Imagine this – it’s late at night and you’re finishing up your last few slides for your big presentation tomorrow. You’ve done your final check and your pitch deck is all ready to be sent out. You are finally satisfied with how it looks and click the send button.
To your horror, the email bounces back.
Why? Large attachments are one of the most common causes for bounced emails that never reach their intended recipient. These huge files can cause difficulties in sending out emails or even online uploading in a tense, urgent situation. Especially in corporate organizations, email filters tend to block large attachments for security’s sake. More than 80% of the time, the cause of the file-bulk are the large images that you insert in PowerPoint or your export format of choice.
“But… if I don’t include images, my presentation is going to look boring and ugly”
You’re not wrong there. We encourage our clients and even presentation skills training learners to use more visuals and images in their presentations. If you still want to include some images to ensure your presentation design looks great, what do you do? Worse, in plenty of PowerPoint training courses in the market, few actually teach you different ways to compress your PowerPoint files before sending as an attachment via email or only cover it on Windows or OSX.
Fear not, here’s how you can reduce the size of your PowerPoint file and save space.
This also ensures that your presentation/PowerPoint files reach their intended recipient.
How to Compress PowerPoint (.PPT) Files On Apple OSX Machines
If you own a Mac but still need to use PowerPoint for work, you’re in luck. There are a few ways of compressing PowerPoint files to fit your file limit in organisations with email filters so you won’t need to use file-sharing services like DropBox or Wetransfer.
HOW TO COMPRESS POWERPOINT ON MAC OSX
Method One : Compressing All photos on PowerPoint
More often than not, PowerPoint balloons in size because of the high-resolution stock photography that you might include in your presentation. Thankfully, there’s an easy way to quickly compress these files across the whole file or singular files in PowerPoint.
How To Compress All Photos/Images On PowerPoint
Step 1: On the file menu, click “reduce compress pictures”
Step 2: Select your compression size according to the table”
Unless you’re intending to print the PowerPoint file, you shouldn’t have photos sized at 220ppi. We’ve found that the best setting in most cases is 150ppi – such that it preserves minimal quality for use. If you’re really in the need of smaller sizes, using 96ppi is your last resort.
Step 3: Select ‘Delete Cropped Area’
Step 4: Choose “all pictures in this file” and Click “Ok” ‘
You’ll have the option to either compress all images or only selected ones. If you have critical images that cannot be downsampled, choose the latter.
HOW TO COMPRESS POWERPOINT ON MAC OSX
Method Two : Using Picture Format
A more surgical selection of which pictures you’d like to resize in your PowerPoint Presentation. Do note that this is, in fact, the same method of compressing the images but gives you more control as to which photos you want to compress and leave the ones you don’t want to in higher resolution.
How To Compress PowerPoint using picture format
1. Select the “Picture Format” tab when selecting one or a few images
2. Click on the Adjust button
3. Select Compress Pictures
4. Select your compression size according to the table
5. Select “delete cropped area”
6. Choose “all pictures in this file”
7. Click “Ok”
Alternatively, if you wish to be selective about the photos being compressed, PowerPoint provides another option to compress only specific images. Under steps 4 and 6 respectively, you will be able to choose between the option of all pictures or just a selective few. However, if you wish to retain the size of the slides and still send it to people, you can consider zipping the file. Most of the time, people choose this option in order to keep the resolution at its highest without compromising it.
HOW TO COMPRESS POWERPOINT ON MAC OSX
Method Three : Compressing Images Before Inserting into PowerPoint To Preserve Small Size
A more surgical selection of which pictures you’d like to resize in your PowerPoint Presentation. Do note that this is, in fact, the same method of compressing the images but gives you more control as to which photos you want to compress and leave the ones you don’t want to in higher resolution.
Image Compression Method 1: Reduce the size of images losslessly using browser applications
Tools likeTinyjpeg,Tinypngand Smallpdfare great to reduce the size of your files without installing any additional applications on your machine.
Image Compression Method 2: Optimize the dimensions of your presentation images before inserting into PowerPoint
This step is most commonly overlooked by most executives simply because it’s pretty tedious. It involves ‘pre-cropping’ the images you plan to insert into your presentation even before you try any of the methods before this. a) The first step is to determine the max dimensions of your slide. You can do this by accessing the ‘slide size’ in the ‘design’ tab.
b) Enter ‘Page Setup’ when navigating into ‘Slide Size’ to identify the dimensions of each slide. If you’re using any of the typical slide dimensions like Standard (4:3) or Widescreen (16:9), typically the safe dimension is 1024px x 768px and 1280px 720px respectively. c) The very next step is to start cropping the images to fit within the slide dimensions. For example, if your image is 3000px x 2000px, cropping it down to size will save you a lot of space. Using sites like https://imageresize.org/, you can quickly resize images to fit your slide canvas. At the same time, if you’re using raster editing programs like Adobe Photoshop, you can easily reduce the dimensions of your images before saving. Otherwise, site-based tools work too.
HOW TO COMPRESS POWERPOINT ON MAC OSX
Method Four : Zipping Up Files To Compress Size Of PowerPoint
This method is best performed at the end and works regardless of whether you actually compressed the images prior or not. It doesn’t do much other than reduce the size of the single file or a combination of files in a .zip package to send via email.
How To Compress PowerPoint by zipping the file
Step 1: Right-click on selected PowerPoint file and select ‘Compress’
Step 2: You should see a ‘.zip’ file created in the location
Just like that, your file archive is ready to be sent out! Not a Mac user? Fret not! While we do most of our work on MacBooks, we occasionally use other laptops under the Windows operating system as well. For Windows users, the way to reduce file size for Powerpoint presentations can be a little different but follow the steps below and you’re on your way.
How to Compress PowerPoint Files (.PPT) On Windows OS Machines
PowerPoint was developed originally mainly for Windows users – it’s no surprise that many Windows users are also looking to compress their presentations and may run into brick walls during the process.
HOW TO COMPRESS POWERPOINT ON WINDOWS OS
Method One : Compress Images In Picture Format
The approach here to compress your PowerPoint file is very similar to the way it’s done in Mac where you can compress all the images in PowerPoint files with just a few clicks.
