How to significantly improve the presentation of your project

In this material, we decided to combine interesting tips, ideas, reasoning and conclusions, which come to those who work in the field of venture business, helps start-ups in preparing presentations, evaluates pitches and invests in projects.

When and why the presentation?

Many representatives of the venture capital ecosystem emphasize: it is necessary to attract venture capital only when it is really necessary (we ourselves told about it - venture capital investments received only because “this is the accepted way” turn into a very expensive loan). Therefore, before creating a presentation and presentation, think about what your real goals are. Do you need funding? Or can your team develop without it?
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In the latter approach, by the way, there is nothing terrible - even large venture capital funds like American Sequoia Capital do not forget to mention once again about the benefits of development at the expense of internal resources. However, even if you decide to grow independently, you should not miss the opportunity to speak to an interested audience: the purpose of such a presentation may not be funding, but, for example, reaching a partnership agreement with any investor or expert (naturally, this goal should be outlined in your speech as clearly as if you were targeting monetary support).

If you still need investments, try to soberly assess your chances. For example, the SketchDeck team recommends using the following list “for self-testing of readiness to receive investments” - in order to get funding at the planting stage, you should have:

• a real and significant problem that you are ready to solve;
• in fact, the solution to the problem and its prototype;
• confirmation that your decision has an audience of users;
• the main “core” of the team: people working on a project in full-time mode;
• Considerations on how your project will scale.

Slides

We have already published material about what can (and, in the opinion of many, should) consist of a presentation of a startup aiming at venture investments. Guy Kawasaki in his blog offers an even more concise presentation scheme : according to him, it is universal and can be useful in any situations when you need to come to some kind of agreement (though Kawasaki emphasizes that you need to spend about 20 minutes on such a presentation but no more).

Let's add some more statistics to these materials:

It is usually said that presentations to attract investment in Round A are noticeably longer than similar materials from the teams at the planting stage. SketchDeck analyzed 200 presentations of startups and calculated that the difference between presentations at different stages of the startup life cycle is not so much in volume as in the content. Slides of companies at the pre-planting stage contain about 3 statistical facts about the company's activities (quite logical: the company takes the first steps in business). At the stage of sowing, this number increases by 3 times, at the stage of attracting financing in round A - even 3 times or more: the presentation may contain up to 30-plus references to various indicators of the company's activity.

At the same time, teams from the YCombinator set pay more attention to the graphical presentation of the data - in their presentations, 20% more statistics and charts and less “bare” text. This approach is becoming increasingly popular: this is what Garr Reynolds has in mind when he advises to reduce the amount of text within a slide (yes, the examples of slide design in his material are a bit outdated, but the general approaches to creating presentations remain the same now).

Despite the growing popularity of services for the preparation of colorful slides, the first presentations of many successful projects suggest that the main thing in pitch is not so much graphic material as the performance itself. Many of these presentation materials can hardly be called ideal - starting with the choice of typography (due to which the text of the slide sometimes becomes unreadable) and ending with a large number of comments and tables that you can hardly understand without the help of the presenter himself.

Nevertheless, studying such presentations can be useful - try to evaluate them, find their strengths and weaknesses, use this knowledge when creating your own slides - as it turns out, Airbnb or Square did not need the help of outstanding graphic designers to get funding and high marks from the venture community. . And if you’ve overdone the effects in PowerPoint, reread Seth Godin’s “ Really Bad Presentation ” - for more than 10 years from the time of writing, this mini-book has not lost its relevance.

Actually, pitch

One of the most popular questions regarding oral presentations: where to start the presentation, what to talk about at the very beginning, how to attract the attention of the audience? SketchDeck, based on the results of the analysis of start-up presentations, concluded that the “Problem” and “Project Validation” blocks usually “open” the presentation:



However, this approach is not the only one. An alternative is offered by Andy Raskin, who advises companies funded by AndreesenHorowitz, TrueVentures, FirstRoundCapital, on strategic planning and communications. As an example, future presenters, he cites Ilona Mask - a brilliant visionary and businessman, but not the most eloquent speaker. Having analyzed the structure of Mask's presentations in detail, Raskin proposes the following pattern of performance (as is the case with Guy Kawasaki, this is a universal approach that allows adding storytelling elements to any performance):

1. Designate "enemy"
2. Give the answer to the question: “Why now?”
3. Show the promised land before explaining how you get there
4. Identify the obstacles. Then explain how you will overcome them.
5. Provide proof that you are not just shaking the air.

Pitches of start-ups fit well into this scheme - following it allows you to use classical elements of dramatic narration in your presentation: your story will have an enemy (problem) and a quest with obstacles (“what do we want to achieve?”, “How can we achieve results? "," What can prevent us, and how are we going to work with the arising difficulties? "), And the purpose for which all this is being started.

Never start a pitch with a story about yourself, your team, product or target market. Instead, start with what prevents the happiness of your client. Draw an emotionally vivid picture of how imperfect the world around your customer is at the moment, what or who is to blame and why

- Andy Ruskin

By the way, Andy Raskin, as an example of his scheme, took a video from the Mask speech on the topic of creating a Tesla Powerwall battery - compared to flying to Mars or Tesla's electric car, this is not the most exciting topic for a speech, but thanks to this approach, Mask managed to turn the “lecture about batteries ”in an exciting blockbuster with a dramatic ending.



By the way, Ruskin is not the only one who emphasizes the importance of building a “story” within the framework of the presentation. In Sequoia Capital, the pitch is compared to the James Bond films: just like in the good picture of spies, your story should have an interesting, “catchy” beginning - such as to keep the audience on their toes until the end of the session (that is, the presentation).

Anyway, everyone agrees that any pitch needs to be rehearsed. And rehearse not alone, but with a friend or mentor - someone who can give feedback to your presentation. The SketchDeck team advises on the results of the rehearsal to ask the listener to describe your project and ask him the following questions:

• What did he remember from your pitch?
• What confuses him most in your idea / what seems the least real?
• What attracts him in your idea / what do you like most about the presentation?

Answers to them can tell you a lot about your performance, its strengths and weaknesses.

These are not all ideas for creating high-quality presentations and pitches, however, they will also help to significantly improve the quality of slides and presentations. Whatever your story, we hope that investors will appreciate your project, and the presentation will help you to achieve all your goals.

PS You can improve the story about your project with the help of a presentation template developed by FRIA experts [ Slideshare , Keynote , PPT ].

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Announcement:

September 16, 2015 (Wednesday) at 18:30 in the Accelerator of FRIA will be held a workshop with the ex-leader of mobile and desktop products LinguaLeo, the founder of AppCraft and the guru of metrics - Ilya Krasinsky.

Theme: “Grocery analytics: how to draw the right conclusions and focus on multiple growth points”. Registration is free.

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