?
- Convince your audience a solution is needed and that you have the right solution.
- Is there competition? How can you stand out?
Business understanding
In your slides and presentation you must demonstrate solid understanding of your business and convey this to your audience.
Have a basic business model and know it well
- Everyone on your team must know the business model
- Who are your customers? Can you reach them?
- Does it make sense to make this product now?
Basic aspects of your operating model
Presenting
And finally make sure you do a great job delivering the presentation
Be ready to present
- Prepare and show that you prepared by having every team member speak
- Consider having more data and pictures and less text
- Every slide must serve a purpose
- Maintain eye contact with
Know what you will say and how you will say it
What to put in the slides
- The number of slides you prepare depends on your rate and density of information
- It will be something in the range of 8-24. But more is not better!
Very Rough Outline (different for each product)
- Introduction (product, team, team members)
- Pains (who has them, what are they, how big are they)
- Ways your product will address the pains, what is the value proposition
- Your Product (screenshots if any, scenarios, features, menus, etc/whatever)
- Factors (technology, societal, anything) relevant to timing
- Growth Model - What will you do to achieve growth
- Operational Model: Not a full spreadsheet, key highlights, including costs and pricing
- How much $$ you are asking for, and what milestones it will get you to
- Conclusion
Bill Wittenberg’s General Pitch Outline
- Only for inspiration
- You don’t need to use it
- The world sucks today
- Imagine the world like this instead
- Why is this especially possible now?
- This is how our product or business will do this
- This is how we are going to make money
- Why us?
How to approach designing your presentation
- Don’t worry about colors or fonts or images until the end. You will save time!
- Remember your audience: they don’t know you or your product
- But don’t spend time explaining what is self-evident or well known
- A pitch deck is not a paper, essay or artcile.
- You will not put in everything you know in this presentation
- You don’t need your whole operating model. You need the key facts and results from it
- Final slide should be very obvious to the audience. No doubt that this is the end of the pitch.
Refine and finalize
- Now find a template that is nice, clean and you like
- Challenge every slide: why is it there? What POINT is it making?
- Practice presenting it and check how long it takes. It will take longer in reality.