How To Compress windows powerpoint using picture format
1. Select an image or picture in the slides
2. Click the Picture Tools tab on the top ribbon
3. Next, select the Format tab
4. Under the adjust segment, click on the Compress icon
5. Select your preferred compression size
6. Select “delete cropped area”
7. Choose “all pictures in this file”
8. Click “Ok”
That’s it! Notice the big difference in size? Now, you’ll be able to send out the emails without worrying about large attachments bogging you down. These handy ways to cut down on file size have been a lifesaver for us at work, and we surely hope they’ll be helpful for you as well. Let us know if you have discovered other methods in the comments section below!
Guy Kawasaki, an author and venture capitalist, once said, “Enchantment is the purest form of sales. Enchantment is all about changing people’s hearts, minds and actions because you provide them a vision or a way to do things better. The difference between enchantment and simple sales is that with enchantment you have the other person’s best interests at heart, too.”
A good sales presentation, otherwise known as a sales pitch, is often the distinguishing factor of a successful company that has all of its prospective buyers in the palm of its hand. In today’s rapidly changing market, where approximately 100 million new businesses are started every year by aspiring entrepreneurs with so much to offer, just staying afloat can be a struggle sometimes.
If what you’re looking for is a way to rise above the rest, help is here — because this article is going to teach you the art of delivering a stunning sales pitch.
How To Create Powerful Sales Presentations
If you’re just starting out, don’t worry, we’re going to tell you exactly what you need to do. Making your sales pitch compelling really isn’t rocket science, and it’s going to come naturally once you get the hang of it!
1. Understand Your Audience, Tailor Your Presentation
In most cases, you already know the group of people that you will be pitching to. Take advantage of that and spend some time learning about them: familiarize yourself with their backgrounds, read up on their industries, and get to know them a little better through checking their business websites or searching them online. For a small group of audience, you should be able to do more in-depth background research. However, this tip works even with a significantly larger group of people, even though you might not be able to probe as much. If possible, find out who your rival companies are and in your presentation, not only demonstrate how the product that you’re selling is perfect for people with their backgrounds, but also how it has a competitive edge over other companies. Your selling point should be focused on a specific feature that your audience can benefit from most.
2. Brevity is the Soul of Wit
The people listening to your sales pitch are likely to be those with authority, or have the power to influence the decision makers — which is why you’re pitching to them. Be mindful that these are people with busy schedules and are not new to sales pitches, so make a list of crucial information that would be essential in pushing your sale beforehand and adhere closely to it. Avoid going off-tangent or going to extreme lengths to try to impress them. Most importantly, always ask questions and address their specific concerns so that the entire interaction happens on a more intimate level. This makes for an effective sales presentation, as it reflects the notion that you understand your clients’ needs, and also enriches your personal learning experience. Always make sure you:
Address how your product covers any specific needs that they have
Acknowledge any reservations or doubts that they might have
Accept their feedback if anything falls short and use that to fine-tune your product/presentation
3. Know When to be a Storyteller
Everybody loves a story — good stories, when told at the right situations, can evoke emotional responses from people. People are more engaged when they hear personal narratives as compared to a list of hard facts, because it allows them to connect with you on a more personal and meaningful level. It helps them see who you are beyond a salesman trying to get them to buy something from you; you have depth, history.
The fun part is, you get to choose how you want to incorporate the element of storytelling into your pitch! You can choose to deliver your presentation in the form of a story, or you can choose to build your product on a series of anecdotes, there are so many ways it can be done. Infuse humour whenever a window opens for it, and appeal to your audience through personal narrations.
Remember: Remind them that you’re so much more than just another salesman.
4. Remember the Power of Three
While it is tempting to pack all the benefits of your product into your slide deck, keep in mind that good sales presentations should never neglect the power of three:
Your pitch should contain no more than three big, central ideas
Each individual slide should contain no more than three pieces of information
It has been proven time and time again that there’s just something about the power of three — making three points — that really resonates with the human brain. Things that come in threes are just more satisfying, more memorable, and more effective. Any more than three, and you might find yourself losing the attention of your audience.
5. Include Relevant Examples, Evidence, and Data
All words and no proof makes your entire sales presentation weak and flimsy, so be sure to back up your claims with plenty of evidence. Include relevant examples and present your data in the form of charts or graphs, whichever would make them most easily comprehensible with one look. Additionally, instead of giving generic descriptions of what your product can do for your clients, provide specific examples of how your product has helped people of similar backgrounds achieve what they want.
Ideally, ask satisfied customers for referrals to other potential prospects. Referrals are more likely to end up in a sale as prior bridges have already been built, and nothing works better than the good old ethos.
6. Pursuing the Next Steps
Never be too eager to pressure potential clients into sealing any deals. Understand that they might still have some doubts, and be flexible with your options instead of rushing them straight into a commitment. Be open to offering alternatives such as free trials or demos, and let them know they can take a bit more time to consider the product because you truly have their interests at heart. As long as you are pursuing a next step together, it’s a win. Showing them that you genuinely believe in the product you are selling will also go a long way.
7. A Good Slogan Sticks for a Long Time
Last but not least, do your best to come up with a catchy slogan that is not only related to, but also reminiscent of your product. If you’ve ever had the experience of having a particular song or tune stuck in your head and finding yourself humming along without even realizing it, this is the exact same effect that a quality slogan can have. Impress your audience with an applaudable presentation, but make that impression a lasting one with a slogan that sticks in their heads and pops up when they’re not expecting it. Before you know it, you’ve already charmed your way into their hearts.
You’ll see that it’s not all that difficult to find your place in a market that never sleeps. Just remember, for a powerful sales presentation, make sure you:
Know your audience
Get to the point
Be engaging
Condense your information
Include relevant evidence
Pursue a further relationship
End with a catchy slogan
All it takes is a little bit of practice and voila, watch as the magic happens. Good luck!
With over 30 million PowerPoint presentations made each day, this indispensable software has long been integrated into our everyday lives, whether for educational purposes or work. We often turn to this handy software when we need to introduce certain ideas to a group of people, as a thousand-word report can easily be condensed into a visual presentation. The experience a good PowerPoint deck provides can effectively engage the audience; aiding them in quickly understanding the material being conveyed, and easing what would have otherwise been a tedious process for both speaker and audience.
