How to start a presentation

To start a presentation, say hello in a line, open with a hook that sets up your point, and then state the point in a sentence the audience could repeat. The hook can be a claim, a number, a short story, the audience’s own problem, the answer they came for, or the familiar ritual of a recurring meeting. Move your credentials, thanks and housekeeping to after the point.

The first thirty seconds

The opening matters more than its length suggests. Toastmasters magazine’s article on beginnings and endings, by presentation coach Joel Schwartzberg, explains it through the serial position effect: in psychologist Bennet Murdock’s 1962 experiments, people recalled the first and last words of a list far better than those in the middle. The start of a talk benefits from primacy because it is new information; the end benefits from recency.

Schwartzberg’s practical conclusion is that presenters waste the moment. They fill the most memorable position with extensive credentials, conference details, obligatory thanks and audience instructions. His alternative is HOP: hello, opening, point. One or two lines of welcome. A brief hook that sets up the point, such as a quick personal story, a provocative question, a relevant statistic or a current events connection. Then a clear summary of the point: what you propose and why it matters. Only then the credentials and acknowledgements.

Nancy Duarte’s research, in Harvard Business Review, adds a structural reason. Persuasive talks begin by reminding people of the status quo, what is, before revealing the better way. A good opening establishes that current reality in terms the audience recognises.

Six openings and when to use each

The table below this article lists six openings with an example of each from a finished deck on this site. Three rules decide between them.

Match the opening to what the audience must do. People who must decide want the answer. People being sold to want their problem shown back to them. People at a conference want a reason to stop checking email.

Use evidence the rest of the talk can build on. The keynote presentation example opens on its claim, the last kilometre is a calendar, and puts one number on slide three: 38 per cent of delivery vans are stationary at 10am. Every later slide returns to that number or that claim.

Tell the truth early. The board meeting deck example opens its substance on slide three with a five bullet CEO summary that includes two enterprise losses and a hiring shortfall. A board that hears the bad news first trusts the good news that follows.

Investors are a special case. Sequoia’s guidance on presenting to investors is to earn attention in the first five minutes with three slides: the shift that makes a new company possible, a one sentence explanation of what the company does, and the key metrics. The Series A deck example goes further and opens on six numbers at the seed round beside the same six today, because an investor who already believes the category needs progress, not setup.

Writing the first three sentences

The opening is short enough to write word for word, and it is worth doing. Three sentences cover hello, opening and point. Here is how they read for three of the decks.

A keynote. Good morning, I am Ndidi Okereke, and I have spent nine years timing delivery vans at kerbs. At ten on a weekday morning, 38 per cent of delivery vans in the eleven cities studied are not moving. The vans are fine; what is broken is the calendar that tells them when the kerb is theirs.

A sales proposal meeting. Thank you for walking us through all twelve buildings in August. Last year your sites logged 68 emergency callouts, with nine hours on average from a tenant’s report to an engineer arriving. The proposal is to replace those callouts with a planned calendar and a four hour response, for one fixed fee per site.

A board meeting. Thank you all for reading the pack. The quarter closed with ARR at $22.1 million, two per cent ahead of plan, and two enterprise deals lost on a security review. Three decisions are needed today: enterprise pricing, the office lease and the option pool.

Each version names the speaker or the context in a line, gives one concrete fact the audience did not have, and ends with the sentence the rest of the talk will prove. Everything else, including how the speaker got here, can wait a minute.

What the cover slide is for

The cover is on screen while people sit down, during your hello and often during your hook. It should support whichever opening you chose.

For a claim opening, the cover can be the claim. For a data opening, the cover sets up the question the number will answer. For a formal meeting, the cover is a filing: the board deck’s cover reads Q3 FY27 Board Meeting, pre-read version 2, twelve slides for a two hour meeting on 14 October 2026. That tells a director exactly which pack they are holding.

The all hands deck example shows the ritual version. Its cover has never changed: All hands, first Tuesday of the month, 45 minutes, with the month and issue number. Slide two is the same six coloured agenda bars every month. The opening does not surprise anyone, and that is the point; a team that knows where the numbers, new faces and priorities will be stops reading ahead and listens.

Agenda or not

An agenda slide helps when the audience needs to find their part and hurts when the talk depends on tension.

Use one for meetings: boards, all hands, project kickoffs, customer reviews. Put it second, after a cover and before the substance. Sequoia’s investor advice places the agenda after the three opening slides, not before, so the first five minutes are spent earning attention rather than listing sections.

Skip it for keynotes and short talks. A keynote that announces its three stories gives away the shape the audience would otherwise discover. In a very short format, the question page on lightning talks explains why five minutes leaves no room for a table of contents at all.

What to avoid in the opening

• A long self introduction. One line of hello, then the hook.
• Thanking organisers in the first sentence. Do it, but after the point.
• Apologising. Sorry, I only had a day to prepare tells the room to lower its expectations.
• Housekeeping first. Wifi passwords and fire exits can come from the host, or after the point.
• An unrelated joke. It spends the most memorable moment on something that connects to nothing.
• Reading the title slide aloud. The audience can read; say something the slide does not.
• Starting with your company in a sales meeting. The buyer’s problem comes first, as the post on sales deck structure explains.

Build it

The builder has 25 cover templates, and the page on cover slides shows what each carries besides a title. Slides are 1920 by 1080, and a claim cover should be short enough to read from the back of the room. Brand chrome places a logo or text in the top right, scoped to the first slide only or to all slides, which suits a cover that should carry the company mark without repeating it everywhere.

For a number opening, a big stat element does the job. The guide to styling text and adding callouts, stats and lists covers inserting stats and callouts and setting text size from the theme’s 19 class type ramp, font from 27 fonts, and weight from seven weights, so the one number on the slide can be the largest thing on it.