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Understanding the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint Presentations

Imagine sitting through a seemingly never-ending presentation. The speaker rambled on, reading from text-heavy slides, using a tiny font that strained your eyes, and failing to connect with the audience. As the minutes ticked by, you found yourself daydreaming and eagerly awaiting the end of the ordeal.

If you have been in this situation, then you know what to do if you were in the presenter’s shoes – make your presentations concise. But how do you even start?

You can follow several techniques when preparing your deck and your presentation as a whole. One of them is the 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint , a presentation rule championed by Guy Kawasaki – a former Apple employee and a marketing specialist.

Table of Contents

What Is the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint Presentations?

Applying guy kawasaki’s 10 slide template in any presentation, the 20 minutes rule, the 30-point font rule, the benefits of using the 10/20/30 rule, tips for applying the 10/20/30 rule to your presentation.

The idea of the 10/20/30 rule is easy to understand, which is summed up in three points.

• Your presentation should consist of no more than 10 slides .
• Your presentation should last no longer than 20 minutes .
• The text on each slide should be no lower than 30 points in size .

Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule for slideshows emphasizes brevity, focus, and visual appeal to keep your audience engaged and deliver your message effectively.

Let’s examine each rule and explore how to apply it to your presentations.

The 10 Slides Rule

Kawasaki argues that a typical person can only take 10 concepts in one sitting. Therefore, according to him, a presentation should only consist of 10 slides, each serving a specific purpose and conveying a distinct concept.

This insight underscores the importance of concise, focused presentations that prioritize key messages and avoid overwhelming the audience with too much information.

If you are a business presenter struggling to develop a pitch deck , Kawasaki suggests a 10-slide PowerPoint template that includes what venture capitalists like him care about.

• Title – Includes the business name, the presenter’s name, contacts, etc.
• Problem/Opportunity – Highlights pain points or unmet needs of customers you aim to solve.
• Value Proposition – Articulates the value or benefits of your product or service.
• Underlying Magic – Explains the key technology that goes into your product or service offers.
• Business Model – Describes how you plan to generate revenue.
• Go-to-Market Plan – Outlines your strategy for bringing your product or service to market, e.g., marketing and sales plan .
• Competitive Analysis – Explains how your business is positioned to compete and capture market share.
• Management Team – Highlights your management team’s skills, experience, and expertise that will drive the success of your business.
• Financial Projections and Key Metrics – Highlights your business’s financial viability and potential profitability.
• Current Status, Accomplishments to Date, Timeline, and Use of Funds – Provides an overview of your current business status, any accomplishments or milestones achieved to date, the timeline for future milestones, and how you plan to use the funds you seek.

The 10 rule slide was specifically designed for startup and business presentations , focusing on pitching a business idea or concept to potential investors . However, it can also be a useful framework for other types of presentations that don’t deal with selling a service or product.

For example, if you are a lecturer, you can emulate Kawasaki’s PowerPoint template layout and reduce your presentation to 10 slides. Some slides might not be relevant to the nature of your topic, so replace them with one that works for your presentation. Using PPT templates helps you focus on the graphical aspect so you can articulate the content to fit into exactly 10 slides (while preserving the same aesthetic).

Let’s say you are a mindfulness expert talking about the benefits of meditation. The first three slides of Kawazaki’s workflow may be applied as you’ll need to establish your audience’s pain points and your solution.

However, you may need to modify the remaining slides as you’re not seeking to make a sale or raise funding. You may use them instead to discuss the main content of your presentation – in this case, the benefits of meditation. The last two slides may contain your conclusions and call to action, respectively.

Now, off to the second part of the 10/20/30 presentation rule.

According to Kawasaki, you only have 20 minutes to present your 10 slides – the time needed before your audience’s attention starts declining. He believes it is long enough to convey a meaningful message but short enough to maintain the audience’s attention span.

This is exactly why most TED Talks or The Big Bang Theory episodes would only last for approximately 18 minutes. 

While giving longer presentations is possible, longer presentations may be more difficult to maintain audience engagement and attention.

Kawasaki’s final rule pertains to the font size that presenters can use. This rule suggests that presenters should use a font size of at least 30 points for all text in their slides , including titles, headings, and body text.

When creating presentations, it is common to jam each slide with text and information. This poses two possible problems:

• First, it may take your audience’s attention from you as they may end up reading your whole presentation and stop listening to you. 
• Second, including too much information can make your presentation overwhelming and difficult to follow.

Using a larger font size, you must include only the key points of your presentation slides. This prevents your audience from getting ahead of you and keeps them listening to you speak. By applying this rule, you are also ensuring your content is understandable for people with visual impairments. We highly recommend you check concepts from W3C.org on how to make events accessible, as some of these rules can benefit your audience.

Presenters often ask themselves whether is worth applying a new framework for their presentation design and delivery. The reality is that the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint Presentations is one of the most effective methods to build your presentation skills . In the list below, we expose the main benefits of this framework for presenters.

Concise and Focused Presentation

With a limited number of slides and a strict time limit, the 10/20/30 encourages you to choose the most relevant content and eliminate unnecessary information carefully. This avoids overwhelming your audience with too much information and ensures your key message is clear and memorable.

Improved Audience Engagement

This rule encourages presenters to focus on delivering a clear message rather than overwhelming the audience with flashy visuals. With fewer slides and a shorter duration, you are likelier to hold your audience’s attention throughout the presentation. This also allows you to address questions from the audience, leading to better interaction and a productive meeting.

Increased Chance of Success

Whether pitching to investors or selling a product, a concise and focused presentation can significantly increase your chances of success. The 10/20/30 rule helps you effectively communicate your value proposition and address potential concerns. This makes your presentation more persuasive and memorable, increasing the likelihood of securing funding or closing a sale.

Time Management

The more senior the person you present to, the lesser time you got to make your case and convey your message. Following the 10/20/30 encourages you to be mindful of the time and deliver your presentation within the allocated timeframe. It also allows you to show respect for your audience’s time.

1. Present One Idea Per Slide

Following Kawasaki’s rule on creating your PowerPoint presentation, identify the key points you want to convey to your audience and allocate one slide for each.

Presenting one idea per slide can help your audience stay focused on the topic at hand.  It makes it easier for them to understand and remember your message, as it reduces the amount of information they have to process at once. When there’s too much information on a slide, it can be overwhelming and distracting, making it difficult for your audience to stay engaged and attentive.

Presenting one idea per slide can also help you control the flow of information and ensure that you cover all of your main points.

2. Keep Your Slides Simple

As mentioned earlier, the 10/20/30 rule emphasizes simplicity. Keep your slides simple and avoid flashy design elements that may distract your audience.

Use a consistent color scheme , font style, and layout throughout your presentation. This will help your audience follow along and focus on your message.

3. Balance Text and Visuals

Visuals like images, charts, graphs, videos, and diagrams can help break up text-heavy slides and make your presentation more interesting and memorable. However, relying solely on images can also be ineffective and lead to confusion or disengagement.

When using visuals in your slides, it’s important to balance text and images. Text can provide important context and details, while images can help illustrate key points and make your presentation visually appealing.

Let’s say you want to inform your audience of your company’s marketing plan . Using a rising spiral template is an excellent choice since it can represent multiple plan stages with increasing intensity.

4. Break Down Your Presentation into Smaller Units and Make it Interactive

Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule only gives you 20 minutes to wrap up the whole presentation, but what if you need more than that?

It’s not uncommon to give presentations that last 45 minutes to an hour – for instance, if you are giving a lecture or facilitating a training workshop for employees. The longer your presentation, however, the harder it will be to hold your audience’s attention.

One great way to keep them engaged is to divide your presentation into smaller units and pause in between.

So, before the guy from the third row starts yawning, plan in-between activities to reenergize your audience and reacquire their attention. It can be a simple Q&A session, interactive exercises, or team-building activities.

Don’t forget to time your activities so they won’t disrupt the flow of your presentation.

5. Start Strong

The opening of your presentation is critical in capturing your audience’s attention and setting the tone for the rest of the presentation. Start with a compelling hook, such as a thought-provoking question, a powerful quote, or an engaging story, to grab your audience’s attention. Clearly state the purpose and objectives of your presentation to establish the context and provide a roadmap for what’s to come.

6. End Strong

Your outro is as important as your introduction. So, instead of ending your presentation with a flat Thank you slide , use the opportunity to nudge your audience to action.

Using a summary slide is one of the ways you can end your presentation if your goal is to reinforce your key points. It can be a useful reference for the audience, helping them remember the most important information.

You can also encourage your audience to take action based on what they’ve learned in your presentation. This can be a great way to motivate them to apply the concepts you’ve covered.

The 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint is a useful framework to emulate in creating your presentation.

There are questions about the practicality of its application outside the business context. However, we can agree that it teaches us valuable insight – keeping presentations concise as possible. Limiting the number of slides, adhering to a strict time limit, and using a larger font size can create a concise presentation that effectively communicates your message.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to presenting; you don’t have to strictly follow Kawasaki’s rule. Depending on the audience and the topic, modify the template and adapt your presentation to suit the situation.

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What Is the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint?

Published: November 12, 2020

Despite how many PowerPoint presentations I’ve given in my life, I’ve always struggled with understanding the best practices for creating them. I know they need to look nice, but figuring out how to make them aesthetically pleasing and informative is tough. 

I’m sure my experience isn’t unique, as finding the correct balance between content, design, and timing can be difficult. Marketers know this more than anyone, as success in the role is often marked by being able to create engaging campaigns that tell a story and inspire audiences to take a specific action, like purchasing a product. 

However, PowerPoint presentations are different from advertisements. Understanding how to leverage your marketing knowledge when creating PowerPoints can be tricky. Still, there are various resources for marketers to use when creating presentations, one of which is the 10/20/30 rule. 

What is the 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint?

The 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint is a straightforward concept: no PowerPoint presentation should be more than ten slides, longer than 20 minutes, and use fonts smaller than 30 point size. 

Coined by Guy Kawasaki, the rule is a tool for marketers to create excellent PowerPoint presentations. Each element of the formula helps marketers find a balance between design and conceptual explanations, so you can capture audience attention, emphasize your points, and enhance readability. 

Guy Kawasaki PowerPoint

Guy Kawasaki , one of the early Apple employees, championed the concept of a ‘brand evangelist’ to describe his position. He spent most of his time working to generate a follower base for Macintosh, the family of Apple computers. Today he works as a brand evangelist for Canva, an online graphic design tool. 

Given that he’s had significant experience giving presentations to captivate audiences, he’s figured out that the 10/20/30 is a successful formula to follow. Kawasaki’s book, Art of The Start , is where he first introduced the concept and described how it works.

Let’s cover each part of the rule in more detail. 

Kawasaki believes that it’s challenging for audiences to comprehend more than ten concepts during a presentation. Given this, marketers should aim to create PowerPoints with no more than ten slides, i.e., ten ideas you’ll explain. Using fewer slides and focusing on the critical elements helps your audience grasp the concepts you’re sharing with them. 

In practice, this means creating slides that are specific and straight to the point. For example, say you’re presenting on the success of your recent campaign. Your marketing strategy was likely extensive, and you took a series of different actions to obtain your end result. Instead of outlining every aspect of your campaign, you would use your slides to outline its main elements of your strategy. This could look like individual slides for summarizing the problem you hoped to solve, your goals, the steps you took to reach your goals, and post-campaign analytics data that summarizes your accomplishments. 

It’s important to note that there shouldn’t be overwhelming amounts of text on your slides. You want them to be concise. Your audience should get most of the information from the words you’re speaking; your slides should be more supplemental than explanatory. 

After you’ve spent time coming up with your ten key points, you’ll need to present them in 20 minutes. Knowing that you’ll only have 20 minutes also makes it easier to plan and structure your talk, as you’ll know how much time to dedicate to each slide, so you address all relevant points.

Kawasaki acknowledges that presentation time slots can often be longer, but finishing at the 20-minute mark leaves time for valuable discussion and Q&A. Saving time in your presentation also leaves space for technical difficulties. 

30 Point Font

If you’ve been in the audience during a presentation, you probably know that slides with small font can be challenging to read and take your attention away from the speaker. 

Kawasaki’s final rule is that no font within your presentation should be smaller than 30 point size. If you’ve already followed the previous rules, then you should be able to display your key points on your slides in a large enough font that users can read. Since your key points are short and focused, there won’t be a lot of text for your audience to read, and they’ll spend more time listening to you speak. 

