A few weeks ago, we noticed on Twitter that one of the teams at Startup Weekend Lincoln was using Haiku Deck to make their pitch.

We have roots in Startup Weekend ourselves, so this made us feel borderline giddy. We tracked down Meghan Rihanek of Paper Doll, who filled in the back story.

Q&A with Meghan Rihanek

Haiku Deck: How did you end up using Haiku Deck for your Startup Weekend pitch?

Meghan: It was about 4 or 5 hours before we were supposed to present, and I was in charge of the visuals. Our idea was around fashion, and I was trying to figure out how to make our pitch visually appealing with PowerPoint. I really had nothing, and we were running out of time. One of the coaches, John Fulwider, came over and said we should check out Haiku Deck. As luck would have it, my laptop wasn’t working but my iPad was. I downloaded the app right away.

Haiku Deck: And then?

Meghan: We had really been struggling to find an opening image that was right. Our central idea is to help women take charge of their closets, so I typed in “Paper Doll conquer your closet,” and the absolute perfect image came up almost right away. I couldn’t believe it. The rest just flowed. We even found an image of Megan Hunt, an Omaha designer we were partnering with–incredible. An hour later, we were done.

http://www.haikudeck.com/p/OUReHaTEju/title

Haiku Deck: How did Haiku Deck change the process of putting your pitch together?

Meghan: It really helped us focus in on what’s important. The text limitation encouraged us to control our message–on certain slides, it became really clear that we just had too many words. It was such an essential tool for our team.

Haiku Deck: And how was your Startup Weekend experience overall?

Meghan: It was exhausting–a ton of work–but so much fun! It was my first one, but I’ll be back.

Startup Weekend: More Inspiration

If you’re participating in an upcoming Startup Weekend, take a spin through our Presentation Pointers and Business Case Studies Pinterest boards. And if you have any questions at all about how to use Haiku Deck, we’re here to help: drop us a line any time!