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Top 5 Presentation Mistakes

The presentations I see, for the most part, get a B.  Not failing, but noticeably short of excellent.  Only once in a blue moon do I encounter an A.  It is surprising to me that I don’t see more “A” presentations because:

1. The presenters are high achievers who got A’s in engineering classes at prestigious universities (at least until they dropped out).
2. The good advice available on this topic is beyond voluminous.  Thanasis had a great post about it a few days ago.

But if you ask an entrepreneur to tell you how much time they spent on their presentation vs thinking about fun stuff like all the different features they might add to their  wonderful website in 2012, you would question their priorities.  So, while everything that can be written about “effective communication” has no doubt been written, here is my take on common and avoidable mistakes when presenting to investors:

1. Too Much Setup. This is the most common lament I have.  20 minutes into the pitch, and I am still being lectured on what is wrong with the world, why the team is so golden or that old media is in big trouble.  Tell us what problem the business solves in the first three slides.  Get your audience leaning forward, not leaning back and thinking about stealing an inbox glance.  Avoid the dreaded spinning pencil!
2. Too Much Text. If you show me a slide with bullets and sub-bullets only, soon I will be stifling yawns.  If those sub bullets are complete, run-on sentences, then I will be stifling snores.  I really want to know what it is you are doing and why you have decided to dedicate yourself to your Big Idea.  I honestly enjoy sharing passion about ideas.  Help me do that by not reading bullets.
3. Too Many Slides. Twenty slides in 40 minutes is about the maximum possible for a good presentation.  I say 40 minutes because you want to leave room for discussion before, during and after, and while I normally allow a full 60 minutes for pitches, I have heard stories of VCs arriving late and leaving early.
4. Wrong Market Data. We want the total available annual market (TAM) available to you.  If you have an ad tech company, don’t tell me that the annual brand advertising spend is $40 billion online in 2012.  Tell me exactly what portion of that market is available to you, each and every year, based on your business model.  If you are entering a $1 billion market with a much cheaper SAAS product, your TAM is not $1 billion since you are shrinking the market with aggressive pricing!
5. Too Many Points On A Slide. Unless they say “We launched last week and have 1 million uniques, we have spent no money on marketing, we just signed 25 new advertisers at $100K each” bullets are not your friend.  One important, unmistakeable point per slide clearly declared in the title.  Very little text.  Charts, graphs, graphics are all good.

I could go on – there is a long list.  But these are the ones that I see most often.  You got an A in your classes at school – why not get an A in something as important as presenting your business to investors?