Given that the average recommended font size for accessibility is 16, using a 30-point font ensures that all members of your audience can read and interact with your slides. 

Make Your Presentations More Engaging

The 10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint is meant to help marketers create powerful presentations. 

Each element of the rule works in tandem with the other: limiting yourself to 10 slides requires you to select the most salient points to present to your audience. A 20-minute timeline helps you ensure that you’re contextualizing those slides as you speak, without delving into unnecessary information. Using a 30-point font can act as a final check for your presentation, as it emphasizes the importance of only displaying key points on your slides, rather than huge blocks of text. Font size then circles back around to the ten slides, as you’ll craft sentences from your key points that will fit on your slides in 30-point font. 

Being mindful of slide count, text size, and presentation length ensures that your audiences are captivated by your words as you explain the value behind your work. 

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Microsoft 365 Life Hacks > Presentations > Implementing The 10-20-30 Rule of PowerPoint

Implementing The 10-20-30 Rule of PowerPoint

If you’re not used to making a PowerPoint presentation , it can be tough to know how long to make it and how to format the slides. On the other side of the coin: you might overthink your presentation and put too much information on too many slides.

With help from the 10-20-30 rule, you can make a PowerPoint presentation that’s engaging and efficient . The guidelines for this rule are as follows:

• No more than 10 slides.
• No longer than 20 minutes.
• No larger than 30-point font.

Let’s look deeper at the 10-20-30 PowerPoint rule, why it’s a good rule to follow and things to do to follow this guideline.

Tell your story with captivating presentations

Powerpoint empowers you to develop well-designed content across all your devices

Don’t use more than 10 slides. A good presenter shouldn’t have to (or want to) lean heavily on their PowerPoint slides. The slides should be a supplement for your presentation, not the headliner. Limiting to 10 slides will ensure that you’re not going over the top with the length of your presentation and keeps it moving. Your slide count should include both your title and conclusion. A presentation that goes on any longer than 10 slides will distract from what you’re saying and starts to feel like an information overload.

Keep your presentation 20 minutes MAX. During a presentation, people start tuning out after about 10 minutes.Limiting your presentation to this length will ensure that your audience will remember much of what you’re saying. If you’re covering a more complex topic and need more time, stick to the 20-minute MAX rule—it’s much easier to schedule your presentation by timing each slide down to about two minutes. That feels like a much more manageable timeframe, doesn’t it?

Don’t use fonts smaller than size 30. A 30-point font is a great minimum size because it ensures that your text is easy to read from a distance. The recommended guideline to make your presentation accessible to those who might be visually impaired is a 24-point font. Upping the size to 30 is a significant difference, and you can be confident that your audience can see what you’ve written. In addition, choose a font that’s easy to read. For years it was recommended that you stick solely to sans-serif fonts with digital media because serifs could blur together, making certain fonts hard to read. High-resolution screens have nearly eliminated this problem, so some serif fonts can be used and are easy to read in PowerPoint presentations.

Tips for sticking to these guidelines. It’s not always easy to cut down your presentation to fit the 30-20-10 rule if you’re presenting a lot of information. Follow these tips while putting together your presentation to make the entire process easier on yourself:

• Limit text to the 6×6 rule. It can feel like there are a lot of rules for making a PowerPoint presentation, but they’re all there to help you make a well-organized and engaging presentation. The 6×6 rule suggests that you don’t use more than six lines or bullet points on each slide and limit each line or bullet point to six words. Following the 6×6 rule helps to ensure that you’re limiting the amount of information on your slides so you can continue to present it rather than have your audience read it.
• Use visuals instead. Visuals like graphics, animated gifs, and videos can help to keep your audience engaged . Including visuals with your presentation will also help you limit the amount of time and content on each slide. A graph or illustration on the right side of your slide limits the amount of space you have on the left side. This can help to minimize the amount of text you have.
• Practice makes perfect. There’s a very cool, free tool called PowerPoint Speaker Coach , which leverages AI to help you nail your presentation. Speaker coach gives you feedback on your pace, pitch, use of filler words, poor grammar, lack of originality, use of sensitive phrases, and more as you rehearse your presentation. You’ll get a Summary Report at the end—with key pieces of feedback to help you become a confident presenter .

Use the 10-20-30 PowerPoint rule and these other tips to keep your presentation simple. Whether you’re a college student presenting a class project or a teen making the case for a new car, following these guidelines will help.

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The Only 10 Slides You Need in Your Pitch

I am evangelizing the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. It’s quite simple: a pitch should have ten slides , last no more than twenty minutes , and contain no font smaller than thirty points . This rule is applicable for any presentation to reach an agreement: for example, raising capital, making a sale, forming a partnership, etc.

• Ten slides. Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting—and venture capitalists are very normal. (The only difference between you and venture capitalist is that he is getting paid to gamble with someone else’s money). If you must use more than ten slides to explain your business, you probably don’t have a business.
• Twenty minutes . You should give your ten slides in twenty minutes. Sure, you have an hour time slot, but you’re using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector. Even if the setup goes perfectly, people will arrive late and have to leave early. In a perfect world, you give your pitch in twenty minutes, and you have forty minutes left for discussion.
• Thirty-point font . The majority of the presentations that I see have text in a ten-point font. As much text as possible is jammed into the slide, and then the presenter reads it. However, as soon as the audience figures out that you’re reading the text, it reads ahead of you because it can read faster than you can speak. The result is that you and the audience are out of synch.

I hope this helps you create a winning pitch deck for your startup. If you’re interested in this template, you’re probably an entrepreneur. Please check out my podcast, Remarkable People , to learn from remarkable entrepreneurs such as Steve Wozniak (Apple), Melanie Perkins (Canva), Suzy Batiz (Poo Pourri), Steve Wolfram (Mathematica), and Melissa Bernstein (Melissa and Doug).

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46 Comments

Very good points. Sometimes less is more, especially when you are trying to get important points across and increase your credibility.

I fully subscribe to this logic…just find it interesting that were you to convert this excellent info-graphic to slides it would equal approximately 15 slides.

Your presentation is meant to support the message you’re communicating, not obscure it. I can’t agree with the thought ” a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting “. Using more than ten slides to explain for my business may not break my standard level.thanks

Very good simple and pragmatic tool useful in various domains. I see many applications for NGOs either with policy makers or donors. We need more of those to help them integrate private sector good practices, and hence gain in professionalism, impact and coherence.

Why is this not the template used for Shark Tank?

HA! This is the exact same template used for Shark Tank, minus the deck / linear format. Otherwise, all these topics are the key focal points of their discussions.

Loved this article especially the part about “using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector” .. hehehe!

I love this article. However, this comment ( his comment ) is unnecessary and distracting – it could have been eliminated and the article would be even stronger. I’ve been burned enough times with projectors and Apple computers that I rigorously avoid them – a personal choice. Yet, I wouldn’t have injected my bias about Apple into this article if I was wrote it. In ‘ The Art of the Keynote Guy says ‘ Don’t denigrate the competition ‘ – good advice. Apparently Microsoft is the competition. He should follow his own counsel.

And the reality is it’s true you wouldn’t spend 40 minutes trying to get it to work with an apple. You’d realize immediately you don’t have the right adapter that’d be that.

I didn’t get past the first line because the phrase is “in a pinch” not “pitch”.

Peggy is this a joke? The author is referring to a sales pitch. There’s no such thing as a “sales pinch.” He’s not referencing your phrase.

Only one slide is missing… Defensibility & IP. Every good pitch has some sort of moat. Trade secrets, patents, exclusivity agreements, etc. Investors want to have some sort of competitive advantage and protections.

Same goes for sales pitches.

Brian – wouldn’t that would be in the Underlying Magic?

Dave – Not really. The underlying magic is your “model”; what are you doing differently to address the need in the market?

As an investor, you want exclusivity in the market to that magical way of addressing the need. That means you have a legal way to defend the IP (e.g. patents, copyrights, etc.). With those elements your execution in fulfilling the need becomes less important, and thereby reduces investor risk, because in the end we can then license the IP to someone who can.

How would someone protect a big idea let’s say as example the idea of Facebook. A network idea. A big idea, but one that could be grabbed and replicated. How do you protect “the idea” even from those angel investors you are pitching to? Do you ask investors to sign anything before you pitch? I am stuck at this very fundamental starting point.

I agree. This is where I am stuck. My business model and idea are based around a network sales concept and exclusive market niche (a huge niche). How do I protect that? Do I need to protect this idea, even from presenting to investors? How do you protect a network concept, for instance how would you have protected the idea of Facebook going in to present the concept to investors? Is stealth, speed of execution, launch and quick scaling the only ways?

@Briand and Dave, What I recall from the book, Underlying Magic refers to differentiation; which can take the form of IP, unfair advantage or innovative resource/model.

Great Article. I completely agree with Guy, the attention span of most people is max 20 minutes after which the human mind has moved on. the slides may be more than 10 but really your message is only heard in the first 15 to 20 minutes. Lol so agree with the 40 minutes set up time :) that is something we see all the time..

Great article! nice to read. is there any example or presentation, if you have please share with us.

I would add use of pictures and graphs along with text in the presentation. Pictures catch great deal attention and they communicate well. I would also add presenter’s voice pitch and connecting with audience while presenting.

Guy’s 10 slides are clearly structured as a pitch presentation format for investors. Having now been on both sides of the table, I can confidently say they are an effective template / discipline for getting your story focused on the essential check list of questions that investors will have, for keeping their attention, and for whetting their appetites to want to learn more .. and potentially attracting a champion in the process. With a strong leader taking command of the presentation, these guidelines work well for improving your batting average attracting $. As Mark Twain said, “If I had more time I’d have made it shorter”. If that was ever more true, it’s with investors who are barraged daily with deals.

Love the 10/20/30 philosophy and am rewriting an article => video to follow. Some of the comments make me a bit concerned though.

some wat to relavent about internation affairs of nationality inthe antise social group….!!!!

What is your take on the PechaKucha format of 20 x 20 – 20 slides , 20 seconds each? In a world of decreasing attention spans do you think this format has the ability to add a bit more Zing and Energy to a presentation? Allows more time for Q & A then too.

This is very, very helpful to me in creating my pitch.

This is realy helpful I using the same in my studies here in Kenya

Thank you GK, I used it. I raised capital for my young company.

Very good simple and pragmatic tool useful in various domains. well elaborated design and understandable.

Funny thing is, I am using Canva for a project presentation in a Strategic Sales class and this was the first useful article I found to help me get a start on it.

I can agree with this as someone who make many pitch decks. I like the idea of 10, but it is not feasible as there is no consumer insight, media quotes, simple marketing plan, etc. Yes. there should be 10 topics, but that does not mean 10 slides as some topics do take multiple slides, even if just a media coverage quote on a slide to introduce a topic.

Guy Kawasaki pitch deck are very small but very helpful for startup, however have a look this one pitch deck, https://goo.gl/QaCrPT it have 450+ slides cover all the topics of every pitch. 6 categories template such as marketing, sales, investor, startup,

I think it’s interesting that “Exit Strategy” is a stupid question. Perhaps what Guy is saying is the “Underlying Magic” is the exit strategy?

I really like the book The art of start 2.0. He explains in simple words and its easy to understand. I recommend the book!

I agree with Guy’s thoughts. In addition: Make up a deck. Show it to a friend. Then 2 days later ask them what it said. Tweak the deck so that the viewer is left with 3 or 4 most important bullets. These should be very much akin to the notions in the Elevator Pitch.

Does anyone have any good examples of anyone using this format? It would be nice to see this applied.

People invest in people so my pitch decks, based on Guy’s approach, have the team slide in position #2. The 3-4 key individuals are listed as follows:

Joe Shmo Head of Engineering Cal Berkeley – MS Computer Science Previously VP Engineering @ Lightning Networks (acquired by Cisco) Driving product development

I don’t make a big deal about the CFO and never use “R&D” in the pitch. VC’s early on dictate who the CFO is, and one VC told me years ago that “research is done in universities, not with my money”

Limit of 10 slides enforces you to be concise, to see and display a core of the project. And it is critical to be understandable for audience. When you don’t spend additional time of investors, they see that you respect them. So they will respect you.