Presentations can also act as notes or reminders for the speaker, and the natural confidence that comes from knowing the script paves the way for a captivating performance. But here’s the thing — most of us know the benefits of having great presentations, the only question is how. How do we make a good PowerPoint deck that is effective, without sacrificing too much of our time?
How To Make a Good PowerPoint Presentation
Trust us, it’s easier than it sounds. We’re giving you 9 hacks to help you get started.
1. It’s All About the Design
Fancy fonts and flashy animations? Pretty cool, but if you’re keeping it professional and stylish, leave that behind for now. Avoid cheesy effects and focus on simple designs as a deck with minimal clutter and distractions work best in capturing your audience’s attention. This is particularly important when what they have to pay attention to, is distinctive. Keep three things in mind:
Use only fonts that are easy to read. Sans serif fonts like Arial, Helvetica, or Calibri are the easiest to read on screens. If you want to spice things up, use decorative fonts for slide headers, but make sure they’re legible, even from afar.
Use dark text on a light background. Research has proven that dark text on a light background is the best combination as white stimulates focus in the eye, and allows smoother absorption of information.
Align text left or right. Aligning all text to a baseline makes it easier for the audience to follow, gives the presentation a neater look overall.
2. Customize Your Theme
There is a reason why we get bored when we see the standard templates from PowerPoint — they’ve been used far too many times. A slide deck that is visually similar to what an audience has seen repeatedly will not appear fresh or interesting, making information retention and engagement that much harder to achieve. To avoid a cookie-cutter and forgettable presentation, you can either create your own template, purchase professional ones online, or download free ones from the internet (psst, we help companies create templates too!).
If you’re clueless on how to create and save your own template, instructions can be found on the official Microsoft website.
3. Conciseness is Key
Avoid overwhelming the audience with too many things all at once. A good PowerPoint presentation has both visual and verbal brevity, allowing the audience to remain focused on one point at a time. Instead of packing all the information into one slide, spread them evenly across a few slides to avoid distracting or confusing the audience. If you have a lot of information and data that needs to be shared with the audience, prepare a separate set of documents for them to review, or send out the slides with greater detail after the presentation.
4. More Images, Less Text
If someone tells you about a giant chicken crossing a road, in your head, would you think of an animal walking against traffic, or the words itself? Chances are, you’ll conjure an image in your head, as ridiculous as it sounds.
There’s a reason for that. As humans, we generally prefer visuals over text — in fact, the combination of a great visual accompanied by a short list of brief bullet points increases the chances of information making it to long-term memory. Be sure to use only high-quality images as they are the ones that will help you make an impression on the audience. Either resize or replace images that are too small or they might become overly stretched-out.
5. Use the Great Alignment Feature
Properly aligning your images, texts, and anything else that is on your slide instantly makes it look neater and more professional. While manually aligning everything is an option, our aim here is to get the deck done in the shortest amount of time. Here’s where PowerPoint helps you out; there is an amazing feature that effortlessly makes the magic happen.
To align multiple objects:
Select all objects by holding down ‘Shift’ and clicking on all of them.
Select ‘Arrange’ in the top options bar, then choose ‘Align or Distribute’.
Choose whichever alignment works best for you.
That wasn’t hard, was it? Keep this little trick with you, especially if you can’t stand having slide elements just slightly off-centre.
6. Know the Power of Colors
Colors are amazing, and they can do wonders to a presentation. Studies have shown that colors can not only increase interest, but also improve learning comprehension and retention rate. Cool colors (such as blue and green) are better suited to be used for the background as they have the illusion of fading away from us, whereas warm colors (such as orange and red) are better used for objects in the foreground as they appear to be coming toward us. Good PowerPoint presentations make use of colors effectively to achieve various outcomes, such as highlighting messages or ideas that the audience needs to focus on, or pushing less relevant data into the background.
While it is exciting to play with different combinations of colors on a slide, for simplicity, keep it to a maximum of three colors; one for your background, one for your text, and one to highlight any important information.
7. Remember the 2/4/8 Rule
If you’re worried about content and how it should be placed or split up, a simple way to remember is the 2/4/8 rule from Hugh Culver:
No more than one slide every 2 minutes
No more than 4 bullets per slide
No more than 8 words per bullet
This is not a rigid system; if your presentation is only 5 minutes, having only one slide every 2 minutes might not be enough. You’ll need to trust your instincts and modify accordingly, keeping in mind that brevity is key.
8. Use Charts
Data is beautiful, but not when it’s squeezed into a slide that forces your audience to rack their brains in an attempt to comprehend it. If data is a necessity in your presentation, extract only the necessary information and display these numbers in graphic form instead. It is essential to choose the right kind of charts for your data, as different charts bring across different messages.
Look, data can be beautiful too! =)
Pie Charts. They are mainly used to present percentages. Contrast the most important slice either with a conflicting colour or by separating it from the rest of the slices.
Vertical Bar Charts. They can effectively reflect changes in quantity of two groups (or more) over time, but it is ideal to limit the bars to not more than 8.
Horizontal Bar Charts. They are best used for comparison between different groups.
Line Charts. They are used to reflect actual trends, or predict possible trends.
9. Organize Your Slides
The slide sorter function often goes ignored, but in fact, it is extremely useful in organizing the entire flow of your presentation and helping you look out for any extraneous information that might be removed to improve the overall clarity. Take a step back and run through your slides as you would from someone who is seeing it all for the first time. Process all the content being fed as your harshest critic—focus on coming up with the best and most logical flow and remove anything that might prove distracting or unnecessary in helping you understand a certain point.
In a generation so highly dependent on the use of technology, it is crucial that we understand the rules of the playing field and are able to manipulate technology well enough to suit our needs. These simple hacks are what you need to create a powerful presentation quickly and effectively. Just remember:
It’s All About the Design
Customize Your Theme
Conciseness is Key
More Images, Less Text
Use the Great Alignment Feature
Know the Power of Colors
Remember the 2/4/8 Rule
Use Charts
Organize Your Slides
With all these in mind, you’re good to go. Have fun creating your slides!
