Setting the Foundation: The Problem Slide
The Problem or Pain Point slide is a critical part of your seed fundraising deck. It spotlights the acute frustration or unmet market need that serves as the “why” your startup should exist, and often serves as the foundation for the rest of your pitch.
As part of our ongoing series that deep dives into the individual slides comprising a seed stage pitch deck, I’m going to dissect the Pain Point slide.
While almost every deck we see has a version of this slide, far too many founders don’t dedicate enough attention to it and end up missing a major opportunity. When crafted effectively, it is an opportunity to tell your story, establish acute market need and size, while providing important context for the why now behind your launch.
Typically located towards the front, this slide often precedes the Solution and Traction slides in your deck. Frequently, it’s the first impression you provide an investor. While there is no universally correct pitch deck format, starting by demonstrating the burning problem, your solution, and early validation makes intuitive sense.
A Narrative with Numbers
An effective Pain Point slide does two things well:
1) Enables you to tell a story about why the user hates the status quo
2) Quantifies the value of your solution
This is often the slide that requires the most skill at storytelling. How do you know people can’t live without your widget? Is this something you’ve experienced? Have you talked to thousands of customers? Did it kill your last company? There are all kinds of reasons why you may believe your solution should exist but you need to convey those reasons to investors that usually don’t have your same experiences or insights. It is your job to paint a picture so vivid that the need for your product can’t be denied. Investors want confidence you’re a must-have rather than nice-to-have otherwise it is going to be tough sledding.
Which brings us to point number two. Quantitative data is an effective way to paint this pain point picture. Despite the fact that numbers hold substantially more weight than qualitative claims regarding a problem’s pervasiveness, too many Pain Point slides are devoid of them! While your voice over may include things like “I know from my industry experience…” or “I’ve talked to people that need this” it’s vital that you substantiate this urgent need through metrics demonstrating economic impact!
The more acute and quantitatively validated the current gap between the status quo and your solution, the faster you should be able to sell. Nice-to-have point solutions mean slower uptake, more friction in the sales process, and ultimately higher customer acquisition costs. All things that investors tend not to like. Use the problem slide to make sure that when you get to your solution, investors understand that your product or service is a must-have and that it isn’t just slightly better; it is a big enough problem that your solution is a leap change from the status quo. As a founder it is worth spending time to validate this yourself, unearthing data that underscores the severity of the unmet market need.
The Pain Point slide sets the tone for how much the world needs your solution. It should demonstrate why you will have legions of eager customers because the status quo is so incredibly inferior to what you offer.
Recommendations for Crafting a Compelling Problem Slide
Here are my keys for crafting a truly standout slide:
1. Lead with the most acute subset of pain before expanding out — hook attention by spotlighting the most frustrating manifestation of pain hindering a key customer persona before broadening to other issues. And yes, you can include both the acute and broader pain points in the same slide if needed. The acute pain is the “wedge” in.
2. Quantify pain severity through micro and macro metrics — macro level stats like $x wasted productivity/spend or $x revenue opportunity missed help show urgency at the organizational level. Micro stats showing time/revenue impact per user convey why you’ll build champions within your target customer organizations.
3. Benchmark severity against competitive status quo — use metrics that will allow you to show exponentially better outcomes from your solution versus existing alternatives; position the problem’s severity as tied to lack of sufficient solutions. If it is only a 2x or 3x improvement, you will struggle to sell your product.
4. Use visuals demonstrating pain — charts on rising costs, photos of existing antiquated solutions, diagrams of broken processes. Don’t just state the problem exists.
5. When appropriate detail both user and purchase decision-maker pain — elaborate not just on frontline user challenges but also the costs and consequences of convincing budget holders to prioritize solving this now. Why do all the stakeholders care?
Final Thoughts
The Problem slide is not fanciful slidesmanship or clickbait data points. At its core, this slide anchors the strategic rationale behind your startup — why act now to build this venture? Flimsy problems eclipse even the most ingenious solutions. But airtight validation of customers desperately needing your widget goes a long way towards validation of product-market fit, scaling go-to-market, and beyond.
