What is the right order for the slides in your pitch deck?
Short answer: whatever order tells your story the best
In broad strokes, the content that goes into pitch decks is pretty much the same — that’s sort of the point, and it helps investors get a comprehensive overview of the company they are looking at quickly. You know how it goes: What’s the problem, how are you solving it, how big is the market, what’s the competition, what’s your team, how much money are you raising… The usual.
In working with a ton of startups as a pitch coach, I often come across an awkward problem. Many — probably most — of the people I work with found a great template for a pitch deck out there. They customize the slides, but they don’t usually change the order from whatever guide they found online. That’s a mistake.
You don’t tell your story so they match your slides — you use the slide to support and enhance your story. The upshot is two-fold: If your slides don’t work, or you can’t get the computer to connect to the screen (it happens more than you might think), you shrug and you present without slides. More importantly: The slides shouldn’t be the focus of your attention: Your story is. If your Keynote or Powerpoint is stealing the show, you’ve already lost. The investors don’t need to have faith in your presentation-wizardry; they need to have faith in you.
In other words: Lead from your strength. Investors see tons of pitches every day, and the temptation is always to write you off before you’ve really gotten started. To catch their attention, your first slide should be something that surprises and delights.
If you have incredible traction, lead with a graph showing that. If you have the only team that could possibly run this company, that’s your first slide. Do you have patented technology? Is the problem unusual and interesting? Is the market surprising and growing rapidly?
The first slide is the answer to “What’s unusual about this company.” From there, tell the story the way you would tell the story. A fundraising pitch isn’t a linear story, so there’s no rules to where you can start — as long as it supports a compelling narrative arc that you follow from beginning to end.
There’s no ‘right’ order to the slides — but there is a wrong way. If you find yourself jumping back and forth in your narrative a lot, you’ve found the latter.
Haje is a pitch coach based in Silicon Valley, working with founders from all over the world to create the right starting point for productive conversations with investors — from a compelling narrative to a perfect pitch. You can find out more at Haje.me. You can also find Haje on Twitter and LinkedIn.
