Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule is not for you

Let's be honest, it can be difficult to build a slide deck from scratch. Starting with a new template can be a pain, building in new material can be tedious, and cobbling together old slides reduces the impact of the original deck.

Lucky for you, there are rules for how to build a slide deck! Unlucky for you, there are too many rules. A quick Google search, for example, results in a forest of made-up and ambiguous rules telling you how to build your slides so you can be just like everyone else.

Some tell you how to organize your slides, others tell you how to organize your time, and still others that dictate how to pitch an idea. Some of these rules include:

- Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule: The nonsense rule of a 10 slide maximum, 20 minute time limit, and 30-point font. We'll dig into this in detail.

- The Golden Rule: Never underestimate the ignorance of your audience

- The 5 5 5, 6 6 6, or the 7 7 7 rule: Dictates the number of bullet points per slide, and other formatting details.

- The Ten Rules of a Good Slide Deck: Praises contrast, consistency, and hierarchy

- and many more!

Which "rule" you use (if you choose to use a rule) should depend on your circumstance and your audience. To be clear -- do not force your content into a cookie cutter rule because someone else says to. And let's keep in mind our end goal: to improve our presentation, improve our communication, enhance our chances of landing that interview, and making a bigger impact in our workplace.

Guy's 10/20/30 Rule

Today, I want to address Guy's 10/20/30 rule. To be clear, this rule is geared specifically towards helping entrepreneurs pitch their slide decks to "angels" or venture capitalists -- despite its popularity, the rule is not meant for regular presentations. That said, each of these numbers represents a limitation: the presentation should have no more than 10 slides, last no longer than 20 minutes, and have a font size no smaller than 30.

Let's talk about the 10 slide maximum. Guy's rule of thumb is based on his personal assertion that humans cannot comprehend more than 10 concepts at a time, so your slide deck shouldn't have more than 10 slides. This is great in theory if his statistic were true -- unfortunately, this is not the case. Guy's statistic is wrong. According to LiveScience, normal people typically only keep 3 or 4 concepts in their mind at once. If we extend Guy's logic with the correct value, the ideal slide deck should only be 4 slides long! Without a highly tailored slide deck (including a demonstration, for instance), this is a obscenely short slide deck.

Furthermore, a presentation consisting of 10 completely separate concepts, each presented back-to-back (within a 20-minute window!) is a terrible idea. Ten distinct concepts in any presentation leaves very little room for segues, transitions, or demonstrations. So what do Guy's "Dream Team" slides consist of? According to Guy's blog, they are: (1) Problem statement, (2) your solution, (3) business model, (4) underlying technology, (5) marketing and sales, (6) competition, (7) team, (8) projections and milestones, (9) status and timeline, and (10) a call to action.

In my interpretation of Guy's rule, each of the 10 slides assumes that each of the 10 unique concepts hold equal weight. Admittedly, I've never pitched a product to a venture capitalist, but if I knew I had a limit of 10 slides, I'd likely spend more time discussing my product and marketing than discussing my team -- like many scientific reports, the contributors are a small fraction of what gets discussed in the summary of the results. The results make the message's impact, not the people on the team. After all, who is your audience listening to, your slides or your pitch? Furthermore, is your first slide ("Problem Statement") really grabbing anyone's attention?

Guy's 20 minutes rule is even more vague, stating that you basically have a one-hour time slot to pitch your slides. However, people come in late, you're using some operating system that doesn't agree with the projector, and people leave early. I can accept that all this happens, but in practice, the rule doesn't make much sense. Sure, people may come late or leave early but this begs the question of when to start presenting. Do you wait awkwardly at the front of the room while the investors arrive late? Do you have a list of which investors will show, checking off each name as they enter the room? If so, when do you start your presentation? Do you wait indefinitely while one investor (who's had a terrible morning, by the way) simple never shows? What do you do while waiting for the remaining investors to straggle in? Each investor surely knows the worth of their time, and starting your presentation late likely will not set well with the investors who bothered to show up on time.

Guy's last point harps on a 30-point font minimum. Similar to the two previous points, I understand what he's getting at -- smaller fonts are hard to read from the back of the room, and you want to make sure everyone can read all the words you have on your slides. As an optical engineer, this rule grates on my nerves. Sure, the size of the text on a slide is a function of its font size, but more significantly, the font size on the screen is a function of the layout of your optical system (e.g., the projector). If the projector's magnification is high, your font size will be much larger than necessary; similarly, a perfectly sized font is worthless without a properly focused projector.

Customize your message.

I have a feeling the popularity of Guy's 10/20/30 rule based his personal accomplishments rather than the content and logic of his rule. In fact, scientific publications on the top of deck building make no mention of Guy Kawasaki nor his 10/20/30 rule. If we cannot apply Guy's hard and fast rule to our own presentation, where does this leave us?

It leaves us with the fact that your presentation -- regardless of topic or application -- should not be based on the opinions of other people (including myself). It should be based on the circumstances of your presentation: its content, its time limit, and its audience. It should be tailored to your method of speaking and your presentation style. For instance, if your introduction slide contains a demonstration showing some specialized process, do you really need 8 other slides to discuss what your process can do? No -- there may be a slide on the algorithm and a slide pointing out specific results, but your slide deck may be considerably shorter (and make a considerably larger impact) if you have that capability.

Conclusion

It all boils down to knowing your audience. If you're pitching a new technology to Guy Kawasaki and playing to his preferences, it may behoove you to abide by his rule. But if you're presenting to anybody else (or pitching to someone with different preferences), then feel free to break the mold. Break the rules. Do whatever it takes to make your impact in your way. If you can get your message across in 1 demonstration, 3 slides, and 10 minutes so be it! Although I do agree with Guy on one point: death by powerpoint should never be an issue, especially when the stakes are high. Nonetheless, consider what would happen if everyone abided by arbitrary slide deck rules. Every slide deck, including yours, would begin to look repetitive, and they would all start to look the same.

But we are not everyone, nor should we structure our presentations like everyone else. To make an impact, you need to find your method to make your message heard. Rules were meant to be broken, and you are meant to be great!

Whether high- or low-risk, you are given the gift of someone else's time -- you get one first impression, and one shot to make your point. Even after you prepare and practice, you can benefit from an objective opinion of your slides, your presentation style, and your pitch. Present Proper has your back. With 15+ years of experience at your disposal, we can help tighten up your presentation so you make the impact to successfully sell yourself, your products, and your time to the highest bidder. We'll help you grab their attention, and we'll show you how to take them on a ride they will never forget. Your success depends on your presentation, and we want to help get you there.

Lastly, if you find my blog articles insightful, head on over to my blog page and Subscribe! Until next time, present clearly, present concisely, Present Proper.