Perfect Your Pitch & Deck
Pitch Outline Preparation Points
Presentation Takeaways
The first task is to plan the outline of your presentation, your story, and 2-3 takeaways for the audience. You may be moving around the slides and changing the design.
Identify and write down the 2-3 key takeaways before you start. Build your presentation to repeat these points a couple of times rather than offering lots of new information. People only remember a few points and you should be intentional about providing and emphasizing those points. Write your opening and closing sentences.
Key Takeaways for the audience:
Takeaway:
Takeaway
Takeaway
Opening Statement:
Closing Statement:
Presentation Outline
Cover > Logo, tagline, contact
Intro > one-line pitch or description
Personal story, reason, passion, relation to the problem
Company purpose: Most important slide to clearly explain what the investor is looking at.
Could be: value proposition, your vision, your mission, a description of your platform or product clearly explaining what you do
The problem > A painful problem, clearly articulated and quantified. Where is the friction in the current market?
Why is this an important problem? How big is it? Who cares? Who is incentivized the solve this problem? Why should we care?
Your solution > How will your solution reduce/get rid of friction? Clearly explain your solution to the problem you presented. What will the future look like when you solve this?
This is not the actual product or how your product works but how you’re approaching the problem (seamless, integrated, decentralized…)
How is your solution scalable and replicable
Why now?
Trends in the space > deeper than the obvious ones, tell us why that matters
Changes in consumer behavior
Available technology
Market > What's the market and category you are going after? What’s your target within that market?
How big is it? $$
How is it changing?
Is it growing? What does this mean for you, your category?
Product: Depending on the audience and where you are in the conversation, you can use this section to show the technology and the competitive advantage of your solution.
Traction > clients, user, pipeline (month over month or annual) Also an opportunity to demonstrate how well you know your target audience
Milestones & next steps > What have you done so far? What's coming up next?
Go-to-Market Strategy > Roadmap, partnerships
Team > Highlight why this is the right team. What is the unique combination of skills, expertise and passion?
Business model > How you make money - who pays you for what and how > how is that scalable and replicable
Competitive Landscape + Competitive Advantage > Who else is trying to solve this problem? Whether direct or indirect, you want to show the landscape, as it gives your audience a good idea of the market and validates the problem. Investors want to have a good understanding of the space(s) you are in and how you are positioned.
Financials > Show us how this is sustainable, scalable, and what you need to achieve this. Projections (cash rate, burn rate, breakeven, profitable, how many users, clients, costs, expenses…)
Whether you share this in the deck or send it later depends on where you are in your conversations with an investor
You want to demonstrate that you have a good understanding of your business and your strategic targets and that you have a financial plan to get there.
Ask & use of funds: Including this also depends on your conversations with an investor. It essentially lays out how much money you’re asking for and how you plan to spend it.
If you are fundraising, what do you need these funds for? Show the percentage breakdown of what you plan to spend it on (sales team, product development, customer acquisition, etc.)
what’s the timeframe? What will you achieve (your previous slides of targets and milestones)
Final slide > Logo + contact > Recap & Action - What do you want from this audience? (Use our product, invest in us, partner with us, introduce us to potential customers, partner with us, etc.) - Just assume people have not heard a word you just said and recap your key points and end on a high note.
Pitch Decks are Different from other presentations
Key Points for Designing the Deck
This is not an investor or sales deck, it's a presentation to a bigger audience (scroll down for slides from various events, industries, styles, products).
You want people to listen to you, the slides are just to reinforce what you’re saying.
First Slide should be your Logo (and a short tagline) since it will be up there during your introduction and as you go on the stage
Use High Quality, High-Resolution images (avoid clipart, watermarked images)
Images as the whole slide look better. (If there is one image and it's in the middle of the slide then use a black background)
Show the product, platform, the app
Show the revenue, and growth - don't list it. (use charts, bubbles and make sure they are proportionate)
Big text. A minimum amount of text; but definitely some text to reinforce what you are saying.
No long sentences. Just use keywords and phrases. Example: write "Seamless Integration" on the slide and say "we work with you to seamlessly integrate our product into your system"
Mostly use the middle section of the slide, and do not put important information at the bottom of the slides since they may not be visible.
The last slide should be your logo with your email address (for example: founders@awesomestartup.com)
Use 16:9 slides
I suggest Keynote (PowerPoint) or Canva (PDF might be harder to click through with a clicker if the presenting computer’s view option is to scroll through, make sure to test it before)
If you have any special fonts submit them with your presentation and check that they are downloaded
