What Is A Pitch Deck And How Do I Create One?
Pitch decks, sometimes called marketing decks, are typically used by companies or businesses that are trying to persuade investors or clients to invest in their business. These are short visual-textual presentations that offer an instant overview of your company. What makes up a pitch deck is a brief synopsis of your company, goals, vision, and other important sections that we shall uncover in this blog.?
Types of Pitch Decks
Entrepreneurs often create two different types of pitch decks— for emailing and for presenting in person.
The first pitch deck – this is sent to investors by email and is evaluated independently. Its content is a little more text- and information-heavy as a result.
The second pitch deck – this one is presented in person. To keep investors interested and attentive, this version of the pitch deck presentation will have more visual components along with content.
Once your first pitch deck has been evaluated and the investor sees value in your proposition, you should get an invite. This is when you need to present your second pitch deck in person–this is a critical step as it could be your make-or-break moment.
Note that closing the deal is not the main objective of a pitch deck. Instead, it’s to persuade a client or investor to take an interest in what you are offering and initiate a conversation with you further about your company or business.
Pro tip: Keep your pitch decks brief, even if you may have a lot to say about your company and why someone else should invest in you.
How to Create a Pitch Deck?
Each pitch deck will be unique based on your company and the target audience.?
Be it an email version or an in-person pitch deck, you must include the following in your slides.
Note that investors look at pitch decks for an average of 3 minutes and 44 seconds. According to an analysis that examined over 200 pitch decks, investors pay the most attention to financials, team members, and competition slides.
1. About Your Business
A business introduction is essential for every pitch deck. The very first slide should introduce yourself and the company to the audience. This is also a good time to include your value proposition and any other message you feel is crucial to providing prospects with further information about your company, such as:
2. Problem Statement
You should describe the market gap you are addressing on this slide. It must be an agonizing subject that people can identify with and that investors won’t find difficult to connect with.
Moreover, you should be tackling only one major pain area. Not two, three, or all. To address a burning problem, you must project an image of being determined and unwavering in your approach to solving this gap.
Generally, it is advised to make separate presentations outlining the problem and the solution since you don’t want to overload an investor with too much information on just one deck.
Keep in mind that when an investor collaborates with your business, it’s either due to one of the following reasons:
If an investor fits into one of the three interest categories, you’ve got your lead investor because of their professional experience. This further helps you obtain at least 20% of the funding for the full round that you are trying to raise.
3. Solutions Offered
The solution must be brief and extremely clear. Scalability is a critical need for any solution, particularly for IT startups. The capacity of a system to increase its overall output as resources are added under conditions of greater load is known as scalability. Investors essentially want to see this—a business where they can put their money into and make the wheel spin considerably faster.
Furthermore, it is important to explain why the solutions make sense at this point in the presentation. As you may be aware, in business, timing is everything, and what counts most is to be at the right place at the right time. Startup failure can often be attributed to entering the market either too early or too late.
Pro Tip: Stay away from claiming that you are the only one doing something about the problem and that you are the only leader in your market.?
As Mark Cuban puts it, there are at least 100 others who came up with that concept before you, and other businesses could be taking a different perspective on the same issue.
4. Market Valuation
The investor’s possible exit strategy will be dictated by the market. This may also affect your results if you are in a small market segment.
Keep in mind that an investor in hyper-growth companies may not find any market under $1 billion appealing. This is because such investors are searching for businesses that could yield 10x more return within a 5-7-year timeframe.
Institutional investors, in particular, who are the final investors, are searching for businesses that not only have the ability to revolutionize their sector but also radically alter how customers engage with a market.
For investors to calculate the possible return on investment and the upside, it’s recommended to include a graph on this slide that illustrates both the historical and projected market growth. Ensure that the sources you are using are taken from verified research publications.
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5. Competitor Analysis
It’s a good idea to present the investor with a graphic illustration that highlights the competitors operating in your market—how your value proposition lands and how you stack up against them.
To convey what makes your business so unique, your value proposition must stand out from the competition.
You should also want to include a slide that lists the total funding each competitor has raised to date, along with the value. This could be useful in giving some context for the price that the market is paying. When the time comes to haggle over the details of the agreement or move forward with a possible investment, this may also work to your advantage.
6. Product/Services Highlights
Provide product descriptions along with images of your product in use. Don’t worry if you’re not quite there yet; this would be the ideal time to showcase all the positive reviews your product has received.?
You may want to include a description of the product itself and comments from some of your current customers praising it to make it even more persuasive. Optionally, at this point, you could verbally introduce your team and leadership to give investors an insight into those driving your business’s mission and vision.?