I’m looking for a pitch deck for a veterans non-profit.

Hello every body,

I’m a senior counselor for entrepreneurship and business in knowledge-based as well as normal habitant civil services. In my opinion, the very pre-condition for any good presentation is good idea with tested de-coupled sub-phases of the business. The investor and his/her venture capitalist is plausibly expert to capture the subject.

If you don’t have a great and sizable business idea don’t expect that you will win with any trick such 10/20/30. These rules are suitable for great-idea owners.

One of my ask for pitch deck. Your advise on pitch deck relief me from the pressure.But when i started to do the pitch deck , it takes 3 hours to complete and i made only 8 slide. I realized that i am weak at PowerPoint presentation. Can you release a course on power-point? Thank You

Valuable help for all our startups.

The article is very well written; short but useful. Thanks for sharing such a useful piece of content.

Guy, I love this format and I push it on all the entrepreneurs I coach. As I’m prepping to give a presentation and share it though, I see that the infographic form is actually impossible to present in PPT. Text is too small and formatting isn’t right. Seems like the infographic needs a little rework to be most useful!

Very well written article. Thanks for sharing such a useful piece of content.

Beautiful Article, Guy! Short and to the point and explained your points with proper justification. Rhyming concept 10/20/30 too.

Minimalism at its finest. 10 slides felt a bit less at first but the infographic made things very clear.

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The 10-20-30 Rule: Guy Kawasaki on PowerPoint

You’ve just been asked to give a project update to your colleagues at next week’s lunch-hour seminar.

Quick… How many slides will you use? How much text can you put on them? How long should you speak — the whole hour, or less?

Don’t know? Guy Kawasaki, a famous author and venture capitalist, has the answers and they may surprise you.

What is the 10-20-30 Rule for PowerPoint?

Guy Kawasaki framed his 10-20-30 Rule for PowerPoint as:

• 10 slides are the optimal number to use for a presentation.
• 20 minutes is the longest amount of time you should speak.
• 30 point font is the smallest font size you should use on your slides.

You can read his pitch here , and you can see his pitch below (or here ):

What I Love About the 10-20-30 Rule for PowerPoint

If everyone were to follow this advice, the overall quality of business presentations everywhere would improve dramatically. If you stop reading now and follow this advice religiously, I wouldn’t complain too much.

#1: 10 Slides Constrains the Presenter to Choose Wisely

Sure, 10 may seem like an arbitrary number, but putting a limit on the number of slides you are allowed is a valuable constraint. Most people probably have 20, or 30, or 100 slides for a 1-hour presentation. Trimming this number down to 10 forces you to evaluate the necessity of each and every slide. Just like every element of your presentation, if the slide isn’t necessary, it should be cut.

It also encourages a presenter to design wisely. Often a single well-designed diagram eliminates the need for 5 bullet-point slides.

#2: 20 Minutes is Long Enough to Communicate Something Big

“ Often a single well-designed diagram eliminates the need for 5 bullet-point slides. ”

Just like the constraint on the number of slides, a constraint on your speaking time will force you to edit mercilessly. Trim the sidebar jokes. Trim the gratuitous “I’m happy to be here” pleasantries. Trim the stories which aren’t essential to conveying your message. Trim the details that only 5% of the audience cares about — send them out via email later. When you are able to trim all the extras, you can communicate with precision and concision.

Martin Luther King Jr. only needed 17 minutes to share his dream. What makes you think you need more?

#3: 30-Point Font Guarantees Readability

Unless you have a very large audience and a very small projector screen (it has happened to me), 30-point font should be readable by everyone in your audience.  Bigger is probably better, but this is a sensible lower threshold to adopt.

While a 30-point font still allows you to put too many words on a slide, at least your audience will be able to read them.

What I Hate About the 10-20-30 Rule for PowerPoint

There are very few strict rules for public speaking, and these don’t qualify. Here’s a few reasons why you should consider them guidelines, but not rules.

#1: Every Situation is Unique

First, remember Guy Kawasaki’s context for the rule: 1-hour presentations from entrepreneurs to venture capitalists. He’s a successful venture capitalist, so let’s assume his rule is perfect for that scenario.

But does this scenario match your next presentation? If not, then be careful about applying the wisdom to your personal situation.

#2: There’s no Perfect Number of Slides

“ Develop your content first , and then add slides as necessary. ”

“How many slides should I have?” is one of the most frequent questions I hear. Somebody asks it every time I deliver my PowerPoint design course.

The wrong answers are numerous:

• You should always have 10 slides
• You should always have one slide per minute
• You should always have one slide per major point
• You should have no more than 5 slides

The right answer is: How many slides do you need ?

How many slides are necessary for you to convey your message in an effective and memorable way? It might be zero. It might be one. It might be 200. It depends heavily on the nature of your content, the message you are delivering, and the complexity of your slides.

Develop your content first , and then add slides as necessary.

#3: There’s no Perfect Duration to Speak

The 20 minute suggestion assumes a 1-hour time slot. So, the rule is really saying that you should speak for one-third of your allowed time and leave two-thirds for Q&A . That’s not a bad guideline. In fact, it’s a very good general guideline .

But, it depends. Maybe the format of your event just doesn’t allow for Q&A within or after the presentation. Maybe you are doing a product demo which takes 10 minutes, and you’ve only got a 12-minute time slot. (That’s cutting it close!) Maybe the conference is running 35 minutes behind and you are the last speaker of the day. Or, maybe your audience is better served by a 1-minute speech and a 59-minute Q&A.

Consider the needs of your audience, and choose the best presentation format that will meet those needs.

#4: There’s no Perfect Font Size

30-point font might be an optimal size, but it might be too small or too large. The optimal size depends on several factors:

• how much text is on your slides (aim for less!)
• the contrast between the text and background colors
• the lighting in the room
• the distance between your audience and the screen
• the quality of the projector
• the vision of your audience
• the time of day (Is your audience tired? Have they been looking at slides all day?)

If you have any doubts, go large.

#5: Size Matters, but Quantity Matters More

To be blunt, it doesn’t matter what the font size is as long as your audience can easily read the words. It is, however, much more important to take a step back from your slides and assess whether the words you’ve got are necessary at all. Neither you nor your audience should be reading lengthy passages of text from your slides. Your audience should be listening to you, and the slides are just visual aids.

#6: If Everybody’s Following the Rules, Maybe You Shouldn’t

One of the strengths of Guy Kawasaki’s advice is that, if you follow it, you are likely to stand out from your peers in a good way. They are probably using too many slides, speaking too long, and putting too much small text on the slides. Standing out as a speaker is a good thing.

But, maybe your colleagues are disciples of Guy Kawasaki. Maybe the 10-slide, 20-minute briefing is commonplace, and your corporate template is set to 30-point font. That’s when the environment is ripe for doing something different. Don’t just change it up for the sake of doing so, but watch for an opportunity where presenting without slides or presenting with 200 makes sense, and go for it.

The Verdict

I applaud Guy Kawasaki’s efforts to use his influence to improve the presentation status quo . He has reached many people with his message; if you are still reading this article, then he’s reaching you too. Overall, the impact of his rule has inched us collectively in the right direction.

But… the 10-20-30 Rule shouldn’t be viewed as a strict rule. (And, for the record, I don’t think Guy Kawasaki views it a strict rule either.) It’s a sound guideline which you should always consider, but make your choices based on your audience, your message, and your own personal style.

Your Thoughts?

What’s your verdict on the 10-20-30 Rule? Should it be embossed onto the surface of every digital projector in the world?

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27 comments.

I love that you explored both perspectives on Guy’s rule. My answer on the 10/20/30 rule would the classic “it depends”. I have day long workshops with no slides, and webinars that have tons… like you said it’s all about your message, your audience, and what is authentic for you.

Cheers, @amandafenton

GREAT. Thank you.

I have been a fan and follower of Guy for almost 30 years and appreciate the clarity and confidence of his speaking and ideas. He knows his stuff, he knows he knows his stuff, and he is generally correct.

You additional comments Andrew help bring the message home. I like that you challenge him a bit (there is no right number of slides).

Thank you for sharing this.

On a side note, I ready many blogs, tweets, and posts on public speaking. Yours is the best. Clearly. Even better than mine (and I do not often say that!)

Since my “presentations” are actually sermons, 20 minutes would be a stretch (because of the teaching nature of a sermon) but I love the idea of being concise and to the point. Awesome thoughts from Guy and you!

Good article (and of course Guy’s rule is a good preliminary rule for Power Point use, especially for VC pitches). That said, there are a couple of further issues about Power Point that need to be highlighted. 1. When you’re asking audiences to look at Power Point, you’re asking them to do 2 things at once (pay attention to the speaker and read slides). Most of us have a very hard time doing that effectively. So you’d better have a very good reason to ask people to look at slides. Word slides — especially word slides that are essentially speaker notes — are a highly ineffective use of Power Point because they drain too much of the audience’s attention. Pictures, an occasional graph, and very limited use of words that make one big point, can work. I recommend Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen as the best book on slides and their uses and abuses. The fact is that the vast majority of business slide decks are speaker notes OR reports that would be better as a leave-behind, and so abuse the audience’s attention. We need to respect, not abuse, our audiences. 2. The research on attention spans suggest that they last about 22 minutes. John Medina, in his great book Brain Rules, suggests that he’s found (among his college students) that attention span is down to 10 minutes. What most people don’t understand about attention span is that it doesn’t mean that the audience is gone never to return. Rather, it means that the audience needs a quick break. As Medina points out, often a pause, a question, a breath, a stretch, or a joke is enough to refresh the attention span (even of college students). So don’t exaggerate what the effect of the limited attention span is. 3. Finally, no one should hide behind the old chestnut that Power Point improves retention. There is simply no good evidence of that. Slides are best used to present pictures with emotional impact. We remember things well that have an emotional impact on us. We don’t remember lists, facts, data, or information well at all.

Thanks Andrew for posting this! I am sure the community of Office users over on Facebook would love to hear your thoughts. You should share your knowledge of Powerpoint with the community over on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Office

Cheers, Bryn MSFT Office Outreach Team

I almost went nuts when I started reading this post, thinking it was all “Pro Guy”, until I saw that you examine both sides of the argument. Good call.

I stand by my belief that there is no “correct” method of presenting. Aside from Guy’s there is the Lessig, Garr Reynolds, and Takashi, just to name a few. All have interesting and effective elements of presentation design.

I often hear people say that X number of slides are too many, or too few, or that X size font is too big (really?). If it’s presented effectively, you can’t say a presentation has too few or too many slides. It’s ALL how you present.

Great post.

Jon Thomas Presentation Advisors

In addition to the above rule of 10-20-30, let me add a “0 rule”. The zero rule indicates that a Powerpoint presentation should not have any errors like spelling mistakes,wrong pronunciations, mistakes in sentence constructions etc..

I agree with most of this. I certainly found Guy’s 10-20-30 rule true as an entrepreneur. As a public speaker, I recently gave a 45 slide presentation in 10 minutes for a 1 hour session. 1 idea per slide or 1 idea for multiple slides, clicked through quickly to make the point.

I think I just found a new addiction! I really enjoy the review style on here and the clarity. I’ll be back for more speaking tips for sure.

Thank you all for a lively discussion on the appropriate use of slides in presentations. For me, I like slides that “show”, and speakers who “tell”. As others have stated, slides should be used as support material or visual sparkle. Save the bullet-heavy points for the handout. If a picture truly is worth a thousand words, any attempt at adding words to it may actually lessen its impact. In the art world, we always hear that “less is more”, which I believe is Guy Kawasaki’s message: Be a brutal editor, not just with the images you use, but also with your “script”. I think everyone appreciates tightly organized presentations that offer real value.

The knowledge of the 10-20-30 rule would help teachers all around the world to keep their audience awake. When the autor writes about exceptions it shows that he knows what he is writing about. I think that every rule has some exceptions.

Thanks for that informative article.

I think the 10 – 20 – 30 rule is a good clue for people who have not made any presentations. 10 slides, 20 minutes for speaking and the 30 – point font are good advices for beginners. But it should be only an advice. The amount of the slides is dependent on your theme and which information the presenter wants to transport. Of course 200 slides are too much for a 20 minutes presentation, but there isn’t a rule. Also there shouldn’t be a rule for a time limit. The time which the presenter needs you cannot set on 20 minutes exactly. For some topics you need more time to transmit it to your audience and to go more into the deep. The 30-point font rule makes sense only the whole audience can read the text on your slide. Exactly as the time of speaking and the amount of the slides the font size is dependent on some factors like Andrew said. Finally I think the most important is that you could transport your message in an interesting and informing way.