Working towards your first ICO (Initial Coin Offering) project can be a harrowing experience. Besides actually developing the technology that works on the blockchain, you’ll have to actively market the token to cryptocurrency communities and seek private investors before a public launch.
A common problem that most ICO teams face is that they spend months with an expert technical team building the perfect blockchain-based technology, only to find themselves unable to tell a compelling story around their token and their ICO.
There are a few things that anyone working towards an ICO prepares before launching their token sale:
A whitepaper detailing how their token works and the overall vision of the application
A website to briefly explain the ICO to visitors and individual investors
A pitch deck for private sales before the ICO begins
Developing a pitch deck that sells tokens is easier said than done and is on a whole new page when compared with a whitepaper or website.
The truth is, whitepapers are slowly becoming outdated and redundant. Blockchain whitepapers became widely popular after Bitcoin’s inception but are now gradually becoming less relevant. This is because of two reasons: Firstly, they are typically very technically worded or written more for marketing purposes. Secondly, whitepapers fail to quickly answer the questions that are truly at the top of mind for crypto buyers.
Rob May, CEO of Talla.com on Coindesk, puts it aptly:
“So, the next time you look at a token or a network, just skim the white paper. Make it a secondary factor in your decision, not the primary thing you buy on.
Spend your time instead looking at the team, understanding the big vision, researching the market opportunity, and thinking counterfactually about the possible futures of the network. You’ll make better decisions.”
This then begs the question, what should we include in ICO private sales and investor decks?
ICO decks are not very far off from regular start-up pitch decks where founders seek to raise funding from skeptical investors.
There are numerous areas that overlap:
Proving that the team is capable and experienced enough to see through the execution
Hinting at a high return-on-investment (ROI): a positive payout for start-up investors and token appreciation for ICOs
Communicating immense potential for uptake and usage of product or token
Why they should act on this immediately
That said, ICOs are far more nuanced because of the technology and considerations that cryptocurrency buyers have before they sink their hard-earned capital (in Ethereum, Bitcoin or NEO) into your token.
———
Here are some of the key components that make up the general structure of every ICO deck:
1. Cover Slides That Summarize Your Story
Gone are the days where it was trendy to be the ‘Uber for XYZ’. Clarity is the new currency to get your token funded. The cover slide needs to immediately hook the reader or audience to want to align with your vision and also intrigue them to continue with the rest of the deck.
Phrase/Slogan Title
A good title clearly indicates what the token or network will be used for and what it enables. Do not complicate the title. There is no benefit in confusing your potential token investor.
To ensure your title on the first page of your ICO pitch deck is concise ensure that:
The title clearly represents your project
Hint at the benefits that it provides to the end-user of the token, who might not always be the early token investor.
This slide should also contain a visual representing either the end-user or a digital mock-up of the blockchain solution that you’re creating.
This is one example. The title is clear about what they want: To convey why Vaultbank will be of benefit to the target user. On the right, it then provides several brief descriptions of the benefits.
Good Title Examples:
Switcheo: The World’s First Decentralised Exchange on the NEO Blockchain
TenX: Spend Your Virtual Currencies in Real Life
Kyber: Instant Exchange and Conversion of Digital Assets
2. Problem Statement
Tokens will typically continue to appreciate in value and stay that way (unless we see a crash in the cryptocurrency economy) if they have real-world application that targets a gap in the world currently. Token investors are always on the lookout for the next big blockchain project that will change the world as we know it and ‘moon’ so that they’ll see a big gain.
If your identified ‘problem’ can be solved by using a database instead of your solution – is it really a problem worth investing in? You’ll have to make clear why you’re building the blockchain application and also illustrate the magnitude of the problem.
Main Title/Statement
This should be descriptive yet clear. For example, if your blockchain project is intending to replace insurers – it could be something along the lines of: Today’s Insurance Solutions Lack Transparency and Efficiency
Source: Switcheo
Look at this slide’s title. Its main point is concise and clear, no complex language used.
Describe the Problem
Elaborate more on the problem to make a case for your problem statement. If: “Insurance Solutions Lack Transparency and Efficiency”, why is this happening?
Some example pointers could be:
Insurance customers still rely heavily on agents for claims
Inefficiency is good for insurer bottomline
Basically, support your statement with what’s happening in the industry and back these points up later with hard facts and statistics so you do not lose credibility.
Source: Switcheo
Substantiating Pointers and Arguments
Your statement should then be supported by real problems that you’ve identified in your industry of choice that you’re trying to solve by using the blockchain. These can be supported by using research statistics, quoting credible sources like large news sites or influential individuals and/or showcasing other competitors in the arena that have done well, but still leave room for growth.
If you’ve surveyed a good sample size of respondents or have market data to back up your opinion, be sure to include these in summary as well.
This video of Switcheo Network CEO speaking at the NEO Amsterdam conference is a good example of illustrating problems within the general space with real examples.
3. Introduce Your Blockchain Solution
Now’s your chance to showcase your solution. You’ll want to be clear about two things.
What is the solution?
How users interact with it (E.g. Is it a platform that they login to? Is it an app? Or will it be used in the form of a credit card to spend cryptocurrency?)
Leave no room for doubt here as it’s critically important that your prospective investor understands how your solution can fit into the lives of those you seek to serve.
It helps to reference the points listed out in the problem earlier and juxtapose that with the merits of your solution. That way, investors can quickly see how your solution solves those various problems.
Show the solution
The benefit of using a pitch deck is that you can afford to include imagery to help your audience or reader fully visualize what your solution will look like. Having it mocked up is half the battle won versus not even having a proof of concept. Don’t leave it up to their imagination, show them.
This presentation by the Zilliqa team (the cryptocurrency with the highest market cap in Singapore) is a great example of explaining a complicated solution in a simple manner whilst painting the high potential of the landscape.
4.Demonstrate How It Works
Blockchain solutions are notoriously difficult to explain to non-technical people. It’s your job to make it easy yet informative for your prospective investor so that he or she can understand your token and solution.
