Startup Pitch Deck Resources
Are you a startup founder who is ready to share your innovative business idea with the world?
You’ve come to the right place! These pitch deck resources can help you create a winning presentation that will help tell your story and how you plan to solve the problem at hand with investors.
Whether this is your first startup or just looking to revise your deck, it can be tricky figuring out how to craft an effective pitch. In this blog post, we have gathered the ultimate list of relevant resources for creating a successful pitch deck that captures investors’ attention and showcases why their money should go towards funding your venture.
To get started, we’re sharing a few tips and golden nuggets about some of the most challenging slides of your pitch deck.
Summary slide – The first two slides of your presentation – the cover slide and the summary slide – are crucial.
In the first two slides, you’ll want to cover:
The name and logo of your company.
A mission or vision for the company and what you are hoping to accomplish.
High-level business model — B2B, B2C, B2B2C, dev tools, platform, marketplace, etc.
A one-line summary of your business — “Airbnb: A marketplace to help homeowners rent spare rooms to travelers,” or “Twilio: Making SMS messaging easy for developers,” etc.
General stage of the company — “pre-product,” “pre-revenue,” “pre-product-market fit,” or “growth,” for example.
Funding stage of the company —” seed round” or “Series B,” and so on and so forth.
The amount you are targeting to raise — i.e., raising a $4 million round.
The industry you are in — medtech, proptech, fintech, blockchain, smart home, etc.
Founding date — if relevant, it can help signal how long you’ve been working on this problem.
Any major milestones you’ve accomplished recently, ideally in the form of traction metrics.
The Team – Your team is the backbone of any pitch, and investors want to know why they should put their money on your side. Enter the Team Slide - your chance to showcase what sets you apart. Don't just list your team members - design a slide that highlights why your unique experiences are an unfair advantage. Convince investors that with you by their side, success is guaranteed.
Five Flute Pitch Deck Tear Down
The Problem – Crafting an effective slide deck involves more than just visually appealing graphics and bullet points. It requires a clear problem statement to engage your audience and convince them of the importance of your solution. But nailing down your problem statement can be tricky.
Who exactly is affected by the problem?
How are they currently attempting to solve it?
And what pain points do they face with their current solutions?
These questions must be addressed to build a compelling argument for your proposed solution.
Solution & Product – When you're building a startup, it's important to have all the puzzle pieces in place. Two of those pieces are the problem slide and the solution slide. While the problem slide sets the stage for the challenge at hand, the solution slide is where you can really shine. This is where you present your high-level strategy for tackling the problem head-on. Think of it like a thesis statement for your company. You've identified a problem, and you believe you have the overarching solution. Of course, the devil is in the details, and you'll need to figure out the nitty-gritty implementation, but the solution slide is your chance to showcase your big-picture thinking.
Competition – A competitor slide is your opportunity to shine as a founder. There’s no such thing as “no competitors”. In the context of a competition slide, if there are no companies that are building solutions, or if there are no products that already solve this, there will be competing alternative solutions. Remember that the competitive alternative may not be obvious.
The Ask – Without a clear ask, your pitch is useless – Investors need to know that you know what you’re doing. The “ask” slide is one of the best places to show that you know you have a clear plan. “What is my $10 Million going to buy me”?
Business Model – How to think about your business model as part of a VC pitch. For the purposes of a funding pitch, however, it’s likely you only need a few crucial elements:
COGS, or cost of goods sold, is the incremental cost for each unit you deliver. For software, this typically rounds to zero, but for hardware products or more service-driven businesses, the unit cost can be substantial.
CAC, or customer acquisition cost, is the cost of sales and marketing divided by how many customers you’ve signed up.
LTV, or lifetime value: How much is each customer worth, on average, once you sign them up?
R&D cost is what it costs to develop the product. This isn’t usually included in the business model, but if the cost of R&D is astronomical and the cost-to-profit line never intersects, you could have a problem worth exploring.
The pricing model isn’t usually part of the business model itself (it falls under LTV), but if you’re doing something unusual or creative with your pricing, it’s worth including that, either here or on your go-to-market slide.
Breaking those numbers down and presenting them the right way can greatly benefit how you tell your startup’s story to investors.
Product – Investor's Perspective: Don't Spend Too Much Time on Your Product!
As a startup founder, you might be putting all your time and effort into perfecting your product. But here's the truth: your investors don't care about your product as much as you do. What they are really interested in is the value you can create in the market.
Think about it - when you pitch to potential investors, they're not just buying into your product. They're buying into your business model and your ability to leverage market opportunities. That's why you should focus more on understanding your customers and the market than on perfecting your product.
At the end of the day, your product is replaceable. What's not replaceable is your ability to build effective solutions and create value for your customers. So don't waste your time trying to impress your investors with your product. Instead, impress them with your understanding of the market and your ability to create value.
For example, look up Stuart Butterfield
Why Now – Prove to investors why this is the right time and you’re the right company. Successful companies usually have these things in common: They were the right company, solving the right problem at the right time. Think of all the startups that cropped up during the early years of the pandemic that were solving specific problems related to accessing health care or presenting meetings. The “why now?” question can be answered in a number of ways, but it usually boils down to at least one of these three things: technology timing, market timing, or regulatory timing.
Operating Plan – Your pitch deck needs an operating plan. An operating plan is a high-level numerical view of the near future of your company. It describes, in measurable terms, what you need to do to get from where you are now to where you need to be to raise your next round of funding. And it presents this information in a way that is easy to digest and discuss, without getting too bogged down in the nitty-gritty of the numbers.
Use appendices wisely – If it doesn’t fit with the main “flow” of your story, you may rely on them in the Q&A.
Get rid of your “exit” slide – You don’t know the future.
Get rid of your vanity metrics – Unless your metrics directly influence your business success, they don’t belong in your deck.
More Resources
TechCrunch has written exhaustively on Pitch Deck Right and Wrongs.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/01/startup-pitch-deck/
Pitch Deck Resources:
TechCrunch offers a great pitch deck tear-down series
https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/03/most-common-pitch-deck-fails/
Here’s a great Pitch Deck Book that guides you through your must-have slides.
Get Backed by Evan Baeher and Evan Loomis
Additional Examples of Top Startup Pitch Decks
