Don’t use builds, reveals or animations in your pitch deck

Your pitch deck is your pièce de résistance when you’re trying to convey a ton of information about your startup to a would-be investor in as few slides as you can. Sixteen, in fact, seems to be more or less the right number.

From time to time, I see founders trying to get a little bit too clever for their own good. I get it. In a world of ever-advancing technologies, it can be tempting to embed your pitch deck with all the latest bells and whistles. Build-ins, reveals, animations — many such elements have become more accessible thanks to advanced presentation software.

But are these elements always necessary, or even beneficial, when presenting to potential investors?

TL;DR:Just don’t.

Oh, you wanna know why? Fine . . .

Fancy but flawed

There’s no denying that animations can add a dash of glamor and pizazz to your story, especially if it’s a well-rehearsed pitch. Are you taking the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt for Battlefield? Or perhaps you’re delivering a keynote at CES? Go wild, if you must; let those slides shimmer and pop.

For all other situations, though, just leave them out.

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There’s a widespread misconception that animations can salvage or amplify complex content. Some founders reason, “My slide is too intricate, so I’ll break it down using animations.”

I’m not saying that’s impossible, but in the thousands of decks I’ve seen over the years, I’ve never seen an animation truly add anything. My general take is this: If a slide’s content is truly compelling, it should stand alone without the need for any kind of crutch, animation or otherwise.

A slide that’s too complicated won’t be simplified or enhanced by animations. Just like you can’t tidy up a messy room by walking into it with eyes closed and opening them very slowly so you don’t have to take in the chaos all at once, using animations to add your content element by element doesn’t really help either.

It’s a conversation, not a performance

Animations are a distraction. The eye is drawn to motion, and the reveals of new information can get frustrating and old fast.

Put simply, VC pitches are more interactive conversations than performances. Your starting narrative might be linear, but the conversation will be dynamic; it will zig and zag, and jump back and forth.

This becomes a problem when you’ve just shown off a slide with a five-step animated reveal. Someone may stop you midway with an idea, asking, “Could we return to the second point on your go-to-market strategy?”

If you’ve animated your deck, this backtracking morphs into a herculean task of incessant clicking and disrupts the flow of the conversation. The initial allure of the animation flies out the window as you sweatily click 98 times on the Next and Previous buttons to get to the relevant part of the deck. Does that sound fun to you?

Pitching is stressful enough on its own. It’s a culmination of sleepless nights, relentless tweaking, and tireless preparations. Why add to that with complicated animations? Why risk technical glitches, slow transitions, or unintentional mis-clicks?

Focus on the narrative, the numbers, and getting your point across. Help investors get on the same page and share your vision. If you can’t do it without builds and animations, you sure as hell can’t achieve that with ’em.