User POV
Explaining what the solution looks like from the front-end (i.e. user experience and interface) is the first step in getting their buy-in for your product. Investors want to understand what the user sees and how they interact with your platform. Instead of using long prose, break up the example of use into a linear step-by-step process with screens or descriptions.
For example, instead of:
User enters exchange with their private key, makes their trade with the right pair and receives their currency in their wallet
Try:
Login with private key -> Trade with pair of choice -> Receive currency in wallet
Source: BOLT
Blockchain Technology
For more discerning investors, they want to understand your tech. This is where most technical people shine when explaining the logic behind the solution. Problem is, these explanations are usually quite verbose and hard to understand.
Using illustrations, diagrams or flowcharts in the right sequences have proven to be one of the best ways to effectively explain a blockchain product to investors.
The key to not confusing them is to:
Have a headline upfront that explains what the diagram is explaining, and the process involved
Always show the users/stakeholders in the diagram prominently
If there is flow of token usage, use animation or demark sequencing to avoid confusion
Try to adhere to a left-to-right reading flow that most people in the world read
5.Explain Your Token
The deck will not be complete without explaining what your audiences are buying in the first place – your ICO Token. You’ll want to ensure you cover:
The slide provides a clear step-by-step explanation on the process.
The way the token moves around in the network should also be described along with how token holders can benefit from being a holder. Do they receive dividends or rewards? Does the token let them attain reduced trading fees? Or does the token allow them to spend less on acquiring a product or service?
Be clear with what the token does as there are various token applications that either work on utility or act as a store of value/proof of stake.
Token Symbol/Logo
You should already have this in handy. Be sure to use this throughout the deck so that your investors know what your token looks like and that they know what they’re getting into. The token symbol/logo represents your cryptocurrency and is backed by the overall messaging of your other communication mediums.
This token presentation by WAX sports a really good build-up by showcasing the progression of their industry, ending with their solution sitting at the forefront. They also did a good job around the 8-minute mark explaining how tokens could be used and the benefits for holders.
6.Competitor Comparison
Unless your cryptocurrency token is truly a world’s first (which in 2018 is still very possible), you’ll want to always try to list competitors in your space. In lucrative industries, there will almost always be competitors that exist in one form or the other even if indirect. If there are no competitors, the market is either too small or not really that lucrative.
The key to getting this slide right is to:
Compare your application with your competitors so that investors know where you stand in the big picture
Identify why your token is unique, superior in application and differentiates from others
At times, illustrate that your competitors have already done well in different markets and that your solution can perform as well or even better.
The format of this can either be a table, a positioning graph with X and Y axes or a map with market sizing bubbles. It really depends on the messaging and what ties in best with your story.
Source: Switcheo
Here, the key message is conveyed through providing where Switcheo stands amongst its competitors through a positioning map. The message shows that Switcheo does not compromise convenience and security – something its other competitors lack.
7.Introduce Your Team
This is one of the most important slides in your deck where you’ll want to play up the achievements, experiences and technical fit of your co-founders, advisors and team members to make a case for your token sale.
There is no hard and fast way to ace this as the makeup of every team is different. Try to identify strengths within the team even if they might come from a few individuals.
Avoid making general boastful statements like: “creator of multiple successful startups”. Always use quantitative numbers or facts to substantiate any statements
(e.g. former CEO at X, 20 years in IT)
Decide on a specific format and keep it consistent throughout team members. Advisors that need no real introduction can have shorter descriptions.
Here’s one example. The format in introducing the team is consistent. It states their position and states their experience or describe their roles.
As mentioned above, this slide keeps the introductions for the advisors short.
8.Share Your Road Map
Some investors buy tokens to HODL (Hold on for dear life) for the long-haul and not just sell immediately after the ICO is over. As such, they’ll want to know exactly what the founders plan to do and have a look at the roadmap ahead.
Marketing and Growth
Nobody wants to be the last holder of a token. Some investors want to know how you’ll continue to acquire and retain new token holders to bring added liquidity and value to tokens on sale. If you have these in handy to a notable investor who has been asking questions about your marketing plans ahead, list out initiatives to grow users with a dollar value tagged to them.
A basic linear timeline usually suffices when it comes to communicating different phases of your project along with the goals and benefits it is meant to achieve for token holders and users.
Juxtapose each phase title with descriptions of what features will be added along with what benefit they can expect. Typically, founders forecast developments up to 3 years ahead.
(e.g. Phase 2: Main Net, Secure trading for token holders direct to their wallets)
9.Plan to Finance
This is close to your end slide where you detail the distribution of ICO token proceeds as well as the important dates that investors should note for public and private sales.
ICO Summary
If you’ve managed to convince the prospective token holder by this point, congratulations.
It’s a good time to deliver an ICO summary so that they’ll know the factors to consider in their purchase including the token price, whether there are hard caps to the number of tokens and how these will be distributed to their wallets.
Specify the following parameters:
Hard Cap and Soft Cap Campaigns.
Number of tokens for sale.
Key token properties for owners.
Platform for release.
Base price.
Model of the token distribution.
Dates of ICO opening and closing.
Distribution of tokens and key holders.
(Source: Aelf.io)
The distribution breakdown typically consists of the founding team, tokens set aside for marketing related promotions (such as airdrops), key advisors and general operation of the foundation or company working towards realising the solution. Ensuring these are broken up logically and with good reason helps to avoid dissuading the discerning investor wondering where their funds are invested.
10.Ask for Investment
Your whole presentation will be for naught if you don’t ask for the investment. List a few calls to action they’ll have to take to get onto the private sale or public sale and try to reduce the barriers to entry for ease of investing. Nobody wants to go through lengths just to invest.
Have an action statement that clearly answers the question: ‘What do I do next?’ and also incentivise quick action. Don’t forget to include contact details and telegram/medium page URLs if any so they can involve themselves in the ongoing conversation.
E.g. ‘Help us build the world’s first DEX on NEO’, ‘Join our private sale within 24 hours and get 25% bonus”
Visual suggestion: Always good to have a user depicted using the solution or a mock-up of your application to really solidify your ideas and to suggest eventual realisation.
