Suffering from PowerPoint fatigue? You're not alone. Tech conferences, including Demo and Finovate, have banned boring slide shows in favor of short, fast-paced product demos. For young companies, dissing checkerboard fadeaways and cheap gradient backgrounds does more than entertain an audience; it could make a sale. "It's not about bullet points or the company, but what have they... [read more]

Suffering from PowerPoint fatigue? You're not alone. Tech conferences, including Demo and Finovate, have banned boring slide shows in favor of short, fast-paced product demos. For young companies, dissing checkerboard fadeaways and cheap gradient backgrounds does more than entertain an audience; it could make a sale. "It's not about bullet points or the company, but what have they built?" says Finovate CEO Eric Mattson. "If you show your product to us, and we go, 'Wow, we can grasp that in seven minutes, and we want that,' then the customers will want it too." We'll buy that -- no pie charts required. --MARGARET RHODES