13-slide Bulletproof Startup Pitch Deck Template

An average VC can have more than 40 pitch decks sent over to them in a day.

3 minutes and 44 seconds, on average, is how long an investor looks at a single pitch.

And it only takes half a minute to form a lasting impression.

So what are the key elements investors are looking for in Pitch Decks? ??

Let's look at this slide by slide, following a Pitch Deck template of (lucky number) 13 slides:

1. Intro Slide

• One sentence to describe what you do, i.e. your Elevator Statement. This should convey the industry that you're in, your business model, who your audience is, and main value proposition. Example:

A pay-as-you-go fintech platform for students allowing them to save money every day and access rewards.

• (Not required, but always welcome) investment summary:

Raising $500k SAFE in a Seed Round at a $10M Post-Money Valuation.

2. Problem

• When it comes to the Problem Slide, investors will be looking for evidence that the problem is felt by your target audience.
• Present statistics/ news pieces/ research articles/ data that highlight the market gap you address.
• Taking screenshots of a wide variety of news headlines (all related to your Problem) and arranging them on a slide is a great way to show the Problem from different angles - a holistic perspective shows your understanding of the market needs!

3. The Opportunity

• Best tip? Reference a highly relevant news piece that explains the market opportunity you are going after. This should show to investors that the time to invest is NOW, before the prices go up. Example:

Last week, Zambia’s central bank announced it will conduct research on forming a digital currency that could boost participation in the formal financial system by the 4th quarter.

4. Solution

• Your Elevator Pitch. Describe what your company does, your business model, the Product/ Service you offer. Make it as straightforward as possible. Example:

X is a savings app students at the intersection of Fintech and Edtech. At just $4.99 per month Subscription, students can build their financial literacy and access cash rewards.

• If you can, include pictures of your product (or prototype):

A mockup picture allows the reader to visualise your product.

If you're offering a service, you could use pictures depicting your Target Audience experiencing the Service.

Otherwise, your Solution can be visually depicted as a system/ process/ timeline etc. - the goal is to help the investor visualize and understand what you do.

The Market

• Here, investors will look for TAM + SAM + SOM data, but what they care most about is SOM [Serviceable Obtainable Market], which is the subset of your SAM that you will realistically get to use your product. Example:

TAM = 100M (students using smartphones)

SAM = 60M (students with smartphones looking to save money)

SOM = 6M (a % of SAM that you can obtain)

• (recommended) Show a calculation of [SOM] x [ACV] to show how much revenue you expect the SOM to convert into.

6. Go-To-Market

• Explain how will you get your product across to your audience (i.e. SOM). In other words, this is a high-level summary of your Marketing Plan.
• "Done right, your regular marketing can go a long way in helping to position your startup to attract investors - especially angel investors. If initial marketing & branding is done with fundraising in mind, your budget can go further" - Alejandro Cremades, 'The Art of Startup Fundraising'
• Great article on this from Lenny's Newsletter:

7. Competitive Landscape

• After you've defined your Market, potential investors will want to see that you've got an understanding of who's already in it.
• Show how you compare to your direct Competitors on an X/Y mapping. Example:

X axis: ease of use. Y axis: price

• A good number of competitors to show is around 4-6.

8. Competitive Advantage

• Sometimes used interchangeably to Slide 7, this is where you illustrate your Value Proposition. A good way to do this is to compare your Product's features against that of your Competitors' in a table.

• The result of your Competitive Advantages (and an advantage in itself) can be lower-than-industry average CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost).
• CAC can be used to analyze your marketing ROI and to show an understanding of your profit margins. Critical metric to savvy investors!
• CAC = (Money + Time Spent)/ Number of Customers Acquired

9. Traction (Roadmap)

• Arguably, this is one of the most important slides in your Pitch Deck (alongside the 'Team' slide)
• It should outline a clear roadmap of achievements and traction points you had to date.
• TIP: try to place a numerical value for as many traction points as possible. Make the achievements tangible.

10. Team

• I've heard more than dozens of investors say "I always scroll to the team slide first", "I only need to look at the team" so it's crucial to get this one right.
• Always include the PICTURES of each of the team members!
• For each person, describe them in terms of 'BEA': Background, Experience, and main Achievement. Example:

Jay is a Financial Analyst turned Entrepreneur with over 15+ years of experience in the Fintech sector and a solid track record of growth, having taken his previous startup from $0 to $500k ARR in just under a year.

11. Financial Forecast

• 5-years Financial Projections. How much Revenue do you expect to make in each year?
• 5-years projection of your operating costs. How much money will you be spending each year?
• EBITDA margin. EBITDA = Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation, and Amortization. The EBITDA margin provides investors with a snapshot of short-term operational efficiency.

A low EBITDA margin indicates that a business has profitability problems as well as issues with cash flow. A relatively high EBITDA margin means?that the business earnings are better.

• Other metrics of financial success: Number of Users? How much is each paying? Average Customer Value (ACV)? Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)?

• What's your Monthly Churn?
• This is a metric of your attrition rate = the rate at which customers stop doing business with you/ stop using your products.

Churn Rate metric is critical for SaaS businesses, and the ability to predict it alone is essential for company’s success.

12. The Ask

• What's your Raising Amount?
• Have you self-invested any money into the business??Have you got any investors onboard yet, have they invested anything?
• What's the stage of raising? (Pre-Seed/ Seed/ Series A/ Series B/ beyond...)
• What's your Valuation (ideally, show Pre-money and Post-money)
• Use of Funds - what do you need the investment for? (good to show on a Pie Chart)

13. The Exit

• Lastly, this slide should simply include your contact details (email is usually enough).
• If your raise has a close date - include this on this slide.

Last but not least...

Your Pitch Deck should be continuously updated.

Make sure that the investors you talk to are looking at an up-to-date version of your Pitch - especially those with whom you spoke before. Sending over your updated Pitch is a great way to touch base and put yourself on top of their minds again.

Some VCs will actually invest after tracking you for a number of months (or even years!) once they've seen enough progress on your part.

A great idea is to run Investors' Monthly Updates newsletter.

Ankur Nagpal has open-sourced the first 20 investor updates for Teachable that document the company's path from inception to $1M+ in ARR.

If you're a Founder looking to build their first Pitch Deck, I'm happy to chat.

I'll be happy to help you build your deck or review your current one ??