——
Meandering this new world of cryptocurrency and the blockchain can be confusing when you’re trying to get traction in the initial stages. However, as with any difficult endeavour, strategies that work will leave patterns and we can learn from these successes and apply it to our own projects.
So you’ve built an excellent startup product, validated your market and you feel you’re ready to go for a funding round. Awesome. Yet, now you realize that putting together a persuasive investor deck design is no walk in the park. Not only do you need to worry about the visual aspects of developing your presentation design, but you’ll also need to worry about developing a strong narrative to support your need for investment.
We put together an exhaustive list of 40 startup pitch deck examples for you to get inspired while building your million-dollar pitch deck.
A household name in the chat-bot space. Intercom started from humble beginnings with this seed pitch deck that set them up for success.
Company background: Intercom shows users who are using their products or website and makes it easier to personally communicate with them through targeted content, behavior-driven email, in-app, and web messages. Amount: $600,000
https://www.slideshare.net/eoghanmccabe/intercoms-first-pitch-deck
2. Baloonr
The Baloonr 500 Startups Demo Day presentation is an interesting approach to pitch decks. With full-bleed imagery and impressive storytelling, they set the standard for this Demo Day presentation.
Company Background: Baloonr help companies remove bias during collaboration and decision-making so that they gain access to unreachable insights. Amount: $150,000
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtgjCoinDTo
3. Pendo
Ever seen an investor pitch deck that raised 20Million? These guys have done just that. Looking at their pitch deck gives you insight into how a well-funded startup pitches for Series B funding. The beginning starts with them painting an inevitable future, followed by how well they’ve been doing until that point. A real eye-opener.
Company Background: Pendo provides product managers and teams with an integrated platform to better understand and improve product experiences. Through the platform, organizations are able to capture users’ behavior, gather feedback and provide contextual help inside their application. Amount: $20,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/ToddOlson/pendo-series-b-investor-deck-external-70016133
4. Buffer
Noted this is one of the less visually-impressive investor pitch decks that have raised funding, but you got to give it to these guys – they have the numbers to back them up. Have a look at how they started raising their seed investor round.
Company Background: Buffer is a simpler and easier way to schedule posts, track the performance of your content, and manage all your accounts in one place Amount: $500,000
https://www.slideshare.net/AlexanderJarvis/buffer-pitch-deck
5. Homigo
Company Background: Homigo proactively handles all aspects of home maintenance and repairs so that users need not worry about it. Amount: Undisclosed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKKnRjL1q8w
6. BetaPopcorn by Itay Adams
Are you a fan of Seinfeld? Well, in one of the iconic sitcom’s episodes, the character George Costanza pitched an idea about a show about ‘nothing’. Itay Adams might have executed the perfect routine that roped him investor funding as a result.
Company Background: Adams went up to investors and pitched basically ‘nothing’ and raised $2,000,000 in proceeds to build a ‘dream team’ with that money. Amount: $2,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/BetaPopcorn/its-a-slideshow-about-nothing
7. Cubeit
This startup from India developed a simple and clear story for their Series A presentation deck that roped them a nice sum. Have a look at how they built the crux of their problem.
Company Background: Cubeit is a mobile application that allows users to aggregate content from anywhere Amount: Seed – $3,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/AlexanderJarvis/cubeit-pitch-deck
8. Contently
Contently needs no introduction and for good reason. The way these guys put together their pitch deck showcased a vision for the future where they were building an ecosystem as well as a proof-of-concept with clients they’ve already acquired.
Company Background: Contently is a New York City-based technology company. It creates software that helps brands create and manage content and connect with freelance writers, photographers, videographers, infographic designers, and editors. Amount: $9,000,000 | 2014
https://www.slideshare.net/ryangum/contently-pitch-deck
9. Mattermark
Mattermark’s investor pitch deck proves that there’s nothing inherently wrong with being a ‘me-too’ startup. They highlighted the growth in demand in their space and how they could capitalize on that to drive their business with funding.
Company Background: Mattermark is a data platform for venture capital companies to quantify signals of growing and potentially lucrative start-ups. Amount: $6,500,000 | 2014
https://www.slideshare.net/DanielleMorrill/mattermark-2nd-final-series-a-deck
10. Frontapp
A beautiful investor pitch deck that focused on the nitty-gritty numbers that mattered to investors at that stage of fund-raising. Building the b2b email client of the future is no easy feat, but these guys come pretty close with their pitch decks of the current.
Company Background: Frontapp manages users’ communication channels such as email addresses, SMS, social media, live chat, and voice. These messages channeled will then be assigned to the respective teammates, generating faster replies without messy CC’s, Reply-Aall’s or forwards. Amount: $10,000,000 | 2016
https://www.slideshare.net/MathildeCollin/front-series-a-deck-64596550
11. Crew
A simple, brief and powerful deck that’s tell-tale of the presentation style of the founder. This is what we’d call a no-fluff approach to building pitch decks. Read and learn.
Company Background: Crew is a technology company from Montreal, Quebec. The company develops, markets, and operates the Crew app, which connects individuals with freelance graphic designers, illustrators and software developers. Crew’s freelancers have completed projects for companies such as Dropbox, Medium, Tinder, Eventbrite, and IDEO. Amount: $10,000,000 | 2015
https://www.slideshare.net/AlexanderJarvis/crew-pitch-deck-seriesa
12. Airbnb
We know Airbnb now to be one of the world’s most well-known startups. When they first began, all they had was an idea. Curious how they turned that into what they are today? Have a look at the pitch deck.
Company Background: Airbnb is a community marketplace for people to list, discover and book unique spaces around the world through mobile phones or the internet. Whether it’s an apartment for a night, a castle for a week, or a villa for a month, it connects people to unique travel experiences at any price point, with over 2M listings in 34K cities and 192 countries. Amount: $600,000 | 2009
https://www.slideshare.net/ryangum/airbnb-pitch-deck-from-2008
13. WeWork
WeWork is huge. From workspaces to every other horizontal, these guys are seeking to dominate more spaces. This Series D deck covered a variety of best practices. From building an ecosystem vision, showing the right numbers to signify extreme growth and basically hitting everything else right out of the park.
