How SlydS helps you steal the show with your slide shows
Whether it is presenting a financial report to the company top management or presenting a business plan to potential investors, making a slide presentation is a crucial task for every professional be it a marketing trainee or a CEO. Despite this, good presentations are hard to come by.
Frustrated by ‘bad’ PPTs by his teachers in college, Pankaj Singh decided to train individuals and corporates in the art of presentation. This led to his startup called SlydS. Before setting up SlydS, Pankaj worked in Directi as research analyst, simultaneously helping his MBA friends make better PPTs. He quit his job within two months of joining when he got his first formal customer. Pankaj joined hands with his friends Deepak Kumar and Roshan Rajesh, who had helped him bag the first customer, Checkmates Security. They formally launched the startup in July 2013.
Today, SlydS is based in Bangalore and has a six-member team which has served over 50 clients. The entire venture is bootstrapped, and Pankaj claims they are growing at a rate of 50 per cent. According to him, they are looking to expand to over 500 employees in the next two years.
Pankaj, who hails from Rajasthan, is a national level athlete and wanted to be a sportsman. But his father wanted him to join the defence services. As fate would have it, Pankaj is running the race as an entrepreneur now. “We see a future where young minds are confident of articulating their ideas and showcasing it to the world,” says Pankaj about his startup’s mission.
Before joining Pankaj, Deepak had started Koverpage to buy and sell second hand books online, while Roshan was working with the pre-sales team at TeliBrahma.
Talking about SlydS’s methods, Pankaj says, “We start by meeting the client and understanding the requirements; what he wants to present and to whom. This is very important. Once we have the client brief, our writing team draws a storyboard which is then sent to the client for approval. After making the changes, if any, the storyboard is handed over to the design team. The final PPT is sent to the client and after his approval the project is closed.”
For someone like Pankaj, who belongs to a middle class family from a small town, coming to Mumbai to study was a big step. When he joined HR College, he was initially awkward in front of his city-bred college mates. But Pankaj drew motivation from this challenging situation and made a number of friends.
Talking about the lessons from his journey so far, Pankaj lists out three points:
- Having a great idea is not enough. Communicating it to the outside world is important.
- Partner with someone who understands finance to keep your cash flow organized.
- Telling your story right is important because at the end of the day, you’re selling a story.
Click here to visit SlydS.
