Sparking Curiosity with Teaser Slide Decks

The teaser is most probably one the first documents that you’ll ever present to potential investors. Basically a quick glance or summary of your business, a teaser is what venture capitalists usually ask for before the actual meeting. Teaser slide decks, however, don’t need to create an impact right away.

What they should do is to spark curiosity, instead. In other words, your teaser must make the audience curious enough in order for you to be given the chance to make an impact.

To make your teaser slide deck work, here are some things that you may want to keep in mind:

Know your audience and the setting

Teasers are usually shown in an office, in a quick private conversation with one or two potential investors. You’ll probably display your slides with a laptop, for better mobility.

Why do you need to know all these? Because these details can help you design your teaser slides more effectively. You wouldn’t want to bore your small audience members with a full and detailed presentation meant for a roomful of investors, would you?

Don’t make it text-heavy

As much as possible, do not put too many texts on your slides. If you need to include additional information, add an optional appendix after the primary content. Besides, there are certain details that potential investors won’t look into when doing an initial assessment of a venture.

So there’s no point in adding lengthy customer testimonials, extensive product descriptions, photos of your office, etc. These won’t make your audience excited — they might even find such things annoying.

You also have to remember that VCs are naturally up-to-date with what’s going on in their industry of interest. They have a good grasp of the basic business dynamics in every sector. This means you don’t have to include all the gory details regarding the current market environment.

Make it flexible

While they are great visual aids, teaser presentations are not just meant for meetings. They may also be sent through emails. So try not to make your teaser too large that you’ll have trouble sending it as an attachment. Also, you need to consider the fact that VCs usually print the presentations they received for easy reading.

To make your teaser printer-friendly and consume less ink, choose a white or light-colored background.

To be on the safe side, a good deck structure to follow when creating a teaser is Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 Rule. According to Kawasaki, a presentation should have 10 slides, last no more than 20 minutes, and contains no font smaller than 30 points. With that in mind, along with the above tips, you should be able to create a teaser slide deck that would lead to that very important meeting.

Conclusion

A teaser is made to do exactly what its name suggests – to tease. While it isn’t meant to immerse your target audience right away. It does help to be engaging and concise, especially in presenting what your main objectives are.

This is, after all, still a window into your actual presentation, so don’t take it for granted. Craft an interesting teaser that will leave your audience curious to know more about your offering.