Company Background: WeWork is an American company which provides shared workspaces, community, and services for entrepreneurs, freelancers, startups, small businesses and large enterprises. Founded in 2010, it is headquartered in New York City. Amount: Series D – $335,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/AlexanderJarvis/wework-pitch-deck-55170129
14. Uber
Where would we be without ride-sharing and transport services from Uber? Have a look at how this behemoth began and surmise how they still continue to raise funding.
Company Background: Uber Technologies Inc. is a global transportation technology company headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States, operating in 633 cities worldwide. Amount: 14 rounds – $11.5 billion
https://www.slideshare.net/kambosu/uber-pitch-deck
15. Mandaê
This pitch deck covers almost all the things you’d expect a great pitch deck to have, a strong team, great numbers and a vision for expansion in the near future. It’s no surprise that it raised $200,000.
Company Background: Mandaê is an app which simplifies the way Brazilians ship their stuff. Other than collaboration with local postal service, Mandaê collaborated with other exclusive transporters that are not available to most individuals. Amount: $4,230,000 till date – deck used to raise $200,000
You might not immediately get this because of the language, but observe how they’ve segmented their pitch into different sections and broken down messages into bit-sized pieces.
Company Background: Gaia Design is a Mexican online store that sells design furniture and accessories at affordable prices.This investment backed Harvard start-up based in Mexico City aimsto make quality products and design accessible to all Mexican households. Amount: $2,850,000
https://www.slideshare.net/valentinelanger/presentation-gaia-design-furniture
17. Mapme
‘Lead with your strongest point’ was what Mapme did exactly. Since they’ve already garnered a community following and press coverage, they leveraged that initially to build credibility before asking for money.
Company Background: Mapme is the first platform that empowers any organization or leader to leverage crowdsourcing to visualize all the interconnected layers of a community. The outcome is a unique user experience that drives engagement and promotes the community. Amount: $1,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/benmaxime/mapme-deck
18. Farmeron
Another 500 Startups alumni making waves in a space that you’d never expect – farming.
Company Background: Farmeron helps farmers across the world to manage their farming data online and to do farm performance analysis using exciting statistics. Amount: $1,609,000 | 2012
https://www.slideshare.net/500startups/farmeron
19. The Daily Hundred
The Daily Hundred produced this detailed pitch presentation that is obviously meant to be read. It covers every gap from user growth to how the app works on a micro-level.
Company Background: The Daily Hundred is a web app allowing businesses to reward customers by encouraging micro-level brand advocacy and product endorsements. Amount: $1,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/nahaase/daily-hundred-pitch-deck-2014-34178633
20. Pinmypet
A really sleek and simple Demo Day presentation from this 500 Startups alumni, PinMyPet.
Company Background: Founded in September 1, 2013 by Marcos Buson, Bruno Kenj, and Bruno Suza, Pinmypet allows users to track the location and physical activities of their pets. It ensures your pet’s safety by providing real time locations as well. Amount: $1,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/500startups/pinmypet
21. Dwolla
A contender with some of the biggest payment giants, Dwolla manages to hold its own. It’s not the most succinct, but manages to paint the payments industry as an attractive market for investors.
Company Background: Founded in Iowa in 2008 by Shane Neuerburn and Ben Milne, Dwolla is a free web-based software platform allowing users to send, receive, and request funds from another user. Dwolla is a United States-only e-commerce company that provides an online payment system and mobile payments network. Amount: $30,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/webjoe/dwolla?ref=http://startupfundraising.com/38-startup-pitch-decks-from-companies-that-changed-the-world/
22. ID wall
Tackling credential frauds with major players is no easy feet. ID Wall’s Demo Day pitch deck is simply designed with a monochromatic colour scheme leading with their strongest point on the size of the market before delving into details for the rest.
Company Background: ID wall is focused on providing businesses with document validation, background checks, and identity verification solutions and services. It offers its services through an API. ID wall also offers a real-time alert system that enables its users to verify customers’ data in signups and purchases. Amount: $800,000
https://www.slideshare.net/500startups/500-demo-day-batch-19-idwall
23. Buzzfeed
Buzzfeed is one of the pre-eminent startups on the web. Take a look at this media giant’s deck for inspiration.
Company Background: BuzzFeed is a social news and entertainment company headquarted in New York, N.Y. It provides highlyshareable breaking news, original reporting, entertainment, and video across the social web to its global audience of more than 200M. Amount: $3,500,000 | 2008
https://www.slideshare.net/TechInAsiaID/buzzfeed-pitch-deck
24. App.io also known as Kickfolio
A short, simple presentation that even included a demo for Demo Day no less.
Company Background: App.io streams your mobile apps from the cloud to any device without the need to download. It provides a easier way to give people access to your apps. Amount: $1,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/500startups/2013-500-demo-day-pitch-pdf-version
25. Mixpanel
Mixpanel’s pitch deck focused on their outstanding numbers and ended with a positioning matrix to show the difference between them and other competitors like KissMetrics.
Company Background: Mixpanel is one of the most advanced analytics platforms for mobile & web. It helps businesses grow by helping them understand how their users behave and use their products by tracking actions people take rather than page views. Amount: $65,000,000 | 2014
https://www.slideshare.net/metrics1/mixpanel-our-pitch-deck-that-we-used-to-raise-65m
26. Moz
Moz’s presentation deck is an interesting case where they focus on stressing that they merely want to dominate a small niche within the bigger market.
Company Background: Moz provides analytics software to track all of a website’s inbound marketing efforts—search marketing, link building, social media, and brand mentions—on one platform. Moz Analytics tracks each effort with beautiful data visualizations, insights into competitors’ data, and actionable recommendations to improve each effort’s performance. Amount: $18,000,000 | 2012
https://www.slideshare.net/randfish/seomoz-pitch-deck-july-2011
27. Kompyte
Another 500 Startups Demo Day presentation that set the standard. Using high-resolution stock imagery, the company’s explanation of the product concept was smooth and simple.
