
Your Startup's Pitch Needs Only These 10 Slides - gpresot
http://blog.visual.ly/10-slides-pitch/
======
drb311
This is a tarted up version of Guy's 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint:

10 slides -- because that's the max a viewer will hold in their head

20 minutes -- because that's the max people will pay attention

30 point font size, minimum -- because people can read it, and you won't cram
too much on

These guidelines are useful for all kinds of presentations because it imposes
some structure and some constraint on material.

Like all rules of thumb, smart people see the exceptions.

Monday Note says you only need three slides, which I also like. Broadly:

1\. Who we are.

2\. What we want to do.

3\. How we'll make it work, the money pump.

Guy 10/20/30:
[http://guykawasaki.com/the_102030_rule/](http://guykawasaki.com/the_102030_rule/)

Monday Note: [http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/05/04/three-slides-then-
shut-...](http://www.mondaynote.com/2015/05/04/three-slides-then-shut-up-the-
art-of-the-pitch/)

------
colinramsay
After much clicking through, it seems like this is the best view of the
original:

[http://visual.ly/only-10-slides-you-need-
pitch](http://visual.ly/only-10-slides-you-need-pitch)

~~~
jaawn
And here is a link straight to the image (which is the only important content
in this case): [http://thumbnails-visually.netdna-ssl.com/the-
only-10-slides...](http://thumbnails-visually.netdna-ssl.com/the-
only-10-slides-you-need-in-a-pitch_54ff86ab42e89.jpg)

------
blfr
OP doesn't add much to the original[1]. They also have a full-sized
infographic[2].

[1] [http://blog.visual.ly/10-slides-pitch/](http://blog.visual.ly/10-slides-
pitch/)

[2] [http://thumbnails-visually.netdna-ssl.com/the-
only-10-slides...](http://thumbnails-visually.netdna-ssl.com/the-
only-10-slides-you-need-in-a-pitch_54ff86ab42e89.jpg)

------
vonklaus
What is interesting to me about this is how quickly this simple image exploded
all over the net. I linked a few sites below that all are very similar to
this. They have that simple infographic, a link to Kawasaki's page and the
well known adage less is more. Image has been circulating since at least march
18th and already appears at ~100 domains. Just found another on
entrepreneur.com[4]

=======================================================

Edit: OP I am sorry if you are a legitimate entity but this image appears on
100 different domains, the article title appears across many as well. I have
found the exact fraise on different articles across the web and your account
is only 16 days old with 3 comments. I apologize, but I am flagging this, it
is a stub article of blogspam and is not the original source (kawasakis site)
so I am flagging this.

=======================================================

edit 2: I unflagged this post[5]

lifehacker[0]

marketingprofs.com[1]

finance.yahoo.com[2]

pinterest.com[3]

[0][http://lifehacker.com/the-10-slides-you-need-to-pitch-
your-b...](http://lifehacker.com/the-10-slides-you-need-to-pitch-your-
business-idea-1691072480)

[1][http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2015/27357/the-
only-10-s...](http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2015/27357/the-
only-10-slides-you-need-in-a-pitch-infographic)

[2][http://finance.yahoo.com/news/only-10-slides-needed-
pitching...](http://finance.yahoo.com/news/only-10-slides-needed-
pitching-181011923.html)

[3][https://www.pinterest.com/pin/206110120423126618/](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/206110120423126618/)

[4][http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244098](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/244098)

[5]still quite skeptical but I would rather let a spammer go free than boot a
real user.

~~~
gpresot
Vonklaus, I can assure you it was not my intention to spam anything. I went on
Kawasaki's website before posting on HN and could not find any reference of
it. Clearly, as you pointed out, I did not check if the same content was
already in other sites/articles/blogs. Since it came from Inc.com, which is
quite a common source, when posting it on HN I thought it would flag as
already posted by somebody else. But it wasn't. Anyway, in the future I will
check if any article i would like to post is already too common on the web.

~~~
vonklaus
=============================

edit: I unflagged the post.

=============================

