This post is adapted from a chapter in Guy Kawasaki’s book “The Art of The Start.” I recently read it and it has some really great tips and advice for young entrepeneurs. If any of you need to create a powerpoint for pitching your company to either investors or clients, here is the suggested formula buy our favorite “Guy.”

First off, the 10/20/30 Rule:

10 = The Number of Slides
I won’t go into detail about the specifications for each slide. {Buy Guy’s book it’s GREAT} But this is the appropriate length for the power point. Long enough to create substance but not too long to lose your audience’s attention.

20 = The Length {in minutes} of Your Presentation
This gives you some of an idea about how long you will spend on each slide. Approximately 2 minutes per slide. Basically your not going to be sitting on one slide for too long, nor is your entire presentation going to last longer that 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, you are going to slowly lose the {undivided, focused} attention of your audience.

30 = The FONT size you should use
You may have realized that 30 pt. font isn’t going to allow you to put much text on your slides, and you shouldn’t. The powerpoint is there just to assist you in speaking, not to take the place of speaking. Your audience shouldn’t be able to understand the presentation without you to fill in the gaps.

A few other tips from Guy

Use a dark background- this suggests seriousness and substance
Use bullet points – Not line after line of bullet points, but a slide title followed by bullet points {aka you shouldn’t have to explain a bullet within a bullet}
Put your company header at the top of each page- repetition, ’nuff said

For more buy Guy’s Book “The Art of the Start” It’s a great read!