The Five Questions You Should Answer in a Pitch Deck to Investors
I speak with a number of first-time entrepreneurs who have one version of their executive summaries and pitch decks prepared for all audiences that they come in contact with. Usually, I meet with entrepreneurs who have a particular domain expertise (i.e. healthcare, real estate, financial services, or education) and they have materials that meet the expectation of consumers or gatekeepers within their specific target audience. That’s great and necessary but I like to remind the startups I advise that there is a time and place for everything — this should be remembered when pitching to investors. The following bullets elaborate on what I feel are the 5 key questions that any investor focused pitch deck or executive summary should answer to meet the expectations of venture capitalists.
What is the Problem?
What are you trying to solve? Investors want to understand the use case for your product and why this is an issue that must be solved by a product…
What’s Your Solution?
So you have identified the use case and market gap, but the investor needs to know how your product will meet the needs of the consumers. In this section, you should present the value proposition that your startup offers and the unit economics of the products or services.
What’s the Market Opportunity?
Once you have displayed the logic and use case of your product or services, then the investors want to know that your company is embarking on a growth market. Can you determine if the market is big or not? You should show the growth potential of the market size by answering questions such as how many potential customers are there? What are the growth prospects of your target market? The key to answering this question is to use strong logic and have data that supports your assumptions.
What’s Your Team’s Competitive Advantage?
You have clarified your solutions to the market gap. You have also shown how large the target market is. But now you need to explain how your team can execute value from the market opportunity. So who are you? Who is on your team? Who are your advisors? What track record has your team established over the years in this industry and other industries? You should develop a clear argument to why your company can take advantage of the market gap while other incumbents and emerging players have no chance. Why will your team create value in this market, with this product, and at this time. The answer should be you have an unfair advantage.
What’s Your Ask?
This is a pivotal question that first-time entrepreneurs sometimes overlook or don’t fully answer. What do you want from the investor audience? How much capital do you need and how will the funds be allocated? If investors are going to make a huge best or your early stage startups they want to know you have a true purpose for them capital that will lead to growth.
If you answer those five questions in 7 to 10 slides you will have a concise, clear and strong pitch that will resonate well with early stage venture capital investors who may not have the same expectations of potential customers in the industry your startup is looking to disrupt. Best of luck on your presentations and feel free to reach out to me on twitter if you have any questions!
Earnest Sweat is a Startup Adviser and Business Ops professional for various accelerators. Sweat specializes in sourcing, managing and mentoring startups within the fin tech, ed tech, and real estate tech sectors. If you have any questions, comments or requests please connect with Earnest through LinkedIn, Twitter, or AngelList.
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