Hi Andrew, I think that kind of rule is a very helpful thing to plan your presentations properly. There are allways things to improve and you allways can do it better but that way of presentation would be a great improvement for many people. You would prevent many really bad presentations and have solid ground to start without doing bad. But printing it on the projector wouldn´t help. When you don´t know the rule and read it there you get nervouse becase than you know what you did wrong bevore and what you are doing wrong in the next minutes. Best regards, Matthias

Dear Andrew, For me the 10-20-30 rule sounds really good. The best thing is that you can remember it very easily. Everybody should think about this rule before making a presentation, but of course you have to adapt the rule on the situation. But even if the rule would be written down on the projector people won’t use it, I think most of the people know what a good presentation should look like, but knowing the facts does not necessary mean that the presentation looks like it should in the end…

The 10-20-30 rule for powerpoint offers a great chance to improve presentations. Thinking about the rules in general, they may be a great help, but in many cases the presenter should optimize the presentation by attending the special thematic. The most important point that i personally get out of the rules is to look extremely on the number of slides to not to confuse the audience. I often can’t get the information of the slides as being a listener myself if there are to much of them. All in all the rules will help me for my future presentations and i will try it as soon as possible. All the best Adschmal

The 10-20-30 Rule is a good guideline for presentations, but in my opinion every presentation is unique and has its own rules. For example: the audience, the facilities or the topic. This could be very different and this is the reason why I think that everybody who makes a presentation should coordinate this parameters to reach the goal.

I think that the 10-20-30 rule is a good “reference point” for everyone, who has to do (to prepare) a presentation. But at least every presenter has to know how many slides and how much time he/she needs for the presentation. All in all, the presentation should (must) contain all the important and necessary points of the topic.

I think Kawasaki’s rule is a very good guideline, which can give the right hint to people with less experience in doing presentations. You can look critical on the 20 minuites rule, because that would really depend on the audience and the situation. But the important questions, that everybody should ask oneself after preparing a presentation, are: Is every information necessary? Are the slides readable? Are the slides a assistance or do they make the front-person worthless.

I usually try to have an average talking time of 2 minutes per slide, too. That in combination with almost blank slides really helps to keep the audience’s interest on oneself.

Everyone has to find the best strategy for himself, but Kawasaki gives us the right approach to do so.

best regards, Chris

What’s your verdict on the 10-20-30 Rule?

I think this 10-20-30 Rule is good for beginners, who don’t know what is really important. This rule is very useful for presentations at school or for short business meetings. If you have the purpose to teach something 20 minutes is less time and you are only able to give the audience an overview of a topic.

Should it be embossed onto the surface of every digital projector in the world?

No, how I explained in Question 1 it isn’t good for every kind of presentation. In some cases it is excellent, but sometimes your need mor than 10 slides, or less time than 20 minutes. I think you can’t say that there is a general rule for a presentation in the course slides number and time. It really depends on the topic, available time and purpose.

thank you for this good advices! It is perfect for me to prepare for my next presentation and will allow me to just focus on the important points and the message I want to deliver….

Rock on…

I would underline and accept the 10-20 in the 10-20-30 Rule, as it is important (to be able) to focus on the main things, which stands for the 10, and 20 minutes should be enough to explain even complex relations/models/etc. – but I do not agree with the 30, as you might not know how big the audience or the room in which you are giving your presentation is. Because of that I think that you cannot generalize what font size you should have. But I would still keep the 30 in the rule, which should show the maximum amount of words in one slide.

All in all I would say that the 10-20-30 Rule is a good advice for beginners, but definitely needs some adaptions on the presenters needs.

my verdict on the 10-20-30 rule is that i find it a nice rule to work with. 10 slides are on the one side a little to few , but on the other side you have to chose carefully what you put in your slides fpr your presenation. in 20 min you can put a lot of inforamtion and you can also chose carefuly what you say. Idon´t think that is should be embosed on every projector because when everybody uses this 10-20-30 rule than will not be necesary

My verdict I think it`s a good opinion to make good presentation. It´s very comfortable for the audience if they can read the point fond. Your presentation isn`t going confuesed if you have only slides and the audience doesn`t drift oft if you speak only 20 minutes.

should it be emassed on to the surface of every digital projector in the world?

No i don`t think so. I think it`s an good guideline to make good presentation`s but you have to distinguish what presentation you have. If you have to give a presentation in a meeting or something like this, than this a really good rules but for a lecture with an audience of experts i think this not the right way.

for my opinion the 10 – 20 – 30 rule is quiet good stuff to make a presentation. Probably the most people made fails in this points. On the other hand i would like to say that when you have to hold a 60 min presentation you can´t talk only 20 minutes have a 40 minutes discussion. But this rules are good to help you to were a grood presenter!

A good base for the preparation of a presentation. Thank you for this interesting article.

I’m glad that Guy got everyone thinking about WHAT they are presenting on screen. But his formula still gives far too much text on screen!

The 20 is obsolete if you are contracted to speak for 45-60 minutes. I’ll let you know what I come up with.

Recent Tweets

The 10-20-30 Rule: Guy Kawasaki on PowerPoint http://t.co/3GHrnzuSVI via @6minutes — @wisnurdi Aug 22nd, 2015

The 10-20-30 Rule for PowerPoint presentations http://t.co/799nM1ara4 via @6minutes @GuyKawasaki http://t.co/F1xL83MuZQ — @gregreeder Aug 24th, 2015

10 20 30 Regeln för powerpoint. Bra eller dålig? http://t.co/Sa5lZQBSPg — @hakanfleischer Aug 24th, 2015

Good tips to use in presentations. Guy Kawasaki http://t.co/SWQWrEVvuk — Morris Gellman TM (@tmastersarg) Sep 1st, 2015

The 10-20-30 Rule: Guy Kawasaki on PowerPoint http://t.co/HA8pBnwAjk via @6minutes — Tawn Gillihan (@tgillihan) Sep 4th, 2015

10 20 30 Rule for PowerPoint: Useful or Useless? http://t.co/c2igyLyknj — @MichaelAlbert Sep 4th, 2015

The 10-20-30 Rule: Guy Kawasaki on PowerPoint https://t.co/8sIPS4I3Mk — @Present_2016 Nov 3rd, 2015

The 10-20-30 Rule: Guy Kawasaki on PowerPoint https://t.co/BODPNzRugx — @geraldo3 Jan 19th, 2016

@Sandrafobia well I like the 10/20/30 rule, but only as a guide and it’s just an opinion 😊 https://t.co/1wQwih1m3J — @xurxosanz Feb 7th, 2016

dear Client, the 10-20-30 rule DOES apply to you. it applies to EVERYONE using PowerPoint. not kidding on this. https://t.co/St1c4weAmJ — @johnfoster Apr 5th, 2016

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February 9, 2024

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Everything You Need To Know About 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint Presentations

Would you like to deliver a perfect presentation? Who wouldn’t! Here is an overview of the 10/20/30 Rule for making your presentations polished and perfect.

What's Inside?

What does the best presentation look like? We may not have an answer for that, but we have a clear answer for how a bad presentation looks. Think about a presentation that goes for over 30 minutes, goes over 15 slides, and is still counting, and the speaker reads texts on the slides. Is there anyone even still listening? Most of the audience fell asleep, looking at their phone or daydreaming at this point. 

So, what was wrong with this presentation? What should the speaker do for their next presentation? Here is the 10/20/30 Rule! This rule will be your guideline to avoid horrible presentations. 

We prepared a comprehensive guide to create and deliver effective presentations by using the 10/20/30 Rule! If you want information about the 10/20/30 Rule, how to apply it to your presentation, its benefits and downsides, and some helpful tips from us for your next presentation, keep reading! 

Presentations in Our Life

Presentations are a ubiquitous part of our lives. In many settings, we can be asked to give presentations, convey information, share ideas, persuade others, or, as a recent trend, just for fun! In school, work, or maybe in your daily life, in a PowerPoint party , you may be asked to give presentations. 

What to Consider While Preparing a PowerPoint Presentation?

• Topic and Purpose
• Organization of the Slides
• Design of the Slides
• Delivery Style

You should choose your topic carefully. After choosing your topic, it is important to clearly describe your purpose for giving this presentation. Are you informing, persuading, inspiring, or entertaining? Knowing your purpose will shape your content and approach. Thus, it will create a roadmap for you to follow.

You should organize your slides. Of course, the title is the first slide, but what else comes after? You should outline your topic and organize your slides accordingly. The slides should keep up with the flow of the presentation and support the presenter.

Your slides shouldn't be dull. The slides should contain attention-grabbing designs. Otherwise, you may subject your audience to Death by PowerPoint. In other words, you will bore them to death with your presentation .

There should be a set time limit for delivery. The last thing you want in a presentation is to run around in circles and repeat. You should try to keep it as short as possible, of course keeping in mind the goal for your delivery. Remember that people's attention span is limited. Thus, giving a longer presentation than it should be is never a good idea. The last thing you want is for the audience to stop listening to you.

Your delivery is the most important part of the presentation. You may spend hours on your presentation design, but in the end, you are the one who will present it. Be sure to practice beforehand. Prepare your presentation according to the time limit and focus on your pronunciation. Practice for a smooth delivery. Try to be natural and confident when presenting!

Although you should consider these points for your presentation, you can also apply the 10/20/30 rule for your presentation. This rule almost covers all the main points of a presentation to be perfect! Capture your audience and deliver your point flawlessly!

What is the 10/20/30 Rule?  

  The 10/20/30 Rule refers to a presentation formula for the best and most effective presentations. This rule provides a valuable framework, emphasizing the importance of organization, time management, and legible text. According to this formula:

• You should have 10 slides
• The presentation should last 20 minutes
• The slides should have at least a 30-point font

10/20/30 Rule

The 10/20/30 rule was coined by Guy Kawasaki , who is one of the early pioneers of Silicon Valley, now working as the chief evangelist of Canva . Back in 2006, Kawasaki was working as a venture specialist. After seeing enough presentations, which was a lot, he was able to analyze what makes a presentation better or worse than others. That’s when the 10/20/30 rule was born!

Here is Guy Kawasaki explaining the 10/20/30 Rule in a minute:

Who can use the 10/20/30 Rule in the Slides?

Kawasaki created this formula based on his experiences as a venture specialist. Therefore, this formula can be used for marketers. Presentations are different from advertisements . Presentations should be visually engaging, informative, and supportive of the presenter in times of need. 

The 10/20/30 rule idea can be used for any presentation made with the purpose of reaching an agreement: a pitch deck , making a sale , raising capital, and so on. 

However, if you have other aims for your presentation, you can still take the key points for your presentation. It is important to understand that this rule focuses on the structure of a presentation. This includes the organization of the presentation, time limit, and design of your presentation. Whether you are a student , teacher , or worker, you can consider using the 10/20/30 rule for your presentations.

10/ 20/ 30 Rule for Your PowerPoint Presentation

10 slides is more than enough.

No more than 10 slides! As Kawasaki points out, the human mind is only able to comprehend 10 concepts in a meeting. If you have more than 10 slides, some of them are bound to be forgotten. Some may be forgotten before you even finish your presentation. It is important to use your slides as supporters and add key points only. You should prepare your topic and slides accordingly. 

Actually, Kawasaki also shared an outline to follow on a marketing presentation. By following this outline, you can deliver every important detail in your marketing presentation.

a. This slide should include your name, company name, contact information, and other information needed.

2. Problem/Opportunity

a. In this slide, you can explain the problem in the market and your solution to this problem. You should be able to explain what needs your product or service addresses and how.

3. Value Proposition

a. You should highlight the values and benefits of your product for the customers in this slide.

4. Underlying Magic

a. In this slide, explain the technology behind your business model. Depending on your product or service, you can keep this part shorter or longer. 

5. Business Model

a. Explain your plan to generate revenue and profit. After all, you are looking for an investment or agreement, so you should highlight this part! 

6. Go-to-Market Plan

a. In this part, explain your market or sales plan. You can show a roadmap for revenue goals, target customers, activities to achieve your goals, and some problems you may experience.

