Open New Opportunities with an Attractive Pitch Deck
Imagine that you are an investor, who every day has to listen to lots of pitches from various companies that are looking for investment. All companies are on their voices to provide the best solutions. How did your solution sound? How can investors be interested in taking the time to understand what you are building?
PITCH DECK, we’re sure we all get sick of it sometimes and immediately dread hearing those two words. But what is the best way to create a pitch deck that is not only numerically appealing to investors, but also fully tells the story of the startup we built and what its vision is as well?
According to Kolby McElvain, President of AIGA Indianapolis, the perfect pitch deck’s narrative should answer three key questions:
1. Why should someone care about this?
2. What is your solution and why will it work?
3. Are you and this idea a good investment?
By understanding these three questions we can execute them in the ‘Basic Pitch Deck Template’ below:
1. Who are you?
Many people do not care about the ‘title slide’. But this one slide is your chance to introduce yourself, and your startup, in the most interesting way.
2. Why should anyone listen to you?
There is a lot of debate going on about which slide you should introduce your team too. If you have an all-star-team it is important to introduce them at the start, so that they can grab the attention of your pitch deck readers. This is also your chance to tell how you can join forces to find a solution for one thing.
3. What problem do you want to solve?
Explain broadly first what is the problem you want to solve. Give the reader an overview of the opportunities that can be seized, as well as the market size.
4. How do you prove it?
Back up your big-picture with statistical data. It is very important to illustrate that this is a growing issue.
5. How do people solve this problem? And why isn’t it resolved yet?
Help your audience understand how we got to this point and how it is being addressed today.
6. What are you building?
When explaining a product, keep it simple, but exciting. Most importantly this slide should explain what you are building; the app? Marketplace? Hardware?
7. What are you focused on?
Dig into a handful of the key-value propositions your product will deliver on — think about solutions, not specific features. These buckets should illustrate the big vision of what could be accomplished with your product.
8. How does your solution come to life?
It depends on your staging. If there is already a demo, then give a little description of the demo that you are currently completing.
9. What is your unique-GTM-strategy?
The Go-To-Market (GTM) slide should describe one of two things: either your strategy around who you’re targeting and how or the momentum you’ve had to date.
10. How big can this be?
Give a projection on how this startup can become bigger. Investors want to know how far your startup can grow.
11. Why now / why you?
Give urgency why you have to start building solutions to problems now and describe the reasons why you should build this.
12. What do you need?
After explaining everything, also explain what you need right now. Capital is it? Partnership? And how this funding can take you to the next level.
Hopefully, some of the methods above can help you to create a pitch deck that is not only interesting but also effective. Good luck!
