Pitch Deck
Pitch deck best practices.
Investors
What investors are really looking for
- A good story
- Integrity
- Committment
- Trust
- Humility
- Vision
- Hunger
- RoI
Structure
The right Pitch Deck structure is critically Important and the first thing investors will evaluate. If you don't invest the time to order your slides, investors won't invest their time considering if they will invest their capital.
Information must have the right flow in order to bring your prospective investors to the point where they are compelled to invest in you, and take action quickly.
Slide Count
The number of slides may vary based on a startup's stage and complexity.
As a brand new venture seeking your initial funding, aim for 10 slides and never more than 16 slides.
For a late-stage startup, with a very complex business structure, and plenty of financials never exceed 20 slides.
Slides
Iterate content until it is as succinct as possible.
| Slide | Early/Simple | Full/Complex |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | 1 | 1 |
| The Problem | 2 | 2 |
| The Solution | 3 | 3 |
| The Market | 4 | 4 |
| Competition | - | 5 |
| Competitive Advantage | - | 6 |
| Product | - | 7 |
| Traction | 5 | 8 |
| Customers | - | 9 |
| Business Model | 6 | 10 |
| Financials | - | 11 |
| Business Model | 7 | 12 |
| Funding | - | 13 |
| Team | 8 | 14 |
| Closing Request | 9 | 15 |
Opening
Typically stays on screen the longest. The design must be clean and simple.
Colors should match your brand identity and carry through the entire pitch deck.
Information to include:
- company name
- logo
- presenter names
- contact information
Provide a strong introduction and enable interested investors to open your pitch deck and easily find your contact details
Simple but must have a strong tagline.
The Problem
Sell the importance of the problem and you don't have to sell the solution.
Smart investors know that understanding the problem is the foundation of the entire company and opportunity.
Many are funded mostly on the strength of the problem they are taking on.
You can change just about everything else on the journey. However, if you abandon solving this problem, you've been going in the wrong direction the entire time.
Don't make it complicated but demonstrate clarity of domain knowledge.
Be sure you are ready to prove how you've validated your problem statement.
The Solution
Explain how you will solve this big and urgent problem.
Aim to incorporate your elevator pitch.
Do not get too deep or technical here. Especially as an early-stage startup. Chances are that your solution will evolve a lot over time.
Do convey your main mission and vision. Include a couple of bullet points on how you will change things.
Approach
The Market
Define CAGR.
Investors are looking for supersized returns. For that to be possible, you must be in a space with a huge market.
How big it needs to be will evolve over time. Getting to a billion dollars used to be a big thing, now, companies are raising billions.
Expand your thinking to businesses that can be worth $50B, $100B, or even more than $1T. Startups won’t have a monopoly on their market, so the market size needs to be much bigger than this.
Typically, best communicated with a chart.
Approach
- Find content from competitors
Competition
You have competition don't shy away from this
Be diligent in doing your market research. Know your competition and prove understanding of:
what they are doing well and not what gaps and needs they are leaving in the market.
Use a chart or graph to show the differences to others in this space, enabling investors to see their opportunity.
Competitive Advantage
Explain how your business fits into the market
The stronger and more sustainable your competitive advantage is, the more likely investors are to invest in you.
A formidable moat will provide the best chance to stay ahead of competitors, and have time to grow big enough to provide the return to investors what they are looking for.
Use a graph of other images to show your positioning quickly in a visual format.
Product
What is the product you are using to solve your stated problem?
As an early-stage startup, this may just be your MVP or a prototype. Make it as real to investors as possible. Images and even screenshots can often convey this best. Even better if you can show it in use by customers.
Answer what your product is. You may also fit in 1-3 bullet point benefits that solve the problem your startup is on a mission for.
Do not get too technical, or give away all of your secret sauce here. It may only raise more questions, and distract and slow down investors.
You want to be able to share your pitch deck with as many people in the world as possible wiithout turning off the best and most serious investors by asking for NDAs before seeing it.
Traction
How much quantifiable progress has been made on ideas?
Talk is cheap. What have you accomplished? Include a couple of bullet points of notable milestones that you've achieved so far.
Investors are specifically looking at your scalability. Can you scale fast enough to deliver on the returns they want?
The younger your startup the higher the expectations of growth. While success may not be a straight line. Investors want to see that you can maintain consistent growth. Best if you can show your growth taking off, as a sign of finding product market fit.
When you structure your pitch deck, include information on how you intend to gain traction.
Customers
Who exactly are your customers?
Investors want to know who your ideal customers are, and how well you know them. Be as specific as possible. While keeping this slide clean and simple. Include:
- how many customers you have acquired
- notable customers you have contracts with
- feedback insights you have obtained
Business Model
How does your business work? How does it make money? Quickly sum up:
- how you acquire customers
- what you are selling them
- how customers will buy your solution
How does this cycle function?
Financials
Provide facts of what you've accomplished and projections
- Use hard data from your historical financials to show
- how much money you've made
- how many units you've moved
- what profit you've brought in
Whether you have operating history and revenues or not, you will want to include a financial forecast. Keep this simple and easy to digest.
Don't confuse investors or slow them down with too much detail. Investors need to see:
- how many units you plan to sell
- what top-line income
- anticipated profit margins
More than your projections, investors are assessing your goals, and if you really know your industry. This is the slide that investors spend the most time reviewing.
Funding
How much are you looking to raise in this round?
Questions to consider addressing include:
- Which round your startup is in?
- How much have you raised before?
- Investors have you already brought in?
- How you intend to use this rounds funds?
Team
Particularly at an early-stage, an investor will weigh commitment decision on the strength of the team.
Until you have more financial history and real data there is little else for investors to base their decision on. Business is competitive. Investors want to believe they have the best team in the space with founders that have tremendous grit and tenacity, and won't quit in the face of nonstop challenges and therefore lose their investment.
You can expand on your cofounding team by including other key team members or notable advisors on this slide.
Closing
Fundraising is sales and marketing
Structure your pitch deck to lead up to making a strong call to action here.
You can thank them for their time. Reiterate your contact information here so an investor can take action and get you closer to getting funded.