Your audience decides whether to pay attention long before you reach your main point. The first 30 seconds set the tone for everything that follows, so do not spend them thanking the organisers or reading the agenda.
Start with a moment
Open with a short, specific story: a customer call, a mistake, a surprising conversation. Stories pull people in because they want to know how they end.
Start with a question
Ask something your audience genuinely wonders about, then pause. Even if nobody answers out loud, everyone is now thinking about your topic.
Start with a number
A single, surprising figure can reframe a problem in seconds. Keep it simple and say what it means straight away.
Then tell them why it matters
Whichever opening you choose, follow it with one sentence that connects it to your audience: why this matters to them, today. Only then move into the structure of your talk.
Written by the Rostra team
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