A Strong Pitch Deck Template?📝
Simple format for your presentation slides to pique investor interest
Do you know that your deck is your first pitch?
It will speak for you when you’re not in the room.
Without you talking through your deck, what does it say?
I’ve reviewed thousands of decks. Yes, thousands. Across continents and countries.
A good deck, is effective at one thing:
To give JUST ENOUGH information to spark interest 💥
That’s it. Professional investors don’t decide to invest after just seeing a deck.
Most investments from VCs happen after a few calls.
But they need to decide to take a call after seeing a deck
So, the purpose of the deck is to provide enough information to get a call.
Investors will ask themselves:
Is this for me? Is it interesting enough? Is it BIG enough?
Here’s a slide by slide template we suggest for your deck
Ask yourself, do my presentation slides answer all the questions below?
If no, revise to answer the questions till it does ✅
Slide by Slide Deck Template
Title Slide: Name of Startup and One-Line of what problem it solves (e.g., Uber for Children”). One Liner Example: Uber, Making everyday transportation simple and accessible, just like water.
Problem: How painful and big. How crappy alternatives are. Why customers NEED your solution. Use numbers. Show a large unmet need in the market.
Solution: How innovative is your solution? What are you really offering? How do you compare to the alternatives? Do you make things faster, cheaper, easier? What is your secret sauce? What are the alternatives, and how are you different?
Market: Where will you sell your solution? What countries? How does this expand over time? How large is the number of potential customers, what macro economic trends will help that grow even larger? E.g., are people trying to save money and your solution helps save cost?
💡Tip: Show successful models and outcomes in other large markets. Show their valuation, revenue etc. You can get fundraising data from crunchbase.
Revenue Model: How will you make money? What is your model? Subscription, licensing fee, flat fee, advertising? How much is your solution? How do you get to $100 millions of $ in annual revenue, say five years down the line?
Team: Why is your team is a perfect fit for the problem? What about your collective experience shows you are the best team to build this startup? Put those popular company logos! Link team profiles to Linkedin, and keep your Linkedin updated. Use images of the team.
Traction: What is the progress on your MVP? Do you have a strong customer waitlist or engagement? Show that customers are READY and waiting for you to use your solution once you build it. If you’ve built it, show that customers are using it, likely to pay for it / already paying for it. Show that there is HUGE demand! Again, numbers are your friend.
💡 Tip: Investors want to put money in a startup that shows early signs of working, not fund startup ideas to find the early signs that it is working.
Round Details: Show how much you’re raising, what it will be used for in % terms (developers, marketing, operations) etc. How long this money will last you (at least 12-18 months) and what milestones it will help you unlock ($ monthly revenue, # of users, # of partners etc)?
Next Steps Slide: Name, & contact details. Email and phone number if possible
💡 Tip: Keep it to 1-2 slides per section and have “one-line” summaries on the top of each slide that summarises the key point of the slide.
If you’re struggling with good looking easy to use slide Templates. Pitch.com, Canva have pre-designed templates that can be easily customised, for FREE
If you’d like to see actual decks of startups like AirBnB, Uber, that have gotten investments, check it out here
Till next time!
*P.s If you have ANY questions on fundraising, share here, for a chance to feature our detailed response in our next weekly newsletter.
Maria Ro