Investor presentation is an important event for every startup.
It's a possibility to show a product to public and build relationships with investors.
The way it is prepared and conducted will be followed by investor's decision to put money into the project or step aside.
That is why the main goal of presentation to investors is to convince them that a product or service meets users' needs.
To achieve it, a presentation should be designed in a way to answer two main questions: 1.
What is a product or service? 2.
Why will users want it? And remember that "no presentation is better than a weak one".
Keeping that in mind you should spend significant amount of time not only to develop a product, but also to build the right approach to present it.
One of the common ways to do a presentation is to make it visible using computer and special software like Microsoft Power Point (or any other).
Actually, the way the presentation looks is the major thing, not the software used to create it.
The three building blocks of strong visual presentation to investors are Plan, Time and Visual Tools: 1.
Make a PLAN for the presentation and put slides in order with it.
A plan could be like this: a) Introduction - who you and your company are.
b) Product description - what does it do, what problem it solves.
c) Description of usage - who and how will use it, why customers will want it.
d) Competitive advantages and success stories (if any).
e) Finance - sales and profit projections.
f) Call for investments.
2.
TIME: don't make long presentations if the opposite is not required.
Your presentation should take about 10 minutes.
So the number of slides that are sufficient is from 12 to 15.
More slides will take the most of your time to read the text, not to explain information to investors.
People won't listen to you too long and lose interest to your presentation.
And avoid presenting and driving presentation simultaneously.
It's better to ask someone of your team to turn slides during your talk.
3.
VISUAL TOOLS: a) Use at least 16 font size.
No one is going to read the text with a telescope.
b) Don't put much text on slides.
Be short and precise.
Use bullets to divide text into simple statements and use 2-4 statements per slide.
c) The text on slides must not have errors and typos.
After completing the presentation, read it again carefully and correct all errors.
Also you can give it to someone for proofreading.
d) Use schemes to show logical structures.
A scheme can explain the cause-effect relation even better than bulleted text.
e) Use colors to make slides catchy.
You may use corporate or any other colors, but keep in mind that they should be contrast.
Green text on yellow background will look fuzzy and hard to read.
Dark text on light background will look good.
Light text on dark background is good for darken rooms and require powerful projector.
Also try not to use more than three colors in presentation.
f) Be careful using background.
Fancy textures can make the text hard-to-read.
Also, if you are not going to show slides on your laptop, your texture might be absent on another computer.
g) Use pictures and photos to make greater impression of your words.
h) Use charts and diagrams to present figures.
Put data labels and use readable font size.
Try to avoid using 3D diagrams as they might be hard to understand.
i) Don't use spreadsheets on slides.
It's better to pick up 3-5 the most important for you numbers and show them in text or on separate slide.
j) If you are presenting something web-based, make an off-line copy and use it.
Internet connection can be unstable and die right when you need it.
Following those tips will help startups to provide visual support for their presentation and get investors' attention and funding as well.