~~~
gpresot
Thank you. Let's leave it to the mods to resolve. :)

~~~
flanbiscuit
this is the first time I'm seeing this image so I'm glad it wasn't flagged in
the end

------
erikb
Not so different from what we have known since 2007 [1], right? It would be
nice if we could focus on discussing the diffs of what was cool in 2007 and
what is cool now, instead of presenting a complete new deck that isn't all too
different. Building on existing stuff instead of building from scratch.

[1]
[http://venturehacks.com/articles/deck](http://venturehacks.com/articles/deck)

------
tslug
In my experience, this is horseshit.

You should make your deck as simple as possible but no simpler. Really, you
want it customized to whom you're pitching. If your audience wants to know a
lot more about your financials, then one slide probably isn't enough. If he
wants you to go deep about your solution, then one slide isn't enough.

If it's just you and your audience knows your background well, then you don't
really need to waste time on a slide about yourself. It just comes off as
self-preening. If it's an ambitious project with a lot of moving parts, then
you will need multiple slides to get through your team.

Presenting to an audience is about knowing and serving your audience. A lot of
people don't want to waste time on a deck, because all it really represents is
time you blew on a deck.

You can clearly see how much time Guy blew on his 10 slides presentation from
how gorgeously it's laid out- a lot. When you see that sort of thing, it means
a lot of copy editing happened to get the text just the right length. In other
words, the tail was wagging the dog.

What's noticeably missing is any meat. If 10 slides are what you need, show me
actual correlation between length of deck and closed funding and how that
centers around 10 slides, and isolate other factors to demonstrate causation.
You won't find that in his pitch, because there is no correlation. It's mostly
about who you are and/or a demonstration of progress.

I've closed more money with a demonstration of the product's progress than the
right deck. It's more important to execute (you can stop here if you like) and
then for extra credit, show your pitch to multiple potential backers at the
same time in order to improve odds you'll have multiple options that can hurry
each other along.

~~~
asah
+1 to killer demos, my favorite tactic as well( _), but obviously only where
appropriate - there 's lots of things you can't 'demo' and instead use an
appropriate proxy, e.g. testimonials from famous people. Works best if the
demo is actually aligned with product development and not a distraction for
fundraising.

-1 to whining about glossy decks: for consumer products where design is key, the decks have to reflect your aesthetic.

re killer demos - after killer demos, I immediately get hammered by go-to-
market questions, thus demanding a slide deck for visual thinkers... which in
turn requires integration with the demo, so you end up with the usual formula:

1\. audacious vision (~1-3 slides) ==> audience thinks, "no way, can't be
done."

2\. ...KILLER DEMO... ==> oh sh_t, they did it. My head just exploded.

3\. team, go-to-market, competition, etc. (~5-7 slides) ==> these guys are
serious and have thought it through.

adam

(*) $100+M, 6 deals, 20 years, two recessions.

------
humbertomn
Nothing new there... It would be cool to have current and successful examples
of decks by stage (concept, prototype, growth...)

------
gpresot
I have dug out a Techcrunch article which tries to give a more data-based
approach to the whole thing (looking in reality at the whole funding search
process, not only at the number of slides. Clearly there are some limitation
in what they tried to do, but it beats the generalistic "This-is-all-you-need-
in-your-deck" approach

[http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/08/lessons-from-a-study-of-
per...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/08/lessons-from-a-study-of-perfect-
pitch-decks-vcs-spend-an-average-of-3-minutes-44-seconds-on-
them/#.ohymgc:cdoY)

------
Draft_Punk
Yeah, instantly reminded me of Dave McClure's "How to pitch a VC" presentation
from 5-6 years ago:

[http://bit.ly/1g9aTMP](http://bit.ly/1g9aTMP)

------
gpresot
As note in another comment (by erikb) "what to include" has crystallized on
these items (problem, team, etc..) for a while now. What has evolved has
probably been the space dedicated to each (we are down to 1 slide each, and I
assume Guy does not mean 20 bullet points Font 9) and possible the relative
weight... e.g financial projections have definitely lost weight and apparently
can now be merged with key metrics)

------
dang
Url changed from [http://www.inc.com/larry-kim/your-startup-s-pitch-only-
needs...](http://www.inc.com/larry-kim/your-startup-s-pitch-only-needs-
these-10-slides.html), which points to this.

------
lectrick
Guy Kawasaki is awesome, but this is a bit derivative

~~~
damoncali
The approach was more novel when he first started beating this drum well over
a decade ago. You have to compare it to 1999-era corporate powerpoint
practices. We've come a long way in terms of expectations of the medium.

