Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 Rule for presentation
Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule for presentation:
- 10 slides
- 20 minutes
- 30 point font
I don’t think I agree with rule as a blanket statement, but I do agree with the concept that one should have fewer slides and leave some room for questions and not use too small a font on the slide.
The number of slides and the font size is dependent on the audience. Angel investors like to see a lot of details - they are funding the “idea” and want to see it flushed out a bit more. So for that audience 10 slides in 30 point font won’t work.
Also, I have noticed that the power point presentation at a VC firm get circulated to a lot of people who weren’t there at the presentation. For their benefit, the slides need to have enough content to provide context.
I tend to use 30 points font for the basic ideas but also include small font text in a bulleted list form. So if any member of the audience has a specific question, I can point to the small text.
If you have already established yourself as an “authority” in the subject that you are going to talk about; you can get away with 10-20-30 rule but if you are pitching the idea to angel investor group, you need to show that you have thought about various elements in your presentation and that, unfortunately, requires use of small fonts on the slide.
This is especially true now when the power point presentation has taken the place of a business plan. It is not uncommon to hear from a VC “send me your power point and a one pager”. I am not suggesting that you try to cram the business plan in to the power point, but you need to be cognizant of the fact that VCs very often don’t read the business plan and may rely on the power point presentation. So use the fewest number of slides you can get away with and make sure that all the core concepts are in size 30 font.
The power of an ad copy - Attention, Desire and Action
Some of you might remember the Peterman Catalog (either from the Seinfeld show, or from getting the actual catalog, or from the book ). John Peterman built a mail order apparel business on an archaically styled catalog that featured drawings, accompanied by long, poetic descriptions, that marketed mood more than specifics. What it showed was the power of an “Ad Copy”; the motivation that goes behind the sale of a product.
In the last few months, I encountered a couple of amusing examples of superb ad copies on Ebay - yes, they might have been serendipitous, unintentional ad copies but they still illustrate the basic point that the ad copies can make or break a sale - very often it is not the “product” it is the “ad copy” that motivates the buyer.
Dawn, a mother of 6 kids, recently put a baseball up for an auction and the listing started as:
I’m selling the baseball that started my wonderful first day of spring break. Do you want to know why I’m selling the baseball that started off my wonderful first day of spring break? Only because Ebay won’t let me sell my kids who were playing with the baseball that started my wonderful day. Is spring break over yet?! Here’s the whole story…
You can read the full story here. The auction attracted 220,000 views and the ordinary baseball sold for $1125!
Just last week, a father bought the holy grail of the 2007 Christmas gift, “Guitar Hero III”, for his 15 year old son. But when he caught his son smoking pot, the father decided to put the gift on Ebay. The story was heart warming and it wasn’t long before the bidding for the game, which typically sells for $125, had reached $9000+.
When the advertising legend, David Ogilvy, was told that copy should be short and terse, because nobody reads more than a few words of an ad, he wrote the classic, “At 60 miles and hour the only sound you hear is the clock.” It was a full page of text, describing the features of the Rolls Royce. It sold a lot of cars.
A few of the critical items an ad copy needs are attention, desire and action, rest is fungible. A promise of benefit; credibility, persuasiveness, and other things are needed to create desire or induce an action.
A good ad copy is not just for selling an item from a catalog, or a baseball or a Guitar Hero video game. It is equally important for a startup to develop their ad copy for the investors and customers. An elevator speech, a fast pitch, a power point presentation, a business plan, are all ad copies for different clientele - attention, desire and action is all you need.
Young Social Entrepreneurs - STARTUP and change the world
A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture that creates social change.
Young Social Entrepreneur Forum is an innovative idea for engaging the youth in social entrepreneurship.
I really like the tag line - “STARTUP and change the world” - so true!
The forum aims to invest in young visionaries who have big ideas and who need crucial startup support to turn their ideas into action. The start-up support includes:
• Startup financing up to USD15,000
• Essential development knowledge & tools on social entrepreneurship
• Technical consulting through mentorship
• Access to diverse networks
Their social network of youth entrepreneurs at Futureshiftters has 200+ members.
We wish them well and fully support the endeavor.
10 rules for startups
Loic Le Meur, a serial entrepreneur who founded the very popular French blog hosting site, uBlog, has been a long standing evangelist for putting ideas out there, in full public view. The Financial Times published an article “Share ideas to the Maximum”, where Loic put forward his 10 rules for entrepreneurs who want to be successful in business.
I have argued against the current rage of “stealth mode” start-ups. Companies can lose out on a great opportunity to talk to their users and customers when they plunge ahead with product development without any intermediate live validation. I have seen a few start ups who unveiled their fantastic product to the market only to realize that there were other companies with similar products that were in some cases even better designed. Others have found that technology had skipped a generation between the time they started to build their product, until when they were ready to release it, and that operating systems or other key pieces of software were no longer compatible with their killer apps. While there might be a few cases where stealth is warranted or justified, most entrepreneurs stand to gain much more by getting their products under the bright lights as early as possible.
Loic Le Meur’s 10 rules of business success are:
● Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible
● Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
● Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
● Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
● Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
● Be the first to recognize a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
● Don’t spend time on market research. Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
● Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans. They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
● Don’t plan a big marketing effort. It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
● Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.
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