A great VC pitch layout

Mark Suster, an entrepreneur-turned VC at GRP Partners, is in the process of creating an excellent outline for a VC pitch presentation. Subscribe to his blog "Both sides of the table" and/or follow his progress on this very useful overview page.

More VC pitch resources here, and my own contributions on the topic are here.

It's OK to start from scratch sometimes

Overheard in the office:

[Person walking into the office] "That's a nice chart you are making there, what is it for?"

[Me] "A fund raising presentation for a new interesting startup."

[Person] "Tell me more about it."

[Me] "OK. It's not confidential. Here is the deal" [Short and sweet story follows]

[Person] "That sounds like a great investment opportunity"

[Person leaves the office]

[Me thinking] "I need to re-write this presentation from scratch..."

Sometimes the best presentations get created after the work is basically finished. All the pieces of the puzzle fall in one place. There is nothing wrong with opening up a blank screen and re-writing the entire deck in one big burst of creativity. It would not have been possible without the time spent on the first version.

Slides that Stick - one year old

My first post was on 11 July 2008. We are 1 year and around 350 posts later. It has been quite a ride.

I started off with the idea of "documenting" some of my basic approaches to presentation design, but gradually moved away from trying to write these (time consuming) "how-to classics". Instead, I am picking 1 idea/concept that comes across my desk, strip it of client-specific details and share it with all of you. More interesting, less time consuming, plus an (almost) endless flow of ideas for blog posts.

This sharing has been the most rewarding aspect of my blog. I am getting to know many interesting people from all over the world. Maybe this post is an opportunity from some of the "anonymous readers" to write a brief introduction about yourself in the comments. Who are you? Where are you from? It would be great to meet you.

What about this: the presentation subtitle?

Here is a new idea. Zen-style presentations with large images and a few words in a big font do not stand very well on their own. Maybe we should apply something from the movies: add subtitles to a PowerPoint slide.

• Crammed in a small black box that blends in with the black frame of the projector
• A small font that can be read when sitting in front of a screen, but blurs away when viewed from a distance (when a presenter is explaining the chart)
• Unlike notes pages, the text appears on the slide itself (in PDF, in SlideShare)

It's like reading a newspaper page:

1. You read the small print under the images first
2. You read the headlines after that
3. You read the actual text last

An example below, click on an image to get a larger picture.

Interestingly, this concept is very similar to the "lead" in the ancient McKinsey exhibit format.

Another problem that would be solved by this is to make the information captured in a presentation searchable. In particular large knowledge firms (such as management consultants) struggle with archiving the knowledge that is hidden in PowerPoint presentations with little text.

Home run image

It is hard to find that one image that tells your entire story, especially when writing fund raising presentations for technology startups. This one comes pretty close: "Dont' lose your contacts when you drop your phone", and ad by Indian mobile phone operator Airtel for a phone address book backup service.

See how the composition of the image creates an enormous depth of field. Although it might clash with a minimalist approach to design, I would put the message in a big bold title on top of the image if I were to apply something like this in PowerPoint. Over-communicating is better just to make sure that everyone gets the point.

A larger image can be seen here on Ads of the World.

Chart concept: the mini-dialogue with text balloons

The text balloon is commonly used in cartoons. It is now making its way in PowerPoint presentations as well. There are 2 fundamental ways in which you can use them.

1. A full-length comic story. For presentations that are designed for online viewing (without the explanations of a live presenter) you could create an entire presentation that is in fact a comic book. Create characters, put them in different scenes and write a dialogue that tells the story. Here is an example. They are beautiful, but take a lot of design work to make, need to be very consistent from page to page, and are basically useless as supporting slides for a live presentation.
2. An example of a familiar situation. How to visualize this familiar situation: "We all know the feeling when you show up at the reception desk and it turns out that there was a miscommunication about the time and place of your meeting because you did not get/read an email". A mini dialogue can do a wonderful job.