7. Competitive Analysis

a. In this slide, present your strategy that involves examining and analyzing your rivals in the market. In this way, you learn about their offerings, sales processes, and marketing strategies. In addition, add your stronger corporate strategies to gain market share.

8. Management Team

a. Highlight your team and their work! You may want to focus on your management team’s experience, skills, effectiveness, and knowledge of the product. 

9. Financial Projections and Key Metrics

a. Provide a set of financial statements for your business idea. Your future revenues and expenses should be presented in an estimated timeline. Present a budget plan! 

10. Current Status, Accomplishments to Date, Timeline, and Use of Funds.

a. In the last slide, you should talk about the current progress or developments in your business, achievements that you accomplished, a timeline for your future achievements, and how you plan to use the investments that you seek. 

While the 10/20/30 Rule provides a structured framework, you may want to adapt some parts of the outline for your presentation according to your topic. But in the end, it is more ideal that your outline should be similar to Kawasaki’s. 

20 Minutes is Ideal For Your Delivery

No longer than 20 minutes! People have a very short attention span; this includes your audience, too! Even if everything else in your presentation is perfect, a longer presentation will tire your audience, like a class that is longer than it should be. The longer your presentation gets, the more your audience will get distracted, tired, or bored. Similarly, you will become tired, too. That will make you more prone to make mistakes and repeat yourself.

Most TED Talks are 20 minutes or less, mostly around 10-ish minutes. This shows that you can get your point across effectively in 20 minutes, so don’t hesitate! It may seem short, but because they are fast-paced, they become more engaging. The important part is to get your point across and make your audience understand you!

You may be given more time to present. However, you should still keep your presentation to 20 minutes and leave your remaining time for questions, discussions, and comments. This will also prepare you for any hiccups out of your control. For example, people can arrive late, and there may be problems with the computer and projector. Because of these problems, some of your designated time can stolen. Even if you are given an hour, keeping your presentation 20 minutes will give you an advantage.   

30 Point Font is Better

No smaller than a 30-point font! Font rule is a very important part of the 10/20/30 Rule. Your presentation shouldn't have any small text. If you have texts that are usually in 10-point fonts, then you probably have chunks of text in your slides and will read from them during the presentation. As most of us have experienced, those presentations are very hard to listen to! After all, the audience can read faster than you speak. Therefore, the audience is ahead of you, and after they read, there is no need to listen to you. 

The purpose of 30-points is this: because it is a large font size, you won't be able to fit all the information you want to deliver. Only key points and main ideas will be in your presentation! As it should be! You can add key points and get support from your slides when needed.

Also, a smaller font means that it will be harder to read for your audience. So, rather than being supporting material, it captures your audience as they try to read the small fonts. What's ideal is for the audience to listen and pay attention to you and maybe take a quick glance at the presentation.

If you think it is a too strict rule, Kawasaki also proposes another idea. If you can, find the age of the oldest people in the audience. By dividing it into two, you will have your ideal font size. For example, if the oldest person in your audience is 50, then your font can be 25 points! 

It is up to you to choose your font size. However, we recommend 30 points!

Why Should Apply Kawasaki’s Rule or Not?

As with everything, there are ups and downs to using this formula for your presentations. Consider these for your presentation to decide whether to use the 10/20/30 rule. Keep in mind that some benefits can outweigh downsides and vice versa. You can analyze it according to your own audience and the context of your presentation.

The Benefits of Kawasaki’s Rule: 

There is an apparent structure Kawasaki’s Rule provides. With years of use, this formula has proven to be accurate and useful. The rule is specially designed for marketers, so the structure fits perfectly into a marketer's presentation. However, everyone can adapt the 10/20/30 rule for their presentation, as it focuses on the structure of the presentation.

Focused Presentation: 

With 10 slides and 20 minutes, 10/20/30 makes your presentation more concise and focused. A concise presentation shows your mastery of the topic. There is more virtue in getting your point across with fewer words rather than talking for hours. The aim is to give your information in a shorter way to make your content easier to understand. Also, it will be easier for your audience to remember what was said in the presentation afterward.

Response to Your Audience’s Needs:

10/20/30 is prepared by Kawasaki from his experiences as an audience. Thus, it is no surprise that the rule focuses on the audience's perspective more. With this audience-centered approach, keeping it shorter makes your audience more engaged. It is also easier to remember a short presentation afterward. 

The Downsides of Kawasaki’s Rule: 

Remember that this presentation rule was from the 2000s. So, some problems are addressing issues that are out of date.

Time Management Problems:  

Kawasaki points out that 20 minutes is enough for a presentation. However, sometimes it may not be. The 10 slides Kawasaki proposes can take longer than 20 minutes, and this is highly likely. So, for the sake of keeping up with the time limit and being brief, some valuable information can be missed. 

Furthermore, Kawasaki advises that even if an hour is given, the presentation still should be 20 minutes, and the rest should be left for the audience's questions. But trusting the audience's questions is always risky. What if there are no questions? Your presentation will be short and brief. 

Advanced Technology: 

We now use more high-definition projectors that are able to show smaller texts in better quality. In addition, presentation platforms have become more online. In a video-conference, a 30-point font size is unnecessary and not visually satisfying. Also, a 30-point font does not leave much space for a creative and unique design for your slides.

Some Tips For Your Next Slide

Technology and tools:.

Stay updated with the latest presentation tools and technologies, like Decktopus. Decktopus is a modern presentation tool that offers a range of features for creating visually appealing and engaging slides with the help of AI. Decktopus is easy to use and quick to create slides you want to show in your next marketing presentation. With Decktopus, it is impossible for your slides to not take the attention of your audience.

Having visually appealing and supporting slides is important! You may capture the audience with your speech, but you also should capture them visually! Use creative templates, designs, and graphics! You can easily create decks with various templates and visuals on Decktopus! Take a look !

Storytelling:

Storytelling is an art and a dynamic tool for presentations! By sharing your story, you can make your presentation more memorable and engaging. You may want to create compelling narratives that draw in your audience and make them resonate on an emotional level. Storytelling makes you and your product more relatable for the audience. The audience becomes invested in your story and begins to care about you and your product.

Body Language and Delivery:

As we said, delivery is the key part of a presentation! Your body language gives underlying messages about your confidence and expertise. Practice non-verbal communication before your presentation. You may practice in front of a group of friends to get their advice! Don’t forget the most important ones: maintain eye contact, use gestures effectively, and project confidence!

Handling Questions:

Think about possible questions and your answers before your presentation! You may develop a few strategies for handling questions and addressing unexpected challenges during your presentation. Familiarize yourself with possible questions and objections against your claims, and come up with well-thought-out answers before your presentation. It is important to answer all the questions asked to show your expertise and mastery of the subject. You may conduct a Q&A session after your presentation, or you can take questions during the presentation, depending on the flow of your presentation.

Make It More Interactive:

Creating an interactive presentation will certainly increase your audience engagement and make your presentation more memorable. You may want to get your audience’s attention by adding their input to the presentation. For example, you can conduct a live question and answer session during your presentation and add the input of your audience to the narrative. Similarly, you can create a spontaneous survey or poll, to make your presentation more engaging. You can use some tools in your slides or simply ask people to raise their hands. Remember that most of the TED Talks start with a question!

By incorporating these additional ideas into your presentation, you can create and deliver effective presentations not only in marketing but in various contexts and settings!

How to Start?

Try Decktopus for creating your next presentation. You can follow the 10/20/30 Rule easily with customized slides! 

Decktopus is a presentation assistant that helps you create presentations. Once you answer enough questions about your slideshow, it can also build decks for you. After you answer the questions about your audience, how long your presentation will take, what your presentation is about, your aim, and your template, Decktopus will create a deck for you with images, titles, logos, writings, etc. Because you’ve given detailed information about what you want to present, you don’t have to change many things.

For your practice, you can use Rehearsal Mode in Decktopus ! You can rehearse and adjust the time for your presentation. You can still make changes that are needed after your practice!

In addition, Decktopus has many templates ! These will make your presentation more visually engaging and look more professional. As with the concept, let’s say you will make a presentation about marketing. Decktopus has over 15 marketing presentation templates! You can choose any template that goes with your concept or product!

Decktopus has you covered for your next presentation! If you want more information about how it is used, you can look at this video: 

In the fast-paced world we live in, effective presentations have become a vital skill. Whether you're a student, teacher, entrepreneur, or professional, the ability to convey your ideas clearly and persuasively can open doors and drive success. 10/20/30 Rule by Guy Kawasaki, born out of years of experience, offers a structured approach to crafting presentations that capture your audience's attention and deliver your message.

Effective presentations are not just about slides and bullet points; they are about your audience, sparking their interest and leaving a lasting impact. While presenting, storytelling, visuals, slides, engagement, and confidence are equally critical components you should consider.

So, for your next presentation journey, keep Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule in mind. With practice, preparation, and a deep understanding of your content, you'll be well on your way to delivering presentations that inform, inspire, and engage.

In the end, presentations are not just about the slides; they're about the connections you build, the ideas you share, and the impact you make. Whether you're giving a sales pitch , a classroom lecture, or a TED Talk, the art of presenting is a skill that can empower you to achieve your goals and leave a lasting impression. 

Don't waste your time designing your presentations by yourself!

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Guy Kawasaki’s 10–20–30 Rule For Perfect Presentations

Let the silicon valley legend teach you to pitch.

Created by the author — Original image from WikiMedia Commons

Guy Kawasaki has listened to hundreds of entrepreneurs looking for funding. In his words, “most of these pitches are crap”.

He knows a thing or two about how to market effectively. He was a member of the original Mac team at Apple and then became their Chief Evangelist. Now he’s a Brand Ambassador for BMW USA and Chief Evangelist for Canva as well as owning his venture capitalist firm. He’s a bestselling business author too with  The Art of the Start .

He created the  10–20–30 rule  to help entrepreneurs pitch more effectively to venture capitalists but the rules are universal. Whether you’re trying to win a client or presenting to your staff, the principles of a good presentation remain the same.

I’ve sat through many poor presentations and I’ve given many too. We all know what bores us but Guy is giving us a way to break away from the crowd. This is for you if you’ve ever found your audience daydreaming while you present.

In the past, I’ve been asked that awful question during a presentation; “how many more slides are there to go?”. There was always a pang of shame when my answer was over 20. No one asks a presenter this question if they are getting value.

Guy considers 10 the perfect number of slides. These should be focussing on the big ideas and if you think you need more, then you are poorly defining what matters. Your audience can only hold so many concepts in their minds at once and it’s no coincidence  10 is the perfect number in a headline too .

It avoids the issue of constantly changing slides while you are talking too. We are drawn to new visual information which takes away from the key component of the presentation; you!

For venture capitalists, he even gives the slides he expects:

• Problem/Opportunity
• Value Proposition
• Underlying Magic
• Business Model
• Go-To-Market Plan
• Competitive Analysis
• Management Team
• Financial Projections and Key Metrics
• Current Status

This won’t work for everyone but make sure there’s a clear journey between your slides. Set the titles of your slides out as above and check with others if the progression feels natural. You can even zoom out of your slides to assess the flow like a storyboard.

20 minutes long

TED talks given by the world’s leading experts are limited to 18 minutes. Some of the most earth-shattering concepts are explained under this limit. Guy is giving you an extra two minutes, can you really argue you deserve more?

In our age of social media where we expect information ever faster, brevity is vital. Venture capitalists are not superhuman, they have short attention spans too so don’t test their boundaries. Leave them pleasantly surprised at how you got through the main points without any fluff. You’re forced to focus on what is truly important when you introduce time limits.

Guy based his rule on an hour slot. Some attendants are bound to be late or need to leave early. You could have tech issues or any number of issues that cause you to overrun. It’s best to leave plenty of time for questions where you can engage with your audience rather than just talking at them. It removes the stop clock pressure so you can relax into your presentation.

30 font size minimum

It shouldn’t be news to you that too much text on a slide is a sin. Yet we still see it so often. The information on the slides is to support what you are saying not replace it. We read faster than we hear so your audience will know what you’re going to say before you say it. I know I’ve read a slide and checked my phone while the speaker catches up.

If you have at least font size 30 then there’s an automatic limit on the number of words you can have on the slide. This is the spirit behind the rule and there are few legitimate reasons to break it. If you want to handout information after the presentation, then it doesn’t have to be the same as what you presented. I’ve used a slide deck for presenting and a separate deck for handing out afterward in the past. Then both are optimized for their unique purposes.