Company Background: Kompyte is a competitive intelligence tool designed to respond in real-time to online strategies utilized by its users’ competitors. It is designed to learn about competitors’ online strategies in real-time, and respond to them in an easy and affordable way. Amount: $500,000
https://www.slideshare.net/500startups/500-demo-day-batch-19-kompyte
28. DocSend
Company Background: DocSend is a content management and tracking solution that helps teams find and share sales content that closes deals. Amount: Series A – $8,000,000
29. LinkedIn
If you haven’t heard of Linkedin, you’ve probably been living under a rock. Prior to their acquisition by Microsoft, Linkedin raised a few successful rounds of funding.
Company Background: LinkedIn is a professional networking site that allows its members to create business connections, search for jobs, and find potential clients. The site also enables its users to build and engage with their professional networks, access shared knowledge and insights, and find business opportunities. LinkedIn was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Mountain View, California. Amount: $10,000,000 | 2004
https://www.slideshare.net/webjoe/linkedin-deck-27367069
30. Foursquare
Foursquare’s concept is one that is not easy to explain. Hence, they focused 80% of their early pitch deck to contain details about how the apps work and showing the different screens.
Company Background: Foursquare is a local search-and-discovery service mobile app which provides search results for its users. The app provides personalized recommendations of nearby places to visit based on a user’s current location through referencing their previous browsing history, purchases, or check-in history Amount: Raised – $1,350,000 | 2009
https://www.slideshare.net/alkarmi/foursquare-1stpitch2009
31. Magic Leap
Another great example of painting a vision of an inevitable progression towards the growth of the industry they are targetting. Couple with strong numbers, it’s no wonder investors decided to fund them.
Company Background: Magic Leap combines our inherent visual ability with mobile computing to provide a visual output similar to reality, but powered by mobile technology. Their Dynamic Digitized Lightfield Signal™, is able to generate images indistinguishable from real objects and then being able to place those images seamlessly into the real world. This entirely new T user experience they have created is known as Cinematic Reality™. Amount: Series B – $542,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/nicholasngjf/magic-leap-pitch
32. Ad pushup
A no-frills pitch deck led by their very impressive traction numbers. Goes to show you don’t need an excessively aesthetic pitch deck if your numbers are great.
Company Background: Ad pushup specializes in optimizing its users website’s ad layout for high viewability and number of clicks without harming its visitors’ users experience. Amount: Angel Round – $635,000
https://www.slideshare.net/AlexanderJarvis/adpushup-seed-pitch-deck
33. WealthSimple
WealthSimple was one of the pioneers of a digital financial advisor application. They’ve made the concept surprisingly easy to understand and grasp for a layperson.
Company Background: Wealthsimple is a new kind of financial advisor — one that’s intuitive, affordable, and human. It takes the guesswork out of investing and to get users on the right track. It builds a diversified portfolio of ETFs for its users and guides them towards achieving their financial goals. Amount: Seed – $1,900,000
https://www.slideshare.net/AlexanderJarvis/wealthsimple-pitch-deck
34. Launchrock
This 500 Startups alumni already had some impressive clients before getting into the investor pitch room. Have a look at how they used a simple deck to boost their fundraising activities.
Company Background: LaunchRock is an online platform that enables its users to create viral “Launching Soon” pages with built-in sharing tools and analytics. LaunchRock pages help its clients incentivize and reward users for telling others about its clients’ projects through email and their social networks.
LaunchRock was launched in 2011 out of Philadelphia’s Startup Weekend and its operations are based in Walnut, California. Amount: $800,000
https://www.slideshare.net/500startups/launchrock
35. Manpacks
A simple subscription model product that used humor to surprisingly get some traction. You can get away with something similar if you want to be the next Dollar Shave Club, but we’d recommend against it generally.
Company Background: Manpacks.com is a web-based service for the delivery of men’s essentials, including underwear, razors, grooming and other products from top-name brands such as Calvin Klein, Champion, Gillette, Saxx, Grooming Lounge, and PACT. Amount: $500,000
https://www.slideshare.net/500startups/manpacks
36. Linio
It’s one of those companies you’ve never heard of that have raised an obscene amount of money. Have a look at their pitch deck.
Company Background: Linio is an e-commerce company that offers a wide variety of products online in many categories, ranging from home electronics to personal care products. It brings online consumer retail services to some of the fastest growing Latin American markets.Founded in 2012, Linio has operations in Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela. Amount: Venture – $79,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/sygrp/linio-ir-deck-may-2014
37. Snapchat
A millennial-focused business that has well proved their ability to understand the dominate the attention of that market.
Company Background: You may have heard about Snapchat, the mobile app that allows users to capture videos and pictures that self-destruct after a few seconds. When a user sends a message, they get to decide whether it will live for between 1 and 10 seconds. Amount: Series C – $50,000,000
https://www.scribd.com/doc/235629204/Snapchat-business-deck
38. Thrive Global
This startup leverages Arianna Huffington’s reputation and credibility to push this pitch deck. The execution could have worked out much better, but who really complains when you have Arianna Huffington on board?
Company Background: Thrive Global brings the latest strategies and tools to health and well-being to organizations, coupled with a media and e-commerce platform. Amount: Series A – $7,000,000
https://www.slideshare.net/AlexanderJarvis/thrive-global-pitch-deck
39. Podozi
The Podozi deck sported plenty of images of their target audience – women of colour, which was great when getting the audience to quickly and clearly understand their intentions.
Company Background: Podozi is a beauty tech startup solving the problem of finding “right fit” beauty products for people of colour. Customers discover authentic brands from all around the world and enjoy a personalized shopping experience. Amount: $120,000
https://www.slideshare.net/500startups/500s-demo-day-batch-16-podozi
40. Castle
Juxtaposing existing solutions in the market with their eventual solution was a clever way for Castle to grab attention from the start. The headlines in this presentation are pretty effective such that they all suggest a clear message for each slide.
Company Background: Castle manages rental homes for landlords using automation and on-demand labor.
They find tenants, collect rent, and coordinate maintenance, allowing owners to kick back, relax, and never worry about their rental properties again. Amount: Angel Round – $270,000
https://www.slideshare.net/AlexanderJarvis/castle-pitch-deck-75070238
That’s it! 40 of the top pitch deck examples for almost all common stages of startup fund-raising. Remember to bookmark this page for reference later on when you decide to raise funds for your startup!
Look, data can be beautiful too! =)
