
Show HN: Browser-based PowerPoint alternative - jeremysizle
https://sizle.io/
======
kristianc
Given that many larger businesses are already going to have well established
workflows around PowerPoint presentations that are going to be hard to shift,
you may be better trying to control the ‘analytics’ portion of the value chain
rather than the presentation creation segment.

Have you considered building a tool where people could upload their existing
PPTX presentations into Sizle and access analytics on them? I can see that
adding real value. At the moment you are probably limiting yourself to SMBs
and freelancers.

~~~
jeremysizle
Hey Kristianc, Sizle currently supports PDF upload for this exact purpose and
are working on PPT currently. We’re not trying to shift any sales workflows,
the goal is to mainly give power users access to insights in a platform
agnostic approach.

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alexchamberlain
I don’t really get the analytics proposition: I don’t design presentations to
be read - I design them to be presented?

~~~
jeremysizle
Hey Alex, it doesn't mention in the title, but Sizle is a tool geared towards
sales/marketing teams to help them make sales actions (follow ups with
customers, leads, etc) based on when their presentation is opened, what slides
were watched the most, etc.

~~~
ksaj
I used to train at IBM, which of course meant a whole lot of PPT. Analytics of
the sort described here would be helpful for discovering what slides provide
the most mileage for a given presentation.

If you spend 1/2 hour on one slide, and then 2 minutes on a string of 5
consecutive slides, it says a lot about how the content impacts the
presentation flow. And it would lay bare if there is any rushing towards the
end of each segment.

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jeremysizle
Hey all, Sizle is an alternative to PowerPoint for sales teams that need to
see when their document was opened by a client, what slides they saw, time
spent, and it can also automatically schedule a follow up with the viewer.
Currently testing it with a bunch of companies here in Australia, but if
anyone here is in sales and marketing I'd love to have you try out the
(experimental) beta :)

~~~
GordonS
Not sure how I feel about this level of tracking TBH. I can see how the data
_might_ benefit _some_ sales teams, but mostly I think it'll be hoovered up,
stored and nothing done with it.

Have you put consent mechanisms in place to allow readers to opt out of
tracking, while still letting them read the document/slides?

~~~
jfoster
It provides more visibility into the funnel. Seems valuable. Whether it's
ethical or not is something different.

Examples of the value it could bring:

Did the prospect drop off because they never even opened the presentation, or
did they at least consider it?

After it's been opened, was it opened a bunch more times? Shows that it wasn't
ruled out or glazed over.

How recent was it last opened? If it was today then we know it's still under
consideration. If it was a month ago, seems like the lead has gone cold.

~~~
brudgers
To me, it seems like there's a mismatch. If the sales channel justifies slide
deck type presentations, reliance on analytics smells way too hands off. Slide
decks are at the phone call layer not the $10/month SaaS layer. A slide deck
doesn't have a "call to action" button that starts the process of charging a
credit card.

~~~
jfoster
I don't think it's either or. You can use the analytics to check on the level
of interest following a call. You can see the dwell time on particular slides
to know when something is of interest or concern.

~~~
brudgers
I'm probably biased. But using slide decks as a stand-alone marketing artifact
seems like a poor choice of alternative. Better analytics probably makes it
better, but still leaves stand-alone slide decks as a poor form of marketing.
A web page, video, email, phone-call, brochure, etc. all seem like a better
focus of attention.

It's not that I don't appreciate the product. I just think it is likely to
leave the big problem intact in the cases where it is used.

~~~
jfoster
What makes slide decks stand out as bad among web pages, videos, email, calls
and brochures?

~~~
brudgers
Inherent low information density. Inherent lack of interactivity. Incidental
lack of call to action buttons.

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bkm
The homepage looks really professional and slick. A link to a dummy
presentation would be a valuable addition though, as not every person is
confident signing up to try it.

~~~
jeremysizle
Yes, still very experimental at the moment but working on a way to get a demo
presentation into the landing page nicely :)

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resill
I simply use Asciidoctor [0] to generate reveal.js [1] presentations.

[0] [https://revealjs.com/#/](https://revealjs.com/#/) [1]
[https://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoctor-
revealjs/](https://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoctor-revealjs/)

~~~
arkitaip
I think it's funny that using the format of a presentation is a bad choice for
this site. Takes forever to go through.

