X
Tech

India startup sees niche in presentation tool for mobile roadwarriors

A Bangalore-based startup Deck.in has built a "mobile-first" app called Deck that makes it easier for users without design skills to create good looking presentations.
Written by Srinivas Kulkarni, Contributor

Portable devices are surging all over the world, mobile technology is consuming every aspect of our lives, not only as consumers but also as professionals. Every single day, many businesses empower use of mobile devices for simple aspects such as delivering power packed presentations to clinch that sale, drive that business showcase and mobile devices are more than just media consumption outlets. That's what this Bangalore based startup, deck.in is capitalizing on.  

They have built a mobile-first app called "deck" that lets everyone effortlessly create amazing presentations on any device without requiring any design skills whatsoever. The idea behind their app is that even though presentation apps have been around for decades now, it is still very difficult for "normal" people to create beautiful presentations.

This app changes that by removing all design decisions and formatting affordances from the purview of the user and lets them focus completely on crafting their content. The app then generates a beautiful presentation with a single click with their one-touch design. Sumanth Raghavendra, founder of Deck App Technologies gives us more details about this startup and how they aspire to change the process of making presentations for your business.  

"We conceived deck on the back of two big drivers: firstly, even though presentation apps have been around for thirty years, it is still very difficult for people who are not designers, to create great presentations. Secondly, the emergence of smart phones and tablets presents a multi-billion opportunity to reimagine productivity apps for the coming Post-PC era," said Raghavendra.
 
They got idea of creating deck when they noticed how people travelling on an airplane were increasingly replacing laptops with tablets. "It struck us that at some point of time, these mobile devices are going to become the primary computing device of choice for a large populace and these devices will require a new generation of productivity apps that will let them both consume and create content," added Raghavendra. 
 
According to Raghavendra, the idea with deck is that everyone should be able to effortlessly create beautiful presentations on any device — without requiring any design skills.
 
"If you look at the existing presentation apps, in every one of those, the quality of your presentation is determined by the level of your design skills. We believe that everyone has a story to tell and people should be able to express themselves creatively without needing to be a designer," said Raghavendra. 
 
Their app changes the way you think about presentation creation and deck removes all the affordances that traditional presentation tools provide, which promote poor presentation practices, and instead provides a minimalist editor that only requires you to pen your presentation as a series of points. For each point you can add supporting graphics, including images, charts and diagrams.

It also frees up users from all design and formatting decisions and lets them focus only on their content. Once the user has crafted their story, they have a grand total of one design decision to make. Selecting a presentation theme from a built-in library. Each theme is unique and guaranteed to support the story with great graphics, typography and animation to help the users show off a beautiful presentation that will inform, educate and impress their audience. 

From the target market their focus is primarily on enterprise folks on the frontlines typically sales people who are increasingly mobile and to whom, presentations play a key role in determing how successful they are in their work life. Secondly, they are targeting students and they see the students of today as "mobile natives" whose first computing experience is more likely to be with a tablet than with a PC.
 
They have raised $600,000 from a group of investors lead by Qualcomm Ventures with participation from prominent angels such as Sabeer Bhatia, co-founder of Hotmail and Amit Gupta, co-founder, Inmobi.

Now deck is available globally for users on Android and iOS platforms. Have any of you tried it out? What is your review?
Editorial standards