If you use mini-dialogues:

• Make sure that text is readable (short, big)
• The point of the dialogue is very easy to understand
• Use a non-cheesy portait image or cartoon character. (Debby would not be good for this type of chart)
• Give the audience a few seconds to digest the slide

An online VC pitch by gapingvoid

While browsing Hugh MacLeod's "gapingvoid" blog (wonderful cartoons) I stumbled across this online investment pitch for an enterprise software startup that calls itself thingamy. There are different phases in VC due dilligence. The 60 second look, the first 15 minute meeting, the first hour spend, sitting through a pitch and finally the complete "turn everything upside down" check on the company.

You should read the blog post by VC-ist Brad Feld about "Saying no in 60 seconds": investors are ploughing through huge deal flows and need to make up their mind quickly to avoid wasting a startup's time, and wasting their own time that they could have spent on deals they want to do, or working with their portfolio companies. It sounds harsh, but a polite "thank you" after a 60 second analysis is still better than no answer at all.

So I took the 60 second stage of due dilligence (as a VC amateur, but a professional presentation ptich designer). My feedback.

Things I really liked:

• It's public. The fact that you are looking ofr money, the story behind your company, all available to see for everyone on the Internet. More startups should have the confidence to do this. Spread your story within the boundaries of proprietary IP.

• The headlines and the supporting cartoons on the 30megs site.
• The completely different approach to fund raising gets you a plus as an entrepreneur/team.

Things that can be improved:

• Getting the practical "what do you actually do" out there quickly. In 60 secons it was still not competely clear to me. I am sure that in an hour I will find it out, but people like Brad Feld have made up their mind by then.
• The menu structure on the company site makes it a bit hard to read the text. Maybe a standard piece of text would have been calmer to the eye.

But all in all my compliments to this bold approach to fund raising. I see a big future for SlideShare as a content distribution platform for a much more open fund raising process, at least for the first 60 seconds of it.

For more useful links on the subject of VC pitch presentations go here.

The trash keeps on coming - extending 3D objects

Depth of field is an under-used technique in PowerPoint. Here is an idea for a slide I used for a client that has a powerful solution against spam. Repeating and object many times can give dramatic effects.

More 3D tricks here.

What presenters can learn from book cover design

Presentations shared online are different from the "classical" setup of a presenter giving a live talk backed up by some visuals. Online presentations need to stand on their own, without verbal explanation, and need to be able to attract viewers without the help of "please sit down, the presentation will start now".

Seth Godin posted some good thoughts about what makes an effective book cover. Jeff Bailey asked the question whether this only applies to books. The answer is no. Especially when your presentation has to stand out in SlideShare or on the notice board near the university coffee machine.

Chart concept - stable industries, not much going on here

Certain industries do not seem to be subject to change (but maybe a new startup is about to change all this!). I like to use images of the moai on Easter Island to visualize this kind of market environment.

Photo credit: Natmandu. For these type of "real" images it is much better to go to sites like Flickr then to stock image sites (check the image license though).

Using impressionist painters in PowerPoint slides

My life and business partner Anat Naschitz has a strong interest in the arts. She recently created a chart for a client that needed to show how its solution makes it possible to see beyond the dots and construct the full picture (in a medical application).

The painting "The Seine at La Grande Jatte" by Seurat is an example of the pointillism style. An approach similar to the CYMK technique used in many printers today. (Seurat starred in a previous post on this blog as well).

The round cutouts were made by setting the background of the PowerPoint shape to "slide background". The curly font used is Curlz MT.

Screen shots made easy with Aviary

Mashable pointed to this usefull tool yesterday. Aviary is an "in-the-cloud" image manipulation utility (trying to take on Photoshop and others). To lure more users to their site, they have created a neat screen shot capture tool (bookmark this URL).