7. Business Stability
This slide should display the company’s growth month-over-month (metrics, sales, etc.). This is the slide where you should ideally include the ‘promised land’ that potential investors look for in every pitch deck they evaluate.?
Start-ups may not have this kind of data to present. Therefore, if your growth looks slow or you are in a very early stage of your start-up, it is advisable not to include this slide.
As a business expands, so does its marketing strategies. You may demonstrate your forward-thinking nature by showcasing your marketing platforms and how they are specifically designed for an expanding business. Describe your marketing strategies and how you plan to promote your product using digital methods. Make sure to emphasize that you are ready to begin promoting your company right away. Provide supporting data if you can, such as reviews, research, or statistics. Include your customer relationship management (CRM) plan and an explanation of your practical marketing strategies.
?8. Meet The Team
This is the most important slide in any pitch deck. Investors are usually interested in learning who is in charge and what makes them special enough to carry out the goal and match the vision.?
Do note that your concept may have been considered by at least 100 other companies. That’s why concept comes in at 10%, and execution comes in at 90% – this is where you can strike down your competitors.
The business will ultimately figure out its path to success if the right people are occupying the right seats on the bus. Regretfully, when one is financing a first-time founder, they are also financing the person’s education and all of the errors that person will make at the beginning. There is no way to avoid this; it is an inevitable part of the trip. Therefore, summarizing the leadership team members—ideally, the cofounders—is the best way to present the team slide. Present a couple of accomplishments for each member in short bullet points.
9. Financials
Share figures, current investments, and fund usage. If applicable, present month-over-month growth or projections for the next 3 to 5 years. If your startup lacks this information, acknowledge it. Clearly outline fundraising goals within a specified range to attract potential investors. Furthermore, after evaluating your pitch deck, investors might want to examine your financials in an Excel format, so be sure to have this ready as well. That’s why your pitch decks don’t have to be detailed due to the availability of this Excel sheet. You just need to give a synopsis.
10. Investment Amount Being Raised
It’s important to be strategic on the ask slide. Don’t indicate how much you are raising specifically. It is advisable to provide a range between $3 million and $5 million, for instance, if your goal is to raise $5 million. Companies have investment caps, so if you put $5 million in your pitch deck and the business is mandated to invest no more than $3 million, you will probably get turned down. You can also include companies/investors that are ready to put in the $3 million to $5 million range on the fundraising amount. Choose ranges rather than precise sums since you want to appeal to as many target investors as you can.
11. Contact Information
Include your phone number, email, website, and digital/social media links. Optionally, offer professional references, leaving no ambiguity about the next steps for potential investors.
The majority of founders forget to include their contact details in their pitch decks. Include the links on the cover slide if you have a sizable social media following. This, in our opinion, would offer societal proof. Interested investors may probably?Google?you up and get in touch with individuals they know well to get recommendations.
Now that we have covered what a pitch deck should comprise, here are a few tips to consider when designing an in-person pitch in particular.
Tips When Designing In-Person Pitch Decks
Your in-person pitch deck can be an expanded or tweaked version of your emailed pitch deck, with a focus on making it more visually appealing with less text.?
Even if your emailed pitch deck opened the door, your in-person pitch deck must leave a lasting impact. It should be well-structured, up-to-date, and neatly organized.
Make It Simple and Concise
When presenting information, consider your options carefully and include just enough specifics to pique the interest of potential investors. Thus, your in-person presentation needs to be comprehensive without becoming bogged down in minutiae. This may be a bit difficult.
Put out a neat, eye-catching, professionally designed presentation. When using text on your slides, make it simple and easy to read. Remember that if your slides contain too much content, the audience may get distracted. Since your presentation mostly follows the same format, ensure that each layout has crisp and digestible information that investors can grasp with ease–the deal is to do the job for investors to identify your business focus and kick-start the much-awaited investment conversation. After presenting, it’s important to set aside enough time for questions from potential investors.?
Laying Out a Business Plan in Depth
These can all be found in your business plan–organization charts, financial forecasts, and performance indicators. Your business plan is very important if you want to talk about the size, potential, or marketing strategy of your market. Investors are looking for ways that your ideas, goods, and services will generate income, which will demonstrate the workability of your plan.?
Remember, A Lot Depends on Your Pitch Deck
Of course, it’s not just about seeking investments. You’ll need to put in endless hours of hard work to turn your business into a thriving enterprise. Moreover, emotional support from friends and family and self-assuredness are equally critical. Your biggest investment is probably in the time and effort you put into creating an investor pitch deck that will bring the investments to you. So, be sure to do it the right way!