The default formats for charts on PowerPoint and even my beloved Keynote are terrible. Editing down information and distractions are the key to more powerful charts in your presentations. Here is a look at the default pie chart from Keynote 09:
Keynote 09's default chart. PowerPoint's is worse.
Here is an improved chart with very simple changes: Read the rest of this entry »
The default bulleted lists for both PowerPoint and Keynote are incorrect. It doesn’t take much work to correct them.
Default, ugly bullets
Better bullets, with a little help.
Here is what I did: Read the rest of this entry »
I am good at building and delivering presentations. I should be, I have literally written and presented thousands of slides in my 18-year business career. But for as important and frequent as PowerPoint presentations are in business, most people are complete amateurs. My presentations aren’t yet better than Steve Jobs’ keynotes or Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth, but I’ll get there in a few more years. 
I decided to write this post after I got this feedback from a VC, to whom I had presented a couple of weeks ago:
“Jeff, your presentation was the most polished, fun to look at and interesting one I’ve seen in a long time, maybe ever. My job would be much improved if all the pitches were this enjoyable to go through.”
I hear that a lot. I work hard to make sure my presentations are interesting, entertaining and engaging. When I am done with a presentation, my audience has learned more about my company, our space and me as the CEO. The quality of my presentations gives them a window into how our company does business: we take things seriously and we know how to make a high quality product. If I don’t have the time to make my presentation a proper representation of me and the company, I don’t use slides at all…I whiteboard. The visuals of presentations are so strong that mediocre presos leave a bad aftertaste in the viewer’s mind. Read the rest of this entry »
A typical engineer costs a startup $150k/year (loaded, salary+benefits). And yet many companies big and small skimp in providing its employees the tools they need to be productive and happy. Here are the things I suggest:
Total cost: $2600 (less than 2% of your employee cost)
A startup I am helping out is getting ready to lease their first office in San Francisco’s SOMA area. Here is the advice I sent them:
Ask for a buildout/improvement budget from the landlord. If you are committing to spend over one hundred thousand over 2 years, they can probably sport you $3-5k in improvements (they will likely want “ok” power over the improvements you want to make). Typically the types of things you might use that money for are: Read the rest of this entry »
