Presentation Summit 2022: Conversation with Julián Magnone

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  Julian Magnone is an online entrepreneur and a bit of a geek, with a background in Software Engineering and Business Administration. When he is not thinking about how to better serve customers at SlideModel, coding, or making presentations, he can be found playing with his kids, reading a book, or running in the Rambla of Montevideo.

In this conversation, Julián talks about his company’s sponsorship of the upcoming Presentation Summit 2022, being held on location in San Diego, CA, and virtually this year from October 9 to 12, 2022.

Indezine.com is the official media partner for the Presentation Summit.

Geetesh: Julián, please tell us about SlideModel and its history. What led you to start the company?

Julián: SlideModel was born almost a decade ago, but the original idea took shape years before. We, the founders, come from the technology area, and as part of our daily activities, we often needed to prepare presentations. It was not so straightforward to download presentation templates of a good quality that fit our needs. In most cases, the only option you had was purchasing individual templates from marketplaces.

At that time, we had the idea to produce our content, and offer a catalog of templates, in a way that any user could download the resources needed, and return for more later. We decided to provide this as a SaaS platform. Nowadays, it is common to see online tools with a SaaS business model, but not so many businesses were SaaS at that time, and less so in this space.

Today, we stay aligned with our original idea and vision (as one can read in the previous conversation with Germán back in 2014). In 2022, SlideModel continues to serve a global audience of presenters who prepare important professional presentations for their jobs, providing them with assets for their presentations in an easy way to edit and customize.

Geetesh: How do you see the rise of presentation platforms such as Google Slides, and other tools and resources affecting the use of PowerPoint?

Julián: New presentation tools and resources are emerging every day. We see this as a positive signal for the industry and end users. Presenters now have more tools than ever to produce visually appealing presentations in their preferred environments, without being attached to a single tool.

In the beginning, we were focused on Microsoft PowerPoint as the product, so when Google Slides started to grow, it made us wonder if we were in the right direction. We had similar thoughts when we saw Prezi growing at an impressive rate, and similarly with some other recently emerging tools.

Over the years, more tools were gaining traction, with innovative solutions taking advantage of AI, great content, effects, and platforms that aim to make the job easier for presenters. Some of them have a good market share now. This wide range of tools beyond Microsoft PowerPoint enables presenters to choose how to produce visually appealing presentations.

At the same time, we see that Microsoft has been doing a great job making PowerPoint so current, by adding more and more features to the product.

For example, PowerPoint’s drawing tools have improved tremendously over the years, up to a point where it is now seen as attractive not only for presenters who were already familiar with it, but also for other graphic designers who preferred working on Illustrator, Figma, or other graphic tools. Now they realize that PowerPoint can be so powerful, enabling presenters to embed 3D objects, great animations, and produce high-quality presentations that wow the audience. At the same time, Microsoft could keep the intuitiveness that characterized Microsoft Office products for decades, making it easy to use for both experts and novices.

At least based on our experience, we realized that when presenters are in an extreme rush to complete their presentation, whether to present to a client or their bosses, they forget about the rest of the tools and go back to PowerPoint, the tool they were most familiar with. Here is where SlideModel can help presenters who are running out of time to finish their presentations.

…when presenters are in an extreme rush to complete their presentation, whether to present to a client or their bosses, they forget about the rest of the tools and go back to PowerPoint.

Geetesh: What does it mean for SlideModel to be a sponsor at the upcoming Presentation Summit in San Diego this year?

Julián: For SlideModel, being part of Presentation-Summit as a sponsor is an opportunity to get closer to the industry and the community of presenters. We have been sponsors in previous years, and this time will be no different.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

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