Guy Kawasaki 10/20/30 Rule Pitch Deck: What Most People Get Wrong

You've probably been there. Sitting in a dark conference room or staring at a Zoom screen while some founder drones on through slide number 47. Your eyes glaze over. You start checking your phone. Honestly, it's a slow kind of torture. Guy Kawasaki, the legendary former Apple chief evangelist turned venture capitalist, saw this happening way too often in the early 2000s. He called it "Ménière’s of the venture capital community"—basically a fancy way of saying entrepreneurs were making investors dizzy and sick with "death by PowerPoint."

To save everyone’s sanity, he came up with a simple, rigid framework. He called it the Guy Kawasaki 10/20/30 rule pitch deck.

It sounds almost too simple to work. Ten slides. Twenty minutes. Thirty-point font. That’s it. But even in 2026, where we have AI-generated decks and immersive VR pitches, this old-school rule is still the ultimate "BS detector" for a business idea. If you can’t explain your billion-dollar dream using these constraints, you might not actually have a business. You might just have a lot of words.

The Brutal Logic of 10 Slides

Kawasaki argues that the human brain—even the brain of a high-powered VC—cannot meaningfully process more than ten concepts in a single meeting. Most people show up with 30 slides because they’re nervous. They think more info equals more credibility.

Wrong.

The 10-slide limit forces you to be a curator, not a narrator. You have to decide what actually moves the needle. Kawasaki even provides the specific "canonical" list of what those ten slides should be. It’s not a mystery.

1. Title: Company name, your name, and contact info. Simple.
2. Problem/Opportunity: What’s the pain? Why do people need you?
3. Value Proposition: How do you fix that pain?
4. Underlying Magic: This is the "secret sauce." Is it a patent? A unique process?
5. Business Model: How do you actually make money? (VCs really like this one).
6. Go-to-Market Plan: How will you reach customers without going broke?
7. Competitive Analysis: Acknowledge your rivals. Don't say "we have no competition." That's a red flag.
8. Management Team: Why are you the right people to win?
9. Financial Projections and Key Metrics: Be realistic, not delusional.
10. Current Status and Timeline: Where are you now, and what’s next?

If you try to squeeze an 11th slide in there, you're already losing. Every extra slide dilutes the importance of the previous ten.

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Why 20 Minutes Is the Magic Number

"But I have an hour-long meeting!"

I hear this all the time. Founders think they need to fill the sixty minutes they were gifted. Here's the reality: in a perfect world, you give your pitch in 20 minutes and spend the remaining 40 minutes in a heated, productive discussion. That's where the deal actually happens.

Think about the last time you used a projector or shared your screen. Something always breaks. Someone is always five minutes late. A dog barks. The Wi-Fi drops. By aiming for 20 minutes, you build in a "buffer of suck." If the tech fails for fifteen minutes, you still have time to hit your points.

Plus, attention spans are basically non-existent now. If you haven't hooked them in the first twenty, they’re already thinking about lunch or their next meeting.

The 30-Point Font Constraint

This is the part people hate the most. Thirty-point font? It feels huge. It feels like a children's book.

But that's the point.

Most presenters jam ten-point font onto a slide and then—the ultimate sin—they read it. The second an audience realizes you’re reading the slides, they start reading ahead of you. They can read faster than you can talk. Now you’re out of sync. You're basically irrelevant.

A 30-point font makes it impossible to cram too much text. It forces you to use the slide as a visual aid, not a teleprompter. Kawasaki even has a "bozo-proof" algorithm for those who think 30 is too big: find out who the oldest person in the room is and divide their age by two. If you're pitching a 60-year-old partner at a firm, use 30-point font.

Is the Rule Still Relevant in 2026?

Some critics say the 10/20/30 rule is a relic of the "Web 2.0" era. They argue that with high-res monitors and Zoom calls, a 30-point font looks "amateurish" or that complex tech (like biotech or quantum computing) needs more than ten slides.

They're missing the forest for the trees.

The rule isn't about font size; it's about discipline. Sure, if you're presenting on a 4K monitor over a laptop, you might drop to a 24-point font. But the principle remains: if the text is small enough that you're tempted to write a paragraph, you've failed.

Modern pitch decks often include "send-ahead" versions that are text-heavy. That's fine. But for the live pitch, the Kawasaki rules are your best friend. They keep you focused. They keep you fast. They make you look like someone who knows exactly what they’re doing.

Actionable Next Steps for Your Next Pitch

Don't just read this and go back to your 40-slide masterpiece. Do the work.

• The Audit: Open your current deck. If it’s more than 10 slides, move the extras to an "Appendix" at the end. Use them only if someone asks a specific question during Q&A.
• The Font Test: Select all the text on your slides and change it to 30pt. If it doesn't fit, you have too many words. Cut the fluff. Use icons or simple charts instead.
• The 20-Minute Rehearsal: Set a timer. Record yourself. If you’re at 25 minutes, you’re too long. Find the "sidebar" jokes or the "happy to be here" fluff and delete them.
• Focus on the Magic: Slide 4 is often the weakest. Spend your time there. If you can’t explain your "Underlying Magic" simply, you don't understand it well enough yet.

The 10/20/30 rule is a filter. It filters out the noise, the ego, and the confusion. Use it to make sure your actual business idea is the star of the show, not your PowerPoint skills.