I use screen shots a lot, and until now relied on CTRL-PRT SCR, followed by a paste into a PowerPoint slide. (For example to extract tag clouds from Wordle) Two drawbacks:

• A huge, very wide image (I have a large screen resolutions) gets plopped into your slide that you need to crop by switching the PowerPoint zoom to 33%
• A partial web page image (PRT SCR only captures what's on the screen)

The Aviary tool is more useful:

• Simple: type in aviary.com followed by the URL you want to capture, for example aviary.com/http://ww.axiom.co.il if you want to make a screen shot of my corporate site www.axiom.co.il.
• The image (covering the entire web page including parts that are not on the screen) opens up in a basic image editor for cropping.
• You can save the image for future use

Looooong shadows to add depth

Long shadows can add great perspective to a slide. Lucky Luke needs them to show off his speed. Photographers like Heinrich Heidersberger have used them nicely in photo compositions (see the "Street Scene" image below)

They are very easy to make in PowerPoint. I suggest forgetting about the built-in shadow functions of PowerPoint, they can be tricky control. Instead, draw your shadows using rectangular boxes. Below a chart that can be used as a setting to display the 3 (or so) key messages of a presentation on a final slide (excuse the bullet points):

Filling PowerPoint letters with an image background

A neat trick. Select your text, go to "format" and select "text fill". The font I used in the example below is "Showcard Gothic".

Evernote - your note pad always with you

Presentation design needs time. Squeezing out the last slides the night before the deadline will make your presentation look like, well, a document that was squeezed out the night before the deadline (most management consulting presentations). Give yourself lapse time to complete your presentation. A day of work spread out over a week gives much better results than sprinting from 18:00 to 02:00.

Most ideas come at times and places when you least expect it, and when you don't always have a note book around. Evernote seems like a useful tool. Capture things on whatever device is convenient, but most importantly, archive it and make it searchable. This archiving is the most important feature I think. Finding notes, mobile phone images, yellow stickies, I lose most of them.

Maybe a special case of Fred Wilson's "watch later" concept: stumbling on things when you do not have time to deal with it, putting it away somewhere for later access.

Via Lifehacker

Homeless signs

Weekend reading. A site with signs and portraits of homeless people. It makes you think. You got a piece of card board and a marker (in fact that's all you got), now write the best "pitch" slide you can... Via Swiss Miss.

3D pavement art

Three dimensional street artists try to create the illusion of a 3D composition jumping out of a flat surface. It results in some stunning pictures. Especially interesting are the images taken not from the viewing position but from the side, giving you an opportunity to see the enormous distortion the artist applies to make his effect work.

Some 3D pavement art links:

• Tracy Lee Strum on Village of Joy (the source of images in this post)
• Julian Beever on the same blog
• European Street Painting

A video how Edgar Mueller goes about making one of his creations:

One click centering across the slide

Usually you use the align tool bar buttons (essential tool bar elements) to line up/center multiple objects. If you just select one object and hit a "Align Center" or "Align Middle" button, PowerPoint will center the object across the slide.

Chart concept - Lucky Luke and low latency

Cartoons can enhance a presentation. You need to strike a fine balance though with inviting a laugh from the audience, and trying to get your point across. People do not have time to read through a cartoon plot. The idea behind a slide should be instantly recognizable. Using classical cartoons can help. People have seen them before. Here is one that can be used to describe the low latency of a technology product. Lucky Luke, the man who can shoot faster than his own shadow. That's pretty low latency. The extension of the cartoon with PowerPoint shapes is not perfect. I used the "oak" standard texture, and the "Playbill" font to give that nice Wild West feel.

Interior shadows can be a nice change

When people (ab)use shadows in PowerPoint, they mostly use the drop shadow, to make an object stand out from the canvas. The opposite, the interior shadow can give a beautiful effect as well. It makes the object, or letters fall back in the background.

See the example below of a slide taken from my presentation about fund raising presentations (explaining a bit about my personal and professional background).

Make sure the direction of the shadow is always vaguely similar to the lighting in the background, the Amsterdam street lights in this case. Use a character color that is similar to the tone of the image.