There’s no chance the audience will remember every word on all your slides. If you reduce the information on the slides, you make it more likely they’ll remember something of importance. You’ve done a good job if even a few slides are etched into their memory.

Guy has sat on the other side of the table you want to impress. His 10–20–30 rule is logical and forces us not to allow excess to creep in. Now it’s meant as a guideline and if you can be even more efficient then don’t make it longer for the sake of it!

Here’s the rundown:

• 10 slides —  Focus on a few memorable points
• 20 minutes long —  Be kind to people’s attention spans
• 30 font size minimum —  Let your audience listen to your words rather than read

Thank you for reading and have a great day!

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Related posts, how downtime can inspire your best work, 9 creative ways to separate life and work at home.

Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 Rule of Presentation: Is It Still Relevant?

April 18, 2020 / Articles, Blog, Pitch Deck

10-20-30 Rule, Guy Kawasaki, pitch deck presentation, pitch peck design

PowerPoint is a superb presentation tool, which, when used properly, can be an effective visual aid for professional speakers. However, at the hands of inexperienced presenters who have no eye for design, it can pave the way for jarring and unattractive slides. Sad to say, the world of business is teeming with mediocre pitch decks that just don’t do justice to the ability of PowerPoint as a great design tool. Luckily, there are people like Canva Chief Evangelist Guy Kawasaki, who can show the noobs how it should be done.

Kawasaki advocated the 10-20-30 Rule of PowerPoint , which banks on the idea that a presentation “should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.” Although Kawasaki originally meant it to be for entrepreneurs and startup business owners, this principle applies to all types of presentations. By following this guide, you can avoid basic design mistakes and ultimately stand out from the vast sea of lackluster presentations.

Why the 10-20-30 Rule Is Still Relevant Today

Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 Rule is now more than a decade old—which, we can all agree, is a long time for any virtual rule to last, what with the constant and almost abrupt changes that technology makes. Although PowerPoint is still the most recognizable presentation design software in recent history, it’s no longer the only one in the book. A number of competitors have emerged, and they all have something relevant to offer. Apart from that, the way people use PowerPoint has also changed over time. What was invaluable ten years ago may not be as important today.

Now, this begs the question, “ Does the 10-20-30 Rule still apply ?” The answer to this is short and clear: YES. Here’s why.

1. Presenters still cram several ideas into one pitch deck

You’d think a lot would have changed in a decade. Well, in the case of slide design, nothing much has improved. Don’t get this wrong—agencies specializing in presentation design have emerged over the years, and they have indeed elevated the landscape. It’s the individual presenters who have not fully maximized the use of PowerPoint that still make the same mistakes. Despite professionals strongly advising against it, some presenters still cram multiple ideas into one pitch deck. They don’t even bother to filter out the unnecessary stuff and keep only the crucial points.

When Kawasaki first proposed the 10-20-30 Rule, he also suggested ten topics for the ten slides : the problem, the solution, the business model, the underlying technology, sales and marketing, the competition, the team, projections and milestones, status and timeline, and summary and call to action.

So, instead of filling each slide with unnecessary text, why not try to identify your salient points first and then make an outline based on them? Use as little text as possible to avoid overwhelming your audience with a barrage of ideas. If a slide isn’t necessary, do away with it. Remember, you are the star of your presentation, not the pitch deck or anything else. Make sure that all focus remains on you.

Are You Looking for a Pitch Deck? View Our Amazing Pitch Deck Examples!

2. People’s attention span is getting shorter

We’re in the age of social media, where the best content is short and fast, and people appreciate things that don’t take much of their time. Attention spans have become relatively shorter, to the point that people are growing more impatient and expectant—a combination that is hard to satisfy. This is why when delivering a presentation, you should always be considerate of your audience’s time and level of interest. Even if you’re given an hour to present, prepare for a speech that doesn’t last longer than twenty minutes. You can use the extra time for setting up your equipment or holding a Q&A session.

“But I have something extremely important to say!” you may argue. Well, that doesn’t give you any reason to go beyond the suggested time frame. Look at the universally-renowned TED talks for example. Speakers are expected to deliver their speeches in eighteen minutes or less, and that doesn’t stop them from communicating brilliant ideas that are worth sharing. If you have an imposed time constraint, you’ll be forced to edit your speech meticulously until it’s down to the bare necessities. Trim down all the unnecessary stuff so that you can put the essentials in the spotlight.

3. Readability is a crucial factor that’s still being sidelined

The number one rule of presentations is simple: The audience is the boss. Wherever you are in the presentation process, you should always put the audience at the forefront of your mind. For instance, what the people at the front row sees should be seen clearly by those in the back row as well. Optimize the font size of your text to accommodate all of your viewers. When you see people squinting at your slide, take the hint that something’s not right.

Another reason why the thirty-point-font rule should still be reinforced today is that it encourages you to limit the number of words you can put in each slide. As much as possible, don’t overload your slides with information. Remember that your goal is not to bombard your audience with ideas but to present them a few that can change their lives for the better.

Is the 10-20-30 Rule Absolute?

Kawasaki didn’t mean for the 10-20-30 Rule to be followed religiously by all business presenters. Instead, he set it as a guideline for people who want to improve their pitch decks, and consequently, their presentations. The fact remains that each situation is unique, so there’s no hard-and-fast rule that applies to all.

Instead of asking how many slides you should have, ask how many you need. Also, instead of going with the twenty-minute rule, why not apply the one-third rule, which suggests that the length of your speech should be one-third of the time you’re given? That is, after all, the original idea that Kawasaki proposed. Lastly, you can bend the thirty-point-font rule without breaking it. It’s only the minimum font size recommended, so you can go higher as the number of words you use per slide decreases. Ultimately, you should consider the needs of your audience instead of mindlessly jumping on the bandwagon. What works for one may not always work for you.

Twelve years later and Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule is still as effective as ever. If every presenter applies these three timeless guidelines, the landscape of presentation design will be infinitely better.

Dlugan, Andrew. “The 10-20-30 Rule: Guy Kawasaki on PowerPoint.” Six Minutes. June 10, 2010. sixminutes.dlugan.com/10-20-30-rule-guy-kawasaki-powerpoint

Jonson, Laura. “The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint: Does It Still Work?” SlideShare. January 13, 2016. blog.slideshare.net/2016/01/13/the-102030-rule-of-powerpoint-does-it-still-work

Kawasaki, Guy. “The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint.” Guy Kawasaki. December 30, 2005. guykawasaki.com/the_102030_rule

“Follow the 10-20-30 Rule for a Perfect PowerPoint Presentation.” Presentation Load. October 17, 2013. blog.presentationload.com/follow-10-20-30-rule-perfect-powerpoint-presentation

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The 10 20 30 Rule: What it is and 3 Reasons to Use it in 2024

Lawrence Haywood • 05 Apr 2024 • 8 min read

We don’t know you, but we guarantee you have experienced a PowerPoint presentation that’s gone on far too long . You’re 25 slides deep, 15 minutes in and have had your open-minded attitude comprehensively battered by walls upon walls of text.

Well, if you’re veteran marketing specialist Guy Kawasaki, you make sure this never happens again.

You invent the 10 20 30 rule . It’s the holy grail for PowerPoint presenters and a guiding light to more engaging, more converting presentations.

At AhaSlides, we love great presentations. We’re here to give you everything you need to know about the 10 20 30 rule and how to implement it in your seminars, webinars and meetings.

Table of Contents

What is the 10 20 30 rule.

• 3 Reasons to Use 10 20 30

More Great Tips for Presentations

More tips with ahaslides, frequently asked questions.

• Types of Presentation
• How to make a 5 minute presentation

Start in seconds.

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But, the 10-20-30 rule of PowerPoint is a collection of 3 golden principles to abide by in your presentations.

It’s the rule that your presentation should…

• Contain a maximum of 10 slides
• Be a maximum length of 20 minutes
• Have a minimum font size of 30

The whole reason Guy Kawasaki came up with the rule was to make presentations more engaging .

The 10 20 30 rule may seem overly restricting at first glance, but as is necessary in today’s attention crisis, it’s a principle that helps you make maximum impact with minimal content.

Let’s dive in…

The 10 Slides

Many people are confused with questions like “How many slides for 20 minutes?” or “How many slides for a 40-minute presentation?”. Guy Kawasaki says ten slides ‘is what the mind can handle’. Your presentation should get a maximum of 10 points across 10 slides.

The natural tendency when presenting is to try and unload as much information as possible on the audience. Audiences don’t just absorb information like a collective sponge; they need time and space to process what’s being presented.

For the pitchers out there looking to make the perfect pitch presentation, Guy Kawasaki already has your 10 slides for you :

• Problem/Opportunity
• Value Proposition
• Underlying Magic
• Business Model
• Go-to-Market Plan
• Competitive Analysis
• Management Team
• Financial Projections and Key Metrics
• Current Status, Accomplishments to Date, Timeline, and Use of Funds.

But remember, the 10-20-30 rule doesn’t just apply to business . If you’re a university lecturer, making a speech at a wedding or trying to enlist your friends in a pyramid scheme, there’s always a way to limit the number of slides you’re using.

Keeping your slides to a compact ten may be the most challenging part of the 10 20 30 rule, but it’s also the most crucial.

Sure, you’ve got a lot to say, but doesn’t everyone pitch an idea, lecturing at university or signing their friends up to Herbalife? Whittle it down to 10 or fewer slides, and the next part of the 10 20 30 rule will follow.

The 20 Minutes

If you’ve ever been turned off an episode of a Netflix Original because it’s an hour and a half long, think about those poor audiences around the world who are, right now, sitting in hour-long presentations.

The middle section of the 10 20 30 rule says that a presentation should never be longer than an episode of the Simpsons.

That’s a given, considering that if most people can’t even entirely focus through Season 3’s excellent Homer at the Bat , how will they manage a 40-minute presentation about projected lanyard sales in the next quarter?

The Perfect 20-Minute Presentation

• Intro (1 minute) – Don’t get caught up in the panache and showmanship of the opening. Your audience already knows why they’re there, and drawing out the intro gives them the impression that this presentation will be extended . A lengthy introduction dissolves the focus before the production even begins.
• Pose a question / Illuminate the problem (4 minutes) – Get straight into what this presentation is trying to solve. Bring up the main topic of the production and emphasise its importance through data and/or real-world examples. Gather audience opinions to foster focus and illustrate the prominence of the problem.
• Main body (13 minutes) – Naturally, this is the entire reason for the presentation. Offer information that attempts to answer or resolve your question or problem. Provide visual facts and figures that support what you’re saying and transition between slides to form the cohesive body of your argument.
• Conclusion (2 minutes) – Provide a summary of the problem and the points you’ve made that resolve it. This consolidates the audience members’ information before they ask you about it in the Q&A.

As Guy Kawasaki states, a 20-minute presentation leaves 40 minutes for questions. This is an excellent ratio to aim for as it encourages audience participation.

AhaSlides’ Q&A feature is the perfect tool for those after-pres questions. Whether you’re presenting in-person or online, an interactive Q&A slide gives power to the audience and lets you address their real concerns.

💡 20 minutes still sounding too long? Why not try a 5-minute presentation ?

The 30 Point Font

One of the biggest audience grievances about PowerPoint presentations is the presenter’s tendency to read their slides aloud.

There are two reasons why this flies in the face of everything the 10-20-30 rule represents.

The first is that the audience reads faster than the presenter speaks, which causes impatience and loss of focus. The second is that it suggests that the slide includes way too much text information .

So, which is true about font use in presentation slides?

This is where the final segment of the 10 20 30 rule comes in. Mr Kawasaki accepts absolutely nothing less than a 30pt. a font when it comes to text on your PowerPoints, and he’s got two reasons why…

• Limiting the amount of text per slide – Capping each fall with a certain number of words means you won’t be tempted to read the information aloud simply. Your audience will remember 80% of what they see and only 20% of what they read , so keep text to a minimum.
• Breaking down the points – Less text means shorter sentences that are easier to digest. The final part of the 10 20 30 rule cuts out the waffle and gets straight to the point.

