Creating Your Pitch Deck:

Tutorial sites for pitch decks are thick on the ground, but Content.ly’s pitch deck and accompanying interview are fantastic for getting a good “feel” of what you should be doing. This Medium article lists many great resources for finding free or cheap professional stock images. Canva, Guy Kawasaki’s latest obsession, is a wonderful graphic-creation tool that allows you to purchase stock images or use your own photos to create beautiful presentations. Sign in, take the 23-second tutorial, and you’ll be ready to create a visually stunning PDF presentation.

After You’re Done:

Upload your pitch deck for the general public at SlideShare, which has made a community around people who enjoy Power Point presentations. Many people use the site for entertainment, but there will also be potential investors or employees using the site to look for a company. PitchEnvy showcases the best of the best. My company, Fittr, was featured on this site over a year ago and still have a significant portion of traffic from it. Other companies that have been featured include AirBnB and Square. Joshua Henderson has made a navigation tool for creating an appendix to your presentation. It’s organized via objection and will help you look like you know your stuff. In order to list these objections accurately, pitch to your friends, your coworkers, your mentors, your baristas… anyone who will listen.

And Just Some General Rules of Thumb:

Use Guy Kawasaki’s Powerpoint dharma: 10-20-30 (10 slides, 20 minutes, 30pt font)Keep it simpleUse lots of imagesListeners are more likely to remember the beginning and end than the middle, so sandwich less important stuff with the vitalsBut try to keep it to the vitals

Now go get ’em, Babe.