I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
How I create keynotes
Hi Reader,
Between public speaking events, Craft + Commerce, and internal presentations, I end up delivering about 6 keynote presentations each year.
Here is my process:
I start with the end in mind: “What do I want to leave the audience with?”
Once I have the point of my presentation, I begin writing an outline in Google Docs. I use that outline to make a rough draft version of the slides. I put text and any elements on the slides, but I don’t worry about making everything look perfect yet.
Previousy, I uses Apple’s Keynote app, but now I use Pitch.com to make slide decks. It has all of the design goodness of Keynote (it's similar to use), but it also has the collaborative features of Google Slides. It’s great for working with a team, because they can log in and make changes to slides for me, but I can also share public links to up-to-date versions of my slides with anyone so they can provide feedback.
Using the initial version of my slides, I’ll deliver the talk to see if everything flows nicely. As I encounter any rough spots, I’ll tweak the slides to get a smoother transition.
When I’m satisfied enough with the structure, I’ll record a Loom video of me delivering the presentation. Anyone I send the Loom to will see a screen recording of my slides with a video of me in the corner. A couple of nice things about using Loom is others can watch at 1.5X speed to save time, and they can also leave timestamped comments so I know exactly what they’re providing feedback on.
Something else I like about Loom is I can pause my recording with a keyboard shortcut. As I’m delivering the keynote in my office, if I think of a good line on the spot, I’ll pause the recording and add it to the speaker notes. Then I resume the recording and keep going. This way, I’m able to improve things as I’m presenting.
Recording a Loom video also lets me point people to specific timestamps if I want them to give me feedback on one particular part of the speech.
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At this point, I’ll typically share the Loom video with some team members internally as well as with my speaking coach. I’ll do one more round of revisions incorporating their feedback.
Once I’m happy with things, I’ll loop in a designer on our team to help polish up the slides and make everything look nice. We’ll usually do a few rounds of feedback together.
With the slide designs finalized, I’ll record another Loom video and send it to a few more people for feedback (typically peers) and make any last tweaks as necessary.
One rule I follow is that a keynote should never be longer than 25 minutes.
If you’re speaking on stage, and you’re the sole thing holding someone’s attention, your talk should be short. Unless you are a professional speaker, your ability to captivate an audience for any meaningful amount of time is limited.
Leave the audience wanting more.
Another benefit of a shorter keynote is you’ll have more time to rehearse. With a longer keynote, you may only have a chance to fully rehearse a few times, but you can run through a shorter keynote 5–7X times.
By delivering a shorter speech, you’re forced to cut out the fluff and say only the most important things.
That’s the process I use to create 6 keynotes per year. I hope you found it helpful and got some ideas.
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Have a great week!
—Nathan
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Nathan Barry
I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
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