The 10/20/30 Rule of Powerpoint

My fellow Corante Web Hub member Stowe Boyd posted about the 10/20/30 rules of Powerpoint, which originally comes from Guy Kawasaki. Stowe actually extends Guys idea with a 1/10/20/30 notion, meaning that each slide should make one part of your plan clear. Stowe also changes the name of the slide “Competition” to “Co-opetition”, making clear that you might be able to integrate different market players. I like the idea, also because it makes a potentially bad point into a good one.

Why 10 slides?

_Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting—and venture capitalists are very normal. (The only difference between you and venture capitalist is that he is getting paid to gamble with someone else’s money). If you must use more than ten slides to explain your business, you probably don’t have a business._

It is actually well known by now that people can’t read and listen at the same time so if you want them to listen you have to stop them from reading. The presentations needs to visually support what you want to say. This of course makes it a lot more complicated but hey … you love challenge don’t you? :)

The ten topics for Venture Capitalists are:

1. Problem

2. Your solution

3. Business model

4. Underlying magic/technology

5. Marketing and sales

6. Competition (or Co-opetition)

7. Team

8. Projections and milestones

9. Status and timeline

10. Summary and call to action

So go out, look at your presentations and make them simple. Good luck.

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