Pitching without Presentation

I noticed an emerging trend during pitch events in the last few weeks: Pitches without the support of a Power Point Presentation.

The founder just stands in front of a crowd of potential investors and for 5 or 10 minutes go thought the pitch orally, without any charts support.

I cannot say yet if it’s a good or bad things and below I tried to summarize the pro and cons of this emerging trend:

Pro

• You just focus on the entrepreneur;

• You do not judge the founder from some fancy or terrible charts;

• You are more probably to spot sign of leadership from a guy able to command an audience without the support of any charts;

• Look at any list of the best speeches of all time (from Martin Luther King to Steve Jobs) and you won’t find a single use of slides.

Cons

• Having a presentation implies many things about the founder: professionalism, dedication and structuring;

• Often important facts (as Financial Projections or size of the market) are missing considering that the Founder usually focus his speech on the Product side;

• Shy or founders with English as a second language tend to underperform;

• If in the first minute, you are not captivate by the idea or you if you do not understand the product, you lose interest in the Pitch.