Suppose you’re thinking of a 30pt. the font isn’t radical enough for you, check out what marketing guru Seth Godin suggests:

No more than six words on a slide. EVER. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken. Seth Godin

It’s up to you whether you want to include 6 or more words on a slide, but regardless, the message of Godin and Kawasaki is loud and clear: less text , more presenting .

3 Reasons to Use the 10 20 30 Rule

Don’t just take our word for it. Here’s Guy Kawasaki himself recapping the 10 20 30 rule and explaining why he came up with it.

So, we’ve discussed how you can benefit from the individual sections of the 10 20 30 rule. From Kawasaki’s presentation, let’s talk about how Kawasaki’s principle can raise the level of your presentations.

• More engaging – Naturally, shorter presentations with less text encourage more speaking and visuals. It’s easy to hide behind the text, but the most exciting presentations out there are manifested in what the speaker says, not what they show.
• More direct – Following the 10 20 30 rule promotes the necessary information and slashes the redundant. When you force yourself to make it as brief as possible, you naturally prioritise the key points and keep your audience focused on what you want.
• More memorable – Pooling the focus and giving an attractive, visual-centred presentation results in something more special. Your audience will leave your presentation with the correct information and a more positive attitude towards it.

You may be one of the millions of presenters migrating to online presentations. If so, the 10 20 30 rule can be one of many tips to make your webinars more captivating .

Remember that experience we talked about in the intro? The one that makes you want to melt into the floor to avoid the pain of another one-way, hour-long presentation?

Well, it has a name: Death by PowerPoint . We have a whole article on Death by PowerPoint and how you can avoid committing this sin in your presentations.

Trying out the 10-20-30 rule is a great place to start, but here are some other ways to spice up your presentation.

Tip #1 – Make it Visual

That ‘6 words per slide’ rule that Seth Godin talks about may seem a little restricting, but its point is to make your slides more visual .

More visuals help to illustrate your concepts and heighten your audience’s memory of the critical points. You can expect them to walk away with 65% of your info remembered if you use images , videos , props and charts .

Compare that to the 10% memory rate of text-only slides, and you’ve got a compelling case to go visual!

Tip #2 – Make it Black

Another pro tip from Guy Kawasaki, here. A black background and white text is a far more potent than a white background and black text.

Black backgrounds scream professionalism and gravitas . Not only that, but light text (preferably a bit greyer rather than pure white) is easier to read and scan.

White heading text against a coloured background also stands out more. Be sure to leverage your use of black and coloured backgrounds to impress rather than overwhelm.

Tip #3 – Make it Interactive

You might hate audience participation at the theatre, but the same rules don’t apply to presentations.

No matter what your subject is, you should always find a way to make it interactive . Getting your audience involved is fantastic for increasing focus, using more visuals and creating a dialogue about your topic that helps the audience feel valued and heard.

In today’s online meetings and remote work age, a free tool like AhaSlides is essential for creating this dialogue. You can use interactive polls , Q&A slides , word clouds and much more to gather and illustrate your data, and then even use a quiz to consolidate it.

Want to try this out for free? Click the button below to join thousands of happy users on AhaSlides!

Feature image courtesy of Life Hack .

What is 10/20/30 presentation rule?

It means that there should only be ten slides per presentation, no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than 30 points.

How is 10 20 30 rule effective?

Normal people cannot understand more than ten slides within a business meeting.

What is 50-30-20 rule?

Don’t be mistaken, they are not for presentation, as this rule recommend putting 50% of monthly pay toward needs, 30% wants, and 20% savings

Lawrence Haywood

Former ESL teacher and quiz master converted to the wild slide. Now a content creator, traveller, musician and big time slider preaching the good word of interactivity.

More from AhaSlides

What Is The 10/20/30 Rule For Presentations And Why It's Important For Your Team

Presentations are an integral part of team workflow. From internal communications and reporting, to client-facing proposals and pitches, presentations keep everyone on the same page. Or in this case, on the same slide.

While collaboration is great, having too many cooks in the kitchen can make things messy. In regards to presentations, it’s important to have brand guidelines and rules in place to ensure all company decks are consistent and professional. In Beautiful.ai, our Team plan helps team members collaborate with content management and branding control settings in place so that less design-savvy departments can’t make a mess of a deck. But still, your team might need additional rules to help them achieve the most effective (and efficient) deck possible.

One of our favorite standards to follow is Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 presentation rule . Not sure what we’re talking about? Let us elaborate. 

What is the 10/20/30 rule for presentations?

The ever-popular 10/20/30 rule was coined by Guy Kawasaki, a Silicon-Valley based author, speaker, entrepreneur, and evangelist. Kawasaki suffers from Ménière’s disease which results in occasional hearing loss, tinnitus (a constant ringing sound), and vertigo— something that he suspects can be triggered by boring presentations (among other medically-proven things). While he may have been kidding about presentations affecting his Ménière’s, it did inspire him to put an end to snooze-worthy pitches once and for all. As a venture capitalist, he’s no stranger to entrepreneurship, pitches, and everything in between. We’d be willing to bet that he’s heard his fair share of pitches that have fallen on deaf ears (almost literally, in his case). 

To save the venture capital community from death-by-PowerPoint, he evangelized the 10/20/30 rule for presentations which states that “a presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.” 

Why it’s important

Because we’re passionate about our own stories, we’d like to think that our audience will feel the same way. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. You could be presenting the most groundbreaking topic, to the most interested audience, and you still might lose people to distractions or boredom. Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule ensures that your presentation is legible and concise, making it more retainable, resulting in bigger wins for your team. 

You’ve heard us say that less is more when it comes to presentations, and Kawasaki’s rule really drives that point home. You can’t expect your audience to comprehend (and remember) more than 10 concepts from one meeting, so keeping your presentation to 10 slides is the sweet spot. Each slide should focus on its own key takeaway, and it should be clear to the audience what you want them to learn from the presentation. While Kawasaki applies this to the venture capitalist world— and the 10 slides you absolutely need in your pitch — this is a good rule of thumb for internal meetings, proposals, and sales decks, too. 

When was the last time you sat through a 90-minute presentation and thought, “this is great, I’m going to remember everything.” That’s a rhetorical question, but it’s probably safe to assume the answer is never. It’s normal for people to lose focus, get distracted, or run through their to-do list in their head while watching a presentation, and it has nothing to do with you or your topic. To keep your audience engaged and interested, keep it short and sweet. Regardless of the time you have blocked out for the meeting, your team should aim to keep their presentation under 20 minutes. If there’s time leftover, use that for discussion to answer questions and drive your point home. 

30 Point font

If your audience has to strain their eyes to read your slides, they probably won’t bother to read them at all. Regardless of the age of your audience, no one wants to squint their way through a 20-minute presentation. Kawasaki’s rule of thumb is to keep all text to 30 point font or bigger. Of course, the bigger the font, the less text you’ll be able to fit. This is a good exercise to decide what information you really need on the slide, and what you can do without. By making your slides more legible for your audience, you’re encouraging them to follow along. Additionally, being intentional about what your team includes on each slide helps the audience know exactly what you want them to pay attention to in the presentation. 

Applying the 10/20/30 presentation rule in Beautiful.ai 

Now that you know what Guy Kawasaki’s 10/20/30 rule is, let’s apply it to your next team presentation. 

In Beautiful.ai, our pre-built presentation templates make it easy for you to start inspired. Simply browse our inspiration gallery, curated by industry experts, pick the template that speaks to you and customize it with your own content. Most of our deck templates are well within the 10 slide standard, so you’ll be on the right track (the Kawasaki way).  

Once you’re in the deck, our Smart Slides handle the nitty gritty design work so that you don’t have to. Changing the font size is easy, and our design AI will let you know if the size is too big or too long for the space on the slide. You can choose your favorite (legible) font when customizing your presentation theme, and that font will be applied to each slide throughout the deck for a cohesive and consistent look. 

Of course, it’s all for naught if you don’t practice. We recommend doing a few dry runs in the mirror, or in front of your dog, to get the timing of your presentation right. Remember, 20 minutes is the magic number here. 

Jordan Turner

Jordan is a Bay Area writer, social media manager, and content strategist.

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• Slide Presentation

PowerPoint Math: The 10-20-30 Rule

Mannerofspeaking.

• March 9, 2010

Today we look at another PowerPoint “rule”, this one from venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki .

According to Kawasaki, a PowerPoint presentation should have 10 slides maximum, last no more than 20 minutes, and contain no font smaller than 30 points. Although he designed the rule for presentations to venture capitalists, Kawasaki says that it applies to “any presentation to reach agreement: for example, raising capital, making a sale, forming a partnership, etc.”

Let’s look at Kawasaki’s rationale for the 10-20-30 Rule:

“Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting—and venture capitalists are very normal. … If you must use more than ten slides to explain your business, you probably don’t have a business.”

“Sure, you have an hour time slot, but you’re using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector. Even if setup goes perfectly, people will arrive late and have to leave early. In a perfect world, you give your pitch in twenty minutes, and you have forty minutes left for discussion.”

30-point font

“The reason people use a small font is twofold: first, that they don’t know their material well enough; second, they think that more text is more convincing. … Force yourself to use no font smaller than thirty points. I guarantee it will make your presentations better because it requires you to find the most salient points and to know how to explain them well.”

Below is a short clip in which Guy Kawasaki explains his rule. It humorous, insightful and worth two minutes of your time.

In a recent post , I wrote that the 1-6-6 Rule for PowerPoint is not a good rulle at all. What do I think of the 10-20-30 Rul e? I like it, even if I don’t necessarily agree that one must rigidly adhere to each of its elements:

Will your presentation implode if you have eleven slides? I suspect not. In fact, when thinking about this issue, I was reminded of this scene from the 1984 classic mock musical documentary This is Spinal Tap :

But I agree with the philosophy. Do not overload your presentation with information. Your audience will not be able to absorb it. Hit the key points. You can always provide more details afterwards.

Same issue, really. Would a well-crafted 25-minute presentation be so terrible? Probably not. But here too, I like Kawasaki’s minimalist approach. Rigorously sticking to 20 minutes will force you to think about what is important and what can be omitted. And nobody is going to hold it against you if you speak for less than your allotted time.

By keeping the presentation brief, you can expand on points of interest to your audience during the Q&A session. And remember that people’s attention starts to decrease after just 10 minutes , so shorter is better.

An excellent suggestion. Keeping your font large will force you to choose your words judiciously and will also make it easier fo your audience to read your slides. (Of course, you should not just use text – be sure to add some visuals.)

So there you have it. A PowerPoint “rule” from Guy Kawasaki worth considering the next time you have a presentation coming up.

Photo courtesy of VGrigas

Like this article.

You’re absolutely right–the “10” portion is a little suspect to me. I’d have to know more about the content of the presentation…for some, 10 slides would be way too many!

I’m not sure that I agree with any rule involving PowerPoint, unless it’s ‘Think whether you need slides at all before you use this technology’! Great you’re raising the issue John. I’ve blogged about this myself and I’d really welcome any view you or your readers have on my take on the subject.

Consider using a whiteboard to scope out the content of the slides rather than jumping right in with your slides.

A nice approach, Sander. Having a blend of elements in one’s presentation (whiteboard, slides, props, talking without support, etc.) also keeps the audience’s interest. Thanks for the comment. John

Thanks for the analysis John. Like you, I think the intent is good, but the rigidity is pretty silly.

And as you pointed out to me about Seth Godin (who said “No more than 6 words per slide – ever”), Guy Kawasaki breaks his own rule too. So it seems to be a case of “Do as I say, not as I do”. To me, that puts a huge dent in their credibility.

By the way, Phil Waknell has a great post about 10-20-30 too. And he even shows a photo of a slide to demonstrate that 30 points is sometimes WAY too small. (For an example of Guy breaking the 10-20-30 rule, see the YouTube link in my comment on Phil’s post.)

Thanks, Craig. I think that “rules” such as the ones we are discussing if people use them to adhere to general principles (not too much text; large font; etc.). But absolutes rarely work in all situations. Thanks for sharing the link to Phil’s post. I will have a look.

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Testimonials

John delivered a keynote address about the importance of public speaking to 80 senior members of Gore’s Medical Device Europe team at an important sales event. He was informative, engaging and inspirational. Everyone was motivated to improve their public speaking skills. Following his keynote, John has led public speaking workshops for Gore in Barcelona and Munich. He is an outstanding speaker who thinks carefully about the needs of his audience well before he steps on stage.

