Common problems with pitch decks

Acting as a startup advisor, I have seen a lot of pitch decks. I have seen a range from good, to weak, to totally incomprehensible.

There are certain common mistakes which I see frequently.

1. Wordiness: most decks I see are far too wordy. VCs (and to some extent angels) see a lot of decks. Any deck that makes it difficult to grasp quickly the idea and the investment opportunity is putting itself at a disadvantage to decks that explain the proposition succinctly.
2. Length: some decks are really long. A pitch deck is not supposed to be a pretty version of a business plan. It is just a hook to get an investor interested so they can ask for more information. 10-20 slides is the acceptable range. Around 15 is probably the sweet spot for most businesses.
3. Not spelling out the problem. A good investment opportunity is most likely to be solving a problem. That is primarily how economic value is created. Something that boosts productivity. That should be near the front of the deck and clearly spelled out.
4. Not well articulating the solution to that problem. At worst it can come across that it is not a solution at all. At the very least, if you can't explain why it is a good solution to investors, it calls into question whether you can sell the solution to customers.
5. Top down market size figures. We have all seen those TAM, SAM and SOM bubble charts which generally show the market is worth eleventy billion dollars. Make sure they are relevant to your particular product. It is better to have a smaller relevant figure than a huge but irrelevant figure.
6. Financials clearly built from top down assumptions. Modelling from the bottom up is comparatively hard compared to applying a market share % to a SOM figure. But is more likely to be accurate because it forces you to think about how you are going achieve your growth, what assumptions you need to make and what you need to spend to achieve that growth. Top down figures should only be used to sense check figures derived from the bottom up. If you can't build a bottom-up financial forecast model, find someone who can help you.
7. No reference to a sales or marketing strategy for your idea. Many founders are creative or technical people. It is the classic mistake many of us have made, "If I build it, they will come." They really will not. You need to explain how it will be sold or marketed.
8. Not being proof read. It is not uncommon to see spelling mistakes (note: licence = noun; license = verb) or to see text running off the page.
9. Not articulating the investment opportunity. Just because something is a cool product or has value to society, it does not mean it is a good investment. A good startup investment depends on selling something for considerably more than the purchase price. That should be obvious but it is not always obvious from pitch decks. First and foremost, investors are there to make money. If a product is going to make the world a better place along the way, great, but it must also make money to secure investment.
10. No mention of the exit strategy. Very few decks mention the likely exit at all which is strange because (a) it determines how and when the investors are likely to get their money back and (b) it helps you think about how much it could be sold for and therefore adds some rigour to your current valuation figure.