Tips for Drafting A Great Pitch Deck
A lot of entrepreneurs ask me for advice on how to best put together a great pitch deck. There’s a ton of resources out there provided by various firms like YCombinator, Techstars, and VC funds like First Round and Sequoia. I think all these resources are great but wanted to put together a more concise framework for constructing great decks.
I think there are two important things to remember when constructing a pitch deck: 1) everyone, whether its a customer or an investor, likes to be told a story and 2) familiarity in the simple things is a good thing. Let’s unpack each of these points.
For the first point, if you have read any books about human psychology, Sapiens is my favorite one recently, you know that one of the main differentiators of humans is our ability to believe in imagined realities and collaborate with others. This means that people want to have a cause they can get behind and telling a great story evokes emotional responses in the human psyche to align others with your mission/vision. Also, it gets people excited about the future possibilities and especially at the early stages focuses the reader on where the company will be going rather than where it is now. If you think that storytelling doesn’t matter, I encourage you to watch any of the Toy Story movies again and see how a story told correctly can even cause animated toys come to life.
The second most important thing to remember is familiarity is great for the simple things. What I mean by this is that sometimes entrepreneurs like to experiment with different pitch formats (instead of a deck they will whiteboard the pitch for example). There are already enough new things for the investor/reader to learn about and comprehend based on what the startup is doing. Throwing in another format of presenting could have a great payoff by wowing the individual with how different the format is…or more likely it could just make it harder for the investor to understand what it is you’re trying to get across. Another book that I would reference here is called Hitmakers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction. In it the author provides countless examples of popular “hits” such as movies, songs, and art that trigger a recognition of a pattern in the human psyche. When we find that pattern, it brings an aspect of familiarity to the content that makes the majority of the population more likely to enjoy it. It’s hard to swim against the current so unless you have a great new idea for a pitch format that you are burning to try out, stick to the tried and true and let your idea/vision/story be that differentiator that shines.
Keeping these two things in mind, let’s jump into how I like to format pitch decks to best tell a story. Below is my general outline:
Title Slide - Not much to say here besides don’t try and do too much. If you’re a consumer-focused startup then maybe have your design/branding show through. If you’re targeting the enterprise, keep it simple.
Mission Statement - It’s surprising how few startups have a 1–2 sentence mission statement. This not only helps investors and customers understand what your company is about, but also helps the founders and team members align towards a common goal. Make this concise, clear, and something that resonates throughout the deck. For example, if your mission is to provide great customer service, then throughout the deck there should be language and examples that back up that this is truly the mission of the company.
Why Now - These are your standard market opportunity slides. Basically, you’re walking the investor through why this moment is the right time to start this company. It could be market size, it could be a specific trend, it could be a new change in regulations, but what makes it ripe for this company to exist at this moment.
Product - Insert a couple slides on what the company does. Tailored pictures can be useful here. Showing dashboards or photos of the consumer product again helps frame in the reader’s mind that this is a real thing and helps them understand how it is used by the customer.
Competitive Advantages - This does NOT mean the 4x4 competitive matrix. This is a slide in which you can talk about why your company is differentiated. It’s approaching the market with a different solution, targeting a niche market, or greatly improving a process. Again, help the reader understand why this company will succeed.
Use Cases (Case Studies) - When possible try and include specific case studies that tie into the Competitive Advantages that you mentioned. If you have customer, then show how the customer uses your product and how it has improved their lives. If not, then talk higher level about the potential use case for a customer. Reinforcing your competitive advantages with real-life cases can be extremely powerful in helping the reader remember your startup in particular.
Team - For some reason, people always shirk on this slide. Your biggest competitive advantage in any startup is your team. You would not be hiring or working with these people if you didn’t believe that they could accomplish great things. Make sure you talk about the key people and highlight either where they’ve been, their experience, or why you’re so excited that they are part of the company.
Traction, Business Model, Competition, Product Roadmap, Ask - These next few slides are self-explanatory. They will differ for each startup and there’s a ton of examples out there of how to lay these slides out. The main thing is don’t lose focus on that mission statement in these slides and the overall story. Even in these slides, customer service, user focus, product focus, or whatever your main focus is at the company should be coming through. Since you’ve told a great story before, this is proving that the story is a real possibility and you have a decent understanding of what it will take to get there (of course that decent understanding will change the moment you raise funding and start trying things out, but at least for the moment you understand the steps).
Appendix - I suggest using the appendix to fit in additional items that you think are key to the story but didn’t necessarily fit within the flow of the pitch or were too bulky to have in the main deck. Some companies choose to have financials here or more photos of the product. Whatever the items are, they should be supplementary to further help the reader understand the company and the vision/mission/story. Everything else can be provided in separate diligence materials when the investor asks for them.
Pitch decks are simple. They are your opportunity to tell your company’s story and convince others that they want to be a part of what you’re doing. It’s the same reason why a website is important. It helps frame in the person’s mind (whether an investor or customer) what exactly the company is doing and why it’s worth the time to talk with you and the rest of the team. Hopefully, by following the above format, you can shift the focus to the great things that you and your team are doing and make the story come across in a powerful way.
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