Advice on pitching
aaronkharris.com
aaronkharris.com
Find somebody with terrible eyesight, and see if they can read your deck. If they can't (probably because your colors are bad, you have too much text, and/or you're being cute with fonts), fix your deck.
Turn off your phone/IM/notifications. Seriously.
Don't bring up anything you aren't going to explain--it just distracts people. Think of it like leading people through a house--if you show a door but don't open it, they'll be preoccupied with what's behind that door when you're making your next important point.
Never do a live demo without screenshots and videos as backups, just in case. Never let somebody from the audience help you debug things--just kill it and move on.
Your audience has no idea what you're going to say, so don't worry about fucking up mid-sentence or pausing too long--most everyone will totally miss your hiccup. They will remember if you screw up, backtrack, and look visibly shaken.
Don't read off your deck don't read off your deck don't read off your deck.
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These are things I've seen students and people new to pitching screw up on a lot.
I would also say leave an obnoxious amount of time for laughter, I know at my demo day pitch I cut laughter short because it was hard to hear and I was fairly anxious
Laughs?? Why are laughs even in the script? This is a business deal right? One day I'd like to start something myself, and I guess I hoped that shrewdness, business acumen, techical chops, idea-originality, those would be more vital parts of a pitch. Do we need to make investors laugh too? Genuine question.
Jokes are a good way of managing tension and encouraging rapport with your audience--if they're laughing with you, they're having a good time, and if they're laughing because of something you've said on purpose, you've got a bit of control. It's a good way of staying at-ease in front of dozens of people.
EDIT:
Luckily pitching and presenting IRL is much easier (and less harsh) than cracking wise here on srs bsns HN. If you can get away with jokes and upvotes here, you'll be fine at any venue in person. :)
(But then, some would argue that all presentations are pitches - you want the audience to buy what you're selling, whether it be because they share your values, they see the value, or they value the approach.)
I gave a presentation to an audience comprising my target market, and did almost all screenshot slides - the purpose was to give a high-level tour of the app. I would rather have demoed the product in action, but it was an iPad app and the facility lacked the means to Airplay the screen.
From what I could tell, the presentation went ok - people came to talk to me about the app and they were quite excited. So it worked out ok for me.
But circling back to my question, given that experience, I'd like to know what the context is behind "screenshot slides are especially bad" - why? What should be done instead?
In most other situations, screenshots are hugely distracting. They force your audience to focus all their attention on details of your slide, rather than the things taht you're saying.
eg. During the eurozone crisis they frequently referred to the ECB on the news. I kept translating it in my head as "The English Cricket Board has just authorised billions in loans", always took me a few seconds to remember European Central Bank...
"The total market in X is $Y billion, and if we only get Z percent market share, we will be a great success."
The hard part is to get that first net dollar of profit in a market, not to dream about some fraction of the entire ocean.
Do investors take special training to avoid rolling their eyes when entrepreneurs give them the "only X percent of the market" line?