Overall: Jason's 5 Rules for Presenting:

  1. Show, Don't Tell
  2. Get to the Product in 15 Seconds
  3. Examples Matter!
  4. Synchronicity: what you say matches what's on the slide
  5. One Point Per Slide

Pitch Format

PITCH: 3 minutes (timed).

FORMAT.

  1. On the footer include: Name of company + logo; company URL; company Twitter or Instagram handle; slide number using this format (1 / 15, meaning slide of 15).
  2. One point per slide. Keep it simple (i.e., don't combine business model + revenue in the same slide.) Multiple slides for multiple points. Good rules of thumb is 15-20 slides for a 3 minute presentation, 10-15 seconds per slide
  3. The less text on screen, the better. (This helps follow #4 rule above, Synchronicity. It will be easier for you to say what's on the slide and have them match when there is less on the slide. If the slide is cluttered, people will not know what to pay attention to.)

Pitch Content

  1. Your intro: a Single slide with your company / logo / tagline. "I'm so and so, founder of x, and we [ insert your one-sentence tag line ] "
  2. THEN: "Let me show you how it works" Dive right into the product! (See Jason's pitch rules #1 and #2, above) If absolutely necessary, spend a few seconds setting up the problem. Otherwise, get right to the product demo.
  3. Product demo! (See Jason's rule #3 "Examples Matter.") In the demo, show the product through the example of an actual customer. (Or customers (plural) if it's a two-sided product/marketplace.) Use your most compelling customer example and use specifics, not generics.

So don't use generic language like, "You (or a user) can go to our platform, choose who you want" etc. INSTEAD, use a compelling customer example with specifics of what that customer is actually doing, like "Meet Jane, a brand manager at Acme. She's hosting an online product launch party for 5000 next month and needs an influencer to promote it. She comes to our site and chooses Brad, a graphic artist with 169k Instagram followers...” etc.) Show the flow and describe exactly what Jane does and the result. Follow the example until the end and resolve Jane's story. (She used our product and had x, y, and z results, saving x amount of time and y amount of money, etc.)

****A great way to do this is to highlight your top customer and what impact your product/service had on their lives. If you don’t have customers yet, then use an Ideal Profile Customer example.

Bottom line: The more specific and compelling the example, the more memorable it will be!

The demo should be a screencast / recording within your slide presentation. (Gifs and screenshots can also work.) Don't do a live demo, or use an embedded YouTube video, or use any video that has pre-recorded narration in it. You do the narrating! :) 4. Business model. Here's how we make (or will make) money. 5. Traction. Growth, revenue. BAR CHARTS are best for this. If you have two revenue streams you can use a stacked bar chart with different colors representing the different streams. Monthly is best but in certain cases (e.g., seasonality), okay to use quarterly. 6. Customers. Number of customers / logos of important clients / growth rate of customers / retention (don't need to hit all of these, just highlight your strengths). Customer testimonials are great, as well. Just pick one or two of the best, give them separate slides, and read the quotes. 7. Competition. Columns with the check marks is usually the best model for this. (The one where you have all of the checkmarks and your competitors don't. :)) A quadrant with x-y axes can work as well, although a bit more simplistic.