Team slides should add credibility and excitement to the pitch. They should make the investor feel like ‘these are the people I want to go on this journey with.’ Some questions to prep for building and narrating through Team slides:
- Why are these the only people who could build this company?
- What are the most interesting, exciting, or notable individual things team members have done before this effort?
- How can we associate our team with other successes?
Often entrepreneurs recite team slides as exhaustive, rote readings through team members’ resumes. Don’t do that. Pick 2–3 things that are exciting about team members, and talk about that. If that’s 3 things for one person, that’s fine. Stop there and just mention the other team members. If it’s more distributed across the team then great. But pick just three, across the whole team.
90 Percent of the time, team slides are at the end of a pitch (“Here’s the people you’d be going on this journey with”). 9 Percent of the time, they’re near the beginning of a pitch (i.e. if your team has had multiple exits, or has a celebrity or something). 1 Percent of the time, team slides are in the middle of a pitch. That’s an advanced move. Don’t do that unless you have a very clear reason to do so. Usually, doing this just has the effect of cutting a pitch in half, like a freeway through a city.
(This is one section of a large bank of slide formats to use in your pitch. To follow along, subscribe to the Pitch Patterns publication on Medium. For a free .key version of these slides, email pitchpatterns@gmail.com.)
Here are some templates to consider:
Team Minimal
Just the basics. Let your narration do the work.
Team Resume
Like the Team Minimal, with a little extra written context. Keep words to a minimum.
Vertical Team Resume
Just a different orientation of the slide above.
Vertical Team Logo
Replace the words on the example above with fancy logos from your team members’ pasts. Humans tend to be visual creatures. Formats that use fancy logos can have a strong impact.
Team Grid with Logos and Investors
This reorients the team and their logos to make space for previous investors in the company. If you’ve already raised some funds from notable investors, try this. Don’t list them all, only the best ones.
Team Grid with Logos and Advisors
This swaps out investors for advisors. It works well at earlier stages, and in situations where investors can carry a lot of weight (i.e. health and medical, deeply technical areas, media, etc)
Team Grid with Logos and Advisors
Reorientation of above.
Group Photo
Sometimes you want to use a group photo of the team, which hints at cohesiveness and team strength.
