The introduction part in your startup pitch deck
First impressions matter a lot. Explore how to put together the introduction part of your pitch deck so that you can build the best pitch deck for your startup. Pitch Deck 101 Series — Post #1.
In the Pitches of Paradise Pitch Deck 101 Series we are giving you some straight-up presentation tips and tricks, so that you can build the best pitch deck for your startup. Let’s get to this!
Engage your audience right from the start: Always start your pitch deck with a story hook
There are several options that you can choose from in order to capture the audience’s attention and/or create emotional connection right from the start. Here are a few ideas, options and examples:
- Dramatise the problem: Take the core insight, the problem, the unmet need, or whatever you call it, and present it in a dramatic but authentic manner to ensure it makes an emotional impact.
- Tell a real-life story: Tell a personal story about yourself, your co-founder(s), one of your family members, a typical representative of the community, or your favourite food, childhood memory, exotic travel destination or a blockbuster PS4 game. Whoever or whatever that may be, the important thing is that the person, object or abstract thing in the centre of your story must be connected to the problem and/or the solution represented by your company and product. And it has to be a strong connection with high relevance in order to be able to justify your passion towards your business.
- Show your vision about how your solution will make the world a better place: Use a strong visual or video to support this story hook. It can be beautiful, joyful, funny, surprising, shocking, bizarre, etc. The point is that it must be something that has the power to evoke basic human emotions such as fear, joy, surprise, anger, excitement, etc.
Ensure you keep up the engagement all along: Follow on to your story hook and keep your audience engaged throughout the pitch
Too many times it happens that startup pitches fall apart soon after the start. They begin on a high note, then there is a 100m drop to the deep abyss of a confusing and mediocre pitch.
When you start with a story hook that emotionally engages the audience, you will miss an opportunity if you don’t follow on from the hook and keep the engagement up in the rest of the pitch.
In fact, with an engaging start you create an extra responsibility for yourself and it’s easy to set yourself up to fail because you create high expectations in your audience. Their disappointment will be high too, unless you have the ammunition to pay the hook off and follow it up with a relevant and coherent story. But not to worry, the reward is more than worth the risk, so don’t hesitate and start brainstorming on your story hook today!
Hope you enjoyed it, please give us a thumbs up if you liked this advice and share your comments below. Check out the next post to learn how to create a good team page to build trust, and decide which team members are best to pitch on stage.
Investor pitch? Pitch competition or demo day? Networking event pitch? Sales pitch or company presentation?
With Pitches of Paradise, Mate Kovacs and our team of experts at Water Lily Pond are offering you a unique combination of strategy, storytelling, creative content and design to take your startup’s pitch deck to new levels. Get started now!
