Startup timeline pitch deck template

Timelines make up for great visual material. They don’t only achieve more engaging info display but also allow entire teams to adhere to specific timetables for strategic project management. And these are just a couple of their plus sides. So let’s go over five practical ways to make the best of a timeline template in startup presentations. 

The efficiency behind considering time

The beauty behind timelines is keeping ourselves and our projects in check. It helps in terms of their progress and the direction in which they’re headed. Since we commonly think in linear terms, displaying information in linear structures is a perfect solution to arrange complex data in a way that is visually easy to digest and follow. 

Also, infographics based on considerations of time help you move away from text-filled presentations, which are quite simply very basic and boring. One good use, for instance, is in company profiles.

Let’s see how to make the best of your timeline templates now. 

1. When to best use timeline templates?

There are tons of ways in which a project timeline template can be of most benefit to your business presentations. However, we commonly dismiss those opportunities. So let’s recap on a few scenarios when you can make the best of a timeline rather than a text slide. 

Most naturally, you’ll best use a timeline graph to give details on a specific itinerary, time-based project, or agenda. You can thus organize your business day, month, or year this way. But also consider using a timeline for events and to give an overview of them. 

Also, stress out critical stages across time with them or resort to them to clarify essential pieces of information people would usually miss. For example, trainees can get better explanations on key stages to their new roles or the company’s overall performance through easy-to-follow timelines. 

Timelines are also excellent quick reference material. As refreshers, they’re useful resources anyone will love having handy. You can even outline steps people need to follow or a set row of days in which something will need to be completed and let people enjoy just referencing that visual. 

If you have milestones you need to reach, you can also rely on timelines to make them crystal clear. Pinpoint to delivery dates, as well, and make it visually transparent when due dates are to be respected. Even in construction, timelines help gear processes to everyone’s precise understanding.

In terms of your product, for example, timeline templates can quickly show your history and evolution. They’re also great at conveying your startup’s origin and its trajectory. Specifying those can be of enormous help when you polish your traction slide, for example. 

Even to sum up an entrepreneur’s professional background, a timeline can help put a resumé together in a nutshell. And if you’re in the services industry, and most startups are, you can use timelines to communicate expectations and compromise with your clients nicely and effectively. 

Create a visual guide to give your consumers for them to know when to expect what from you. You can detail a full project’s stages therein and let them know what your workflow will be. Doing so can help them understand how each step influences the following one, and so on. This will also help spare queries, emails, calls, doubts, and complaints. Quite a way to work your customer satisfaction up a notch! 

‍2. Start with an outline

Part of the challenges with timelines, we won’t lie, is pinning down the essentials of what you’ll need to include in them. With milestones or due dates, the data is quite clear. Yet, when you use timelines to express much more complex processes, you can easily struggle fitting text into a layout. 

So, to reduce the stress of later running into tons of textual references that are hard to fit into small text areas, help yourself out with a preliminary draft of what you’ll need to include in it. Spare choosing the wrong layouts from the start and then having to back up and start anew. 

You can even grab a pen and paper and think of the dates you’ll want to include, what descriptions you’ll need to accompany those correctly. Dribble the shapes you’ll want to use in an ideal scenario. You can even conceive images and think ahead of time about your headers. Having this draft will make it easier to stay in touch with the essentials of what you’ll need to include. 

3. Keep text to a minimum

When we speak of descriptions above, for example, always keep these short and to-the-point. You can even think of keywords. Don’t go overboard with more than 20 words or so every time you include text to your project timeline template. 

Also, make this homogeneous. So, if you use ten words on one description, try to keep the rest of them about the same. Doing that will help give your timeline a visual look that is easy to absorb. It will be symmetrical and thus more pleasing to your viewers’ eyes. 

4. Use colors wisely

Part of knowing how to create a timeline for the most compelling resort is remembering to use color in a way that helps your graphics. So, when thinking about creating a timeline, make sure to use a gradient color scheme so you can portray a sense of flow to your project timeline template. Of course, it’ll be best if you pick colors that help your branding. So tie the colors in with your logo or targeted product. Use this opportunity to work in your corporate identity. 

You can consider the timeline template’s beginning to end and use color gradience to smooth that flow in a visually compelling manner. You can also power up the theme to your presentation with colors that reflect that theme through your infographics. 

Also, in learning how to create a timeline, make your background color a neutral zone to truly enhance the readability of other designed areas. 

5. Let icons help you out

Symbols and icons can save you. They can help you categorize your tasks, label the areas in which you’re focusing and make your stopping points very clear. 

If you’re using a timeline to highlight your customer funnel, for example, use an icon to point out critical steps in that. 

You can also use different icons to show various information. That way, it’ll be easier to scan your infographics for precise details. The easiest way to think of icons as help for timelines would be the social media ones. If you’re speaking of historical references for your startup, these will quickly make your journey visibly clear. Icons and simple visuals are what make a timeline stand out from a plain one. 

‍Consider the layout of your timeline templates

Whether you want a vertical, horizontal, or centered layout is part of other vital considerations in producing timeline templates. At times you’ll wish to add text and images vertically into your slides, sometimes you’ll want the popular left-alignment to help you out. Whatever you do, get started with your timeline templates on Slidebean today. 

To give you an idea, we’ve included the following slides to our free timeline template:

- Timeline presentation cover (gives project name and period)

- Project description

- Executive summary

- Expected results (with a couple of graphs)

- Timeline

- Details

- Roadmap

- Example test roadmap

- Future achievements

- Experience

- Next steps

- The process

If designing your deck gets too complicated, rest assured our founding team of designers can always make the best of your business presentations with our pitch deck services.