But really useful as a tool, so thanks for sharing.

~~~
jeremysizle
Thanks for the feedback, we’re looking at how we can change up the page a bit
to make it a more digestible.

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new_here
Nice, this is an ambitious project and your fresh execution does a good job of
cutting through the staleness of typical PowerPoints. I played around, here's
some feedback:

\- Really like the templates. Lots more would be very helpful so that I can
build out a presentation quickly without having to fiddle with detail.

\- Top toolbar appears crammed when editing text on a laptop. Tried in both
Firefox and Chrome. [https://imgur.com/a/fZW7oUI](https://imgur.com/a/fZW7oUI)

\- You could probably cap the number of presentations in the free tier at
about 5 before charging (perhaps a cheaper tier without analytics). Presume
you're just trying to get the word out for now.

\- Once you've got a good foundation it would be nice to start differentiating
with more interactive elements.

Great job, though. All the best!

~~~
jeremysizle
Agree on all points, a template library is currently in the works, as are some
responsiveness fixes :)

We’re really in alpha, and many of the features are experimental so we’re
seeing what works and taking what our alpha users are saying seriously.

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threatripper
Does it provide the following?

* Presentations can be exported as PDF.

* Presentations can be downloaded as a single stand-alone HTML file for offline presentation.

* Presentations can be imported/exported from/to Powerpoint.

* Collaborative editing.

~~~
est31
> single stand-alone HTML file for offline presentation.

TBH HTML isn't a really good format for stuff like this, as HTML is text-only.
Same goes for HAR. The moment you want to embed large images/video you run
into size problems.

It would be really nice if browsers supported some kind of archive that
contains multiple resources like images, wasm files, etc, that would all be
accessible by the browser if you open it. file protocol is basically being
deprecated by chrome for stupid security reasons:
[https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/issues/1200](https://github.com/WebAssembly/design/issues/1200)

~~~
threatripper
> TBH HTML isn't a really good format for stuff like this, as HTML is text-
> only. Same goes for HAR. The moment you want to embed large images/video you
> run into size problems.

Is this really a problem for up to 100 MB? In my experience that would already
be a huge Powerpoint presentation including a lot of detailed images or some
smaller videos. Most presentations I handle are below 100 slides and below 10
MB.

If it goes beyond that, there will also be other problems. Nobody likes to
handle a 5 GB presentation.

Encoding the binary files as BASE64 would add some overhead, indeed, but
having a presentation as a single file that can be played by any modern
browser on any modern device would provide tremendous usability benefits.

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jeremysizle
Sorry to anyone trying to visit the website, the traffic from HN has killed it
:(

Here's the direct login link
[http://dashboard.sizle.io/](http://dashboard.sizle.io/)

And here's the PH post if you want some more info until it's stable again
[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/sizle-3](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/sizle-3)

~~~
osrec
I've always wondered how much traffic a site receives when on the front page
of HN. Would you mind sharing some stats, and your server size? And perhaps
what was the breaking point was for your server in terms of traffic? Thanks!

~~~
poniko
We where on top 10 earlier this week and it generated somewhere around 100-125
concurrent visitors. Seems like OP needs to beef up the servers a bit. If one
of those presentations go viral it will be a shit show.

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dojosensei
Looks like it could be useful. However, the homepage design looks like a
replica of [https://www.figma.com](https://www.figma.com). Did you use them
for inspiration?

~~~
kresten
Copying look and feel is fine. Stealing the code isn’t ok.

Presumably this is s look and feel copy?

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stanislavb
I can’t see why people would be criticizing this. It’s always best for
everyone if the are more alternatives.

~~~
mhd
The interesting thing is that alternatives to PowerPoint are actually easier
than before.

Does anyone know where the trend towards simpler presentations started? In the
'90s, everyone went crazy with transitions, but even beyond that you had a
more verbose format, with your usual headline + three bullet points format.

These days it's often one phrase or even word per slide.

Keynote and its more minimalistic design (or arguably feature set) was one
contributor, but I think it started even before that.

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bgdkbtv
You have one of the best landing pages for a product I've ever seen

~~~
jeremysizle
Made my night! Thank you

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eyeball
Someone should make a draw.io for presentations.

