Five Pitch Deck Design Tips

Without venture capital, a startup cannot get off the ground, so it’s important for startup companies to be armed with an impressive pitch deck. A pitch deck is a Powerpoint or Keynote presentation composed of 15 to 20 slides intended to show investors the company’s idea in the best way possible.

For a pitch deck to work, it has to be able to deliver a compelling story to convince investors to cough up the capital to begin building the next revolutionary…. But telling the next great idea isn’t enough. The investors need to see it in a well-organized and visually impressive manner. So here are five-pitch deck design tips to make investors ask themselves why they invested in such a crazy idea after leaving the meeting room.

Tell a Good Story

People love a good story, preferably short ones in this case. Stories have a problem or conflict to be solved and how the hero, the startup, intends to address it for a happy ending. The solution to finding the holy grail needs to be convincing enough for the investors to buy the story. Persuasive means that the answer is logical and achievable most efficiently and cost-effectively possible. What you can do with the more detailed slides is to shuffle them to a section or separate presentation that can be easily accessed when the devil goes into the details.

The Text Must Be Readable

A common pitfall in any Powerpoint presentation is the use of small text or cramming a lot of details onto one slide, all because the presenter can’t remember everything and needs to read everything out (admit it). A large percentage of the population can’t stand to read novels because there are no pictures among the hundreds of tiny words per page. Which is why people watch Game of Thrones on HBO instead of reading A Song of Ice and Fire. In short, keep the words down to a minimum and the text size to a specified maximum. Don’t forget the stunning picture of the bridge you’re selling. You can hammer out the details later when you’ve reeled the fish in.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

As previously mentioned, a good picture is essential. We cannot stress it enough with the adage, because the hundreds of words you originally wanted to cram in that page can be summed up with a good image or diagram of the product you’re selling. You might have to invest in a good camera, photographer or artist to illustrate your product to add to your pitch deck. For example, the picture of a slim, attractive girl about to eat a chocolate-covered weight loss oatmeal bar.

Contrast or Balance

You now have text, and you now have pictures. Now the design has to marry them both. Blend them in such a way that the text is (again) legible enough that they don’t end up as captions for your images. Ensure that your images, as well as your text colors, don’t clash with your presentation background or overall theme. Think of how awkward you felt with C3PO’s red arm.

Divide and Conquer

Your presentation should be organized enough to be divided into simple sections. Each page or slide must convey a straightforward point (or a couple of related ones), not several so as not to confuse your audience. The current slide should often lead up to, or be related to the next until you convey the overarching story you want to tell.

Hopefully, these tips are helpful enough to lead to that next great startup. We could sure use a medical tricorder and avoid those embarrassing anal examinations. The last pitch for it was too colorful and had small text written in Klingon.

Hey! I’m Tomer, an entrepreneur, and maker. You might know me from Mevee, Crane, and Shots, and now Slides among other products I’ve launched! This article is a part of a more extensive series I’m writing mostly based on my experiences and is mainly made of me and my team’s opinions.

I hope this helps you to avoid making the same mistakes I did, and remember to keep shipping!

This article is part of a series to help you with your startup launch and capital raise :

1. How To Build a Pitch Deck
2. How to Raise Venture Capital Money
3. How to Launch A Successful Startup Business
4. How To Value a Business
5. Five Mistakes that Result in Pitches that Strike Out
6. The Do’s and Don’ts for Pitch Decks
7. How To Master the Art of the Elevator Pitch
8. Watch Out For These Common Questions that Investors Ask
9. Five Pitch Deck Design Tips
10. What You Need To Know About Growth Hacking