Karsta Goetze

TA Leader, Gore and Associates

I first got in touch with John while preparing to speak at TED Global about my work on ProtonMail. John helped me to sharpen the presentation and get on point faster, making the talk more focused and impactful. My speech was very well received, has since reached almost 1.8 million people and was successful in explaining a complex subject (email encryption) to a general audience.

CEO, Proton Technologies

John gave the opening keynote on the second day of our unit’s recent offsite in Geneva, addressing an audience of 100+ attendees with a wealth of tips and techniques to deliver powerful, memorable presentations. I applied some of these techniques the very next week in an internal presentation, and I’ve been asked to give that presentation again to senior management, which has NEVER happened before. John is one of the greatest speakers I know and I can recommend his services without reservation.

David Lindelöf

Senior Data Scientist, Expedia Group

After a morning of team building activities using improvisation as the conduit, John came on stage to close the staff event which was organised in Chamonix, France. His energy and presence were immediately felt by all the members of staff. The work put into the preparation of his speech was evident and by sharing some his own stories, he was able to conduct a closing inspirational speech which was relevant, powerful and impactful for all at IRU. The whole team left feeling engaged and motivated to tackle the 2019 objectives ahead. Thank you, John.

Umberto de Pretto

Secretary General, World Road Transport Organization

I was expecting a few speaking tips and tricks and a few fun exercises, but you went above and beyond – and sideways. You taught me to stand tall. You taught me to anchor myself. You taught me to breathe. You taught me to open up. You taught me to look people in the eye. You taught me to tell the truth. You taught me to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. I got more than I bargained for in the best possible way.

Thuy Khoc-Bilon

World Cancer Day Campaign Manager, Union for International Cancer Control

John gave a brilliant presentation on public speaking during the UN EMERGE programme in Geneva (a two days workshop on leadership development for a group of female staff members working in the UN organizations in Geneva). His talk was inspirational and practical, thanks to the many techniques and tips he shared with the audience. His teaching can dramatically change our public speaking performance and enable us as presenters to have a real and powerful impact. Thank you, John, for your great contribution!

HR Specialist, World Health Organization

John is a genuine communication innovator. His seminars on gamification of public speaking learning and his interactive Rhetoric game at our conference set the tone for change and improvement in our organisation. The quality of his input, the impact he made with his audience and his effortlessly engaging style made it easy to get on board with his core messages and won over some delegates who were extremely skeptical as to the efficacy of games for learning. I simply cannot recommend him highly enough.

Thomas Scott

National Education Director, Association of Speakers Clubs UK

John joined our Global Sales Meeting in Segovia, Spain and we all participated in his "Improv(e) your Work!" session. I say “all” because it really was all interactive, participatory, learning and enjoyable. The session surprised everybody and was a fresh-air activity that brought a lot of self-reflection and insights to improve trust and confidence in each other inside our team. It´s all about communication and a good manner of speaking!"

General Manager Europe, Hayward Industries

Thank you very much for the excellent presentation skills session. The feedback I received was very positive. Everyone enjoyed the good mix of listening to your speech, co-developing a concrete take-away and the personal learning experience. We all feel more devoted to the task ahead, more able to succeed and an elevated team spirit. Delivering this in a short time, both in session and in preparation, is outstanding!

Henning Dehler

CFO European Dairy Supply Chain & Operations, Danone

Thanks to John’s excellent workshop, I have learned many important tips and techniques to become an effective public speaker. John is a fantastic speaker and teacher, with extensive knowledge of the field. His workshop was a great experience and has proven extremely useful for me in my professional and personal life.

Eric Thuillard

Senior Sales Manager, Sunrise Communications

John’s presentation skills training was a terrific investment of my time. I increased my skills in this important area and feel more comfortable when speaking to an audience. John provided the right mix between theory and practice.

Diego Brait

Director of the Jura Region, BKW Energie AG

Be BOLD. Those two words got stuck in my head and in the heads of all those ADP leaders and associates that had the privilege to see John on stage. He was our keynote speaker at our annual convention in Barcelona, and his message still remains! John puts his heart in every word. Few speakers are so credible, humble and yet super strong with large audiences!

Guadalupe Garcia

Senior Director and Talent Partner, ADP International

Watch CBS News

Improve Your PowerPoint Presentations with Guy Kawasaki's 10/20/30 Rule

By Dave Johnson

Updated on: May 3, 2010 / 9:06 AM EDT / MoneyWatch

Earlier today, I told you about how some senior military leaders are starting to believe that PowerPoint is eating our brains . If you really must build a PowerPoint presentation, here's one antidote.

Internet guru Guy Kawasaki has long advocated something called the 10/20/30 Rule , designed to encourage you to make smarter, sharper, more effective presentations. Here's what you need to know:

10 slides . Guy says this is the optimal number of slides because humans cant process more than ten concepts in a single sitting.

20 minutes . The whole pitch should take no more than 20 minutes. If you book an hour, that gives you nearly 40 minutes for questions.

30-point font . That's the smallest your text should appear anywhere in the deck. If you make the text smaller, you're going to be tempted to just pour your whole narrative onto the slides and read from the deck -- which is a fatal error which will cost you your audience's respect and attention. [via ReadWrite ]

While you're updating your PowerPoint shtick, be sure to brush up on other ways to improve your presentations:

• 4 Elements of a Powerful Presentation
• Jazz Up Your Next Presentation with Number Analogies
• Tips for Fearing Public Speaking Less Than Death

View all articles by Dave Johnson on CBS MoneyWatch » Dave Johnson is editor of eHow Tech and author of three dozen books, including the best-selling How to Do Everything with Your Digital Camera . Dave has previously worked at Microsoft and has written about technology for a long list of magazines that include PC World and Wired .

More from CBS News

Apply the 10/20/30 Rule to Your PowerPoint Presentations Now

June 15, 2019 / Blog, PowerPoint Tips 10-20-30 Rules, Guy Kawasaki, powerpoint rule

Guy Kawasaki is a successful venture capitalist who has been writing books about the trade since 1987.

A few years back, he wrote a short blog advocating a simple rule for PowerPoint & pitch deck presentations. He called it the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint.

According to the 10/20/30 rule:

…a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.

Kawasaki came up with this quick presentation style due to his line of business, citing how he’d often listen to dozens of pitches in a short period of time.

However, even if you’re not in the venture capital business, the 10/20/30 rule can still be applicable to your goals.

Given people’s increasingly shortening attention spans , keeping your presentation compact can save all of you time while still getting the meat of your message across.

Here we expound on each of Kawasaki’s points. But first, the 10/20/30 Rule in his own words:

Rule #1: 10 Slides

Kawasaki pointed out that it’s challenging to comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting.

Most people assume that you need to be highly detailed in order to be impressive, but this isn’t always the case.

The 10/20/30 rule also suggests that you use the ten slides to tackle all the topics important to your audience. For a venture capitalist, these topics are the following:

• Your solution
• Business model
• Underlying magic/technology
• Marketing and sales
• Competition
• Projections and milestones
• Status and timeline
• Summary and call to action

Use this list as a guide when you’re trying to condense your presentations into neat, salient points.

Depending on the type of presentation you’re giving, you can tweak these to fit your purpose, but try to keep your slides to a minimum, with a visible flow like the one above.

Rule #2: 20 Minutes

You should be done with your ten-slide presentation in twenty minutes.

Kawasaki would often allot an hour to hear an entrepreneurial pitch, but most of the time gets lost in other things. (For instance, your laptop might take a while to sync with the projector.)

Emergencies might also pull your audience away from the meeting. It’s best to keep your presentation short so that you’ll also have time to address questions and other concerns.

Rule #3: 30-pt Font Size

Kawasaki observed that the only reason people used smaller font sizes is to be able to cram huge chunks of text into a slide.

In doing so, your audience may perceive that you’re not familiar with the material and that you’re using the PowerPoint as a teleprompter.

The 10/20/30 rule forces you to use a larger font, so you can cut back on unnecessary details. Remember: you’re the one who has to do the talking, not your PowerPoint presentation.

10 slides in 20 minutes using a font no smaller than 30 points. Easy enough, right?

Are You Looking for a custom-designed PowerPoint Pitch Deck? Schedule a FREE presentation consultation now!

Featured Image: Lostium Project via Flickr

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How To Use The 10-20-30 Rule Of Presentation

Communication is everything at any workplace! However, it isn’t always easy, especially for new employees. Presentations and public speaking are…

Communication is everything at any workplace! However, it isn’t always easy, especially for new employees. Presentations and public speaking are some of the communication-related activities that daunt employees the most. Recent graduates, in particular, hesitate to deliver presentations as they struggle to navigate expectations and wrap everything up in a time-efficient manner.

Studies indicate that a significant number of people would do anything to avoid delivering a presentation. This is why it’s crucial that organizations have presentation and communication skills training programs in place to instill much-needed confidence among employees. Additionally, the 10-20-30 presentation rule is a game-changer. Read on to explore its meaning and significance in fast-paced business environments.

How The 10-20-30 Rule Came Into Existence

What is the 10-20-30 rule, why give harappa a chance.

Guy Takeo Kawasaki, an American marketing specialist and venture capitalist, had heard several pitch ideas from entrepreneurs. After listening to hundreds of people, he concluded that most pitches lacked substance. To help entrepreneurs pitch more effectively, he came up with the 10-20-30 rule of presentation.

Guy Kawasaki’s rule transformed the presentation landscape and is often considered the holy grail of PowerPoint. It helps communicate valuable information over a short period of time, without overwhelming the audience.

What Is The 10-20-30 Rule?

In a nutshell, Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 is a collection of three golden principles. A presentation should be:

No longer than 10 minutes

No longer than 20 slides, no less than 30 font size.

While Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 rule primarily applies to entrepreneurs, it can also apply to any presentation that requires reaching an agreement. Here are the details of each component behind the method.

Rule—10 Slides

The first tenet of the 10-20-30 presentation rule is that a presenter should limit the number of slides to 10. By keeping the presentation short and to the point, it’s easier to retain the audience’s attention. Typically, an audience doesn’t want an information overload and doesn’t have an interest in unnecessary details. Moreover, the 10 slides shouldn’t have too much text. Highlighting the important points is more effective.

Rule—20 Minutes

The 10-20-30 rule highlights the reality of the modern world: decreasing attention span. While rapid digitization has been a boon, it has also impacted people negatively. Therefore, it’s difficult to hold people’s attention and expect them to listen till the end. The 10-20-30 rule identifies this challenge and encourages presenters to not extend beyond 20 minutes. The time limit also provides an incentive to trim all the unnecessary details and come straight to the point.

A good 20-minute presentation has the following structure:

Introduction: 1 minute

Problems/questions: 4 minutes, main body: 13 minutes, conclusion: 2 minutes, rule—30 font size.

While the substance of the text is of utmost importance, a powerful visual can enhance the quality of presentations. In addition to hearing, an audience also likes to pay attention to the details presented on the screen. Therefore, good readability is necessary. Small font size makes it difficult, which is why Kawasaki proposes a minimum font size of 30 . This makes the text readable, whether the person is sitting in the front or at the back of the room. Additionally, bigger fonts will prevent presenters from adding unnecessary details and help memorize key points quickly.

Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 presentation rule received several criticisms as many believe that it’s no longer relevant in today’s business environment . Nevertheless, it helps individuals cover the key aspects of presentations. It takes into account the psychology of listening and attention and encourages people to make cleaner presentation slides. If nothing, the 10-20-30 rule of presentation will help win over an audience.

While rules are instrumental in bringing discipline to one’s way of work, there must be behavioral shifts for achieving transformative outcomes. Harappa’s Young Talent Bootcamp is designed to help organizations build must-have Thrive Skills among employees. Help early professionals maximize their potential and navigate everyday professional situations with confidence. The program pivots on several crucial learning outcomes that’ll help employees to raise the bar at work. A communication toolkit will help them enhance their active listening and speaking skills. They’ll not only embrace feedback but also implement them to address any skills gaps they might have. Help new employees drive peak performance through this unique blended learning experience. Schedule your demo today!

Explore Harappa Diaries to learn more about topics such as What Is  Outcome-Based Learning , The Complete Guide To  Distance Learning , What Is The  Kirkpatrick Model  and Skills Of A  General Manager  that will help organizations tap into their employees’ potential