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Launch HN: Thorntale (YC W24) – Presentation software that works with your data

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Re: Launch HN: Thorntale (YC W24) – Presentation software that works with your data

#31

Post by malshe »

mpeg wrote: post #28

Does it export to powerpoint? I have the same issue where my client wants weekly data driven decks and I’ve automated the data part but the presentation layer I offload to other people who often make mistakes copy/pasting or with the charts However, my client still wants a .pptx that looks great because they then present it internally, and while the current workflow isn’t great it’s very cheap and effortless (for me,…

I use Quarto to automate slides creation and output as PowerPoint. You can even use a premade PowerPoint template so that the output slides are pretty much done.

Re: Launch HN: Thorntale (YC W24) – Presentation software that works with your data

#32

Post by mathisd »

I agree with other comment and I don't think this is a good idea. In an ideal world, we use data to create visualisation that can then be embedded in a variety of place (powerpoint, web-app or simply in a notebook). Here you are giving presentation the central role which simply doesn't sound right to me.

Re: Launch HN: Thorntale (YC W24) – Presentation software that works with your data

#33

Post by go_prodev »

malshe wrote: post #31
mpeg wrote: post #28

Does it export to powerpoint? I have the same issue where my client wants weekly data driven decks and I’ve automated the data part but the presentation layer I offload to other people who often make mistakes copy/pasting or with the charts However, my client still wants a .pptx that looks great because they then present it internally, and while the current workflow isn’t great it’s very cheap and effortless (for me,…

I use Quarto to automate slides creation and output as PowerPoint. You can even use a premade PowerPoint template so that the output slides are pretty much done.

Thanks for the recommendation, Quarto might be just what I've been looking for.

Re: Launch HN: Thorntale (YC W24) – Presentation software that works with your data

#34

Post by mpeg »

malshe wrote: post #31
mpeg wrote: post #28

Does it export to powerpoint? I have the same issue where my client wants weekly data driven decks and I’ve automated the data part but the presentation layer I offload to other people who often make mistakes copy/pasting or with the charts However, my client still wants a .pptx that looks great because they then present it internally, and while the current workflow isn’t great it’s very cheap and effortless (for me,…

I use Quarto to automate slides creation and output as PowerPoint. You can even use a premade PowerPoint template so that the output slides are pretty much done.

Nice, I didn't know about it – I took a quick look at the templating options and it seems like it might do the job. Thanks!

Re: Launch HN: Thorntale (YC W24) – Presentation software that works with your data

#35

Post by ellenfkh »

mathisd wrote: post #32

I agree with other comment and I don't think this is a good idea. In an ideal world, we use data to create visualisation that can then be embedded in a variety of place (powerpoint, web-app or simply in a notebook). Here you are giving presentation the central role which simply doesn't sound right to me.

That's definitely the ideal world, but in our experience everyone says they want dashboards and live data but everything ends up in presentations anyways. Fundamentally, it's the current format for standing in front of someone and making an argument. Maybe it's because the execs with buying power just like slides, but at anything bigger than a startup, decisions and alignment are done off a deck and not a dashboard.

An old boss once said "any data tool that lives long enough becomes a BI tool," and our hypothesis is that one reason there are so many BI tools floating around without market dominance is because all of them stop one step short of the final destination, which is (regrettably?) a presentation.

Re: Launch HN: Thorntale (YC W24) – Presentation software that works with your data

#36

Post by ellenfkh »

dennisy wrote: post #30

I do like this idea, but if I am honest I think this should be a feature of a BI tool vs a whole new tool.

A couple of tools are moving in that direction, but oddly enough, it's mostly deeper analytics tools like Hex.

The obvious player that should do this and hasn't is Google. They have Looker, they have BigQuery (and Stackdriver, and Cloudsql...), they have Slides, but apparently they don't have the desire to put them all together. Meanwhile, Microsoft does have this kind of integration between PowerBI/PowerPoint, but they're locked in to their own ecosystem.

Basically, it seemed like something that someone should be doing (and we originally started from the BI tool side, like you were thinking) but nobody is, so we decided to go ahead and throw our hat in the ring.

Re: Launch HN: Thorntale (YC W24) – Presentation software that works with your data

#37

Post by dori23 »

dennisy wrote: post #30

I do like this idea, but if I am honest I think this should be a feature of a BI tool vs a whole new tool.

BI tools haven't been going in this direction. They are moving towards helping you understand your data or embed your dashboards. It's a lot of focus on understanding and monitoring, but not communicating or storytelling. That is where we want to step in.

Re: Launch HN: Thorntale (YC W24) – Presentation software that works with your data

#38

Post by dori23 »

mpeg wrote: post #28

Does it export to powerpoint? I have the same issue where my client wants weekly data driven decks and I’ve automated the data part but the presentation layer I offload to other people who often make mistakes copy/pasting or with the charts However, my client still wants a .pptx that looks great because they then present it internally, and while the current workflow isn’t great it’s very cheap and effortless (for me,…

We do plan to add export as .pptx, .pdf, and to google slides.

Re: Launch HN: Thorntale (YC W24) – Presentation software that works with your data

#39

Post by johnstimac111 »

malshe wrote: post #31
mpeg wrote: post #28

Does it export to powerpoint? I have the same issue where my client wants weekly data driven decks and I’ve automated the data part but the presentation layer I offload to other people who often make mistakes copy/pasting or with the charts However, my client still wants a .pptx that looks great because they then present it internally, and while the current workflow isn’t great it’s very cheap and effortless (for me,…

I use Quarto to automate slides creation and output as PowerPoint. You can even use a premade PowerPoint template so that the output slides are pretty much done.

That tool looks really cool! We hadn't come across that one before, but we did look into a lot of embedding solutions back when we were making these kinds of presentations regularly.

I think with Thorntale we're actually trying to take a slightly different route to a solution; being the actual presentation tool is going to unlock a lot of interactivity features that exporting to powerpoint probably can't ever do. Hopefully we'll be able to show some of those off after a few more months of dev!

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