Whats the Ideal number of slides one can have in a pitch deck, what elements should i have in my presentation
Each founders journey is unique & should be cherished in its own way, so should one's proposal or pitch deck to be an investment partner. Throughout our journey, we have witnessed founders convince investors with presentations that included 35 slides and those that only had five. Each Vertical and industry has its own expected niche slide which are different for one another but the core of a pitch depends on the goal of what you are trying to achieve with it Goal of a Pitch Deck
Tease to get meeting: If my goal is just invite the prospective investor to a meeting, I would use light or shorter version of then deck to tease them, even one-pager in an email or Whatsapp or social media promotion would do.
Intrigue the audience : If i am to present to a group of investors with various different background, i would rely on a narrative supported by numbers which would show them facts they have never heard of.
Explanatory: How do you explain a stem cell research project to a 22 year old MBA grad who has no idea about the domain ? Some great founders have done that , One has to dumb down the pitch and make sure the pitch is consumable in-person as well as when you are digitally sending them across
Convince a SME : If you are talking to a Subject Matter Expert, it better have a depth and some of the core metrics which would matter, sometimes you just need single slide for team and your metrics slide to do the talking.
We have dealt with founders with founders who re-desIgin deck for each meeting , we dont suggest that as its time consuming, Having said about the deck, here are some of the basic un-written rule for a investor presentation
Make sure you don't over stuff with text , 3 point in slide is
You are Presenter, not a news reader
Make it Visually Heavy, usually you don't get more than 12-15 mins to present, & investors who listens to pitch ever other day get bored in 3rd minute
Font size should not be lesser than 32
If you are sending the deck in mail it better be less than 500 kb in size
Make sure the deck is consistent with your branding
Make sure the presentation is support the narrative you are pitching
After analysing 500 successful deck facilitating 100+ pitch sessions and helping founders to raise more than $50M from Pitchworks, it is impossible to personalise a presentation based on target persona, but we have seen repeating 10 common slides across all winning pitches. What this This means that since the investor on the other side of the table is already familiar with the structure, if you are lacking even one of the fundamentals, you are unintentionally giving him or her a chance to engage in cognitive bias. Having said that lets dive into basic 10 slides which you should have
1 Vision
They call it vision, mission, values , if you are pitching to VCs they expect you to disrupt the market not 6.5% interest PA. Its more to do with valuations and ability to change market dynamics do better have a long standing mission statement which has an ability to shatter the industry.
2 The Problem
Your business was founded on an idea, and the notion is primarily tested and motivated by the desire to address an actual, demonstrable need. The goal here is not the talk about the problem but proving a point that problem is validated. The Ample market team raised a Series-A post their pivot of 12M just by doing 100 research user interviews. Coming up with simple yet self explanatory proven defined problem statement is difficult, one who does that would have gone through a harder path. Another key point here is people investors should be able to relater to the problem even even they don't belong to the target group.
3 Market It's all about execution and great team, but the success of your firm as a whole will depend on the size of your targeted market. Great team with no market will still fail. This is where you add your TAM , SOM , SAM make it realistic , do proper research remember most VC would have already done their due diligence on the market or would do it in future , this is a strong sign of credibility , make sure the numbers you are are perfect.
4 Product / Solution
With getting right on the market need you're addressing, this is your chance to really shine. Mention not more than 3 salient advantages of your service during this process. People don't have patience to consume all you features, specs and other User interface, we have seen a lot of techies go into the product giving an actual demo, you could do that if you have invented something which is not there elsewhere or its better to take through 3 key part of customer or user journey.
Sometimes it can be as simple as Airbnbs Solution slide , simple slides are always powerful.
5 Competition We have seen a lot of founders do two grave mistake, either claim that they don't have any sort of competition or list down competitors and their feature and claim to offer more features as less cost. VCs are not expecting competitors analysis here they want you to tell them what your MOTE or unfair advantage over others, Why someone like google / Amazon/ industry tycoon cannot copy your model, What is that edge you have right now or gonna posses int future. 6 Business model
This is your chance to describe your financial strategy. Since this is where you explain to your investors how they will also receive their money back, they will be keenly interested in this. Illustrate your pricing approach, average account size, average account lifetime value, sales and distribution model, and customer/pipeline list. Make this slide clean and consumable. Only discuss specifics that help people understand your business approach. It could be challenging to first define a fantastic business concept.
7 Traction
The goal of this slide is to demonstrate with facts how your worth has increased over time. In essence, you want to be accepted by your market. Each business has each KPIs, you may still not make money still you need to prove users number and usage / adoption metrics . Investors would love your KPIs to be tied up to your revenue goals for the projections. At Pitchworks we have helped founders at very early stage come with dashboard with KPI , North start Metrics and how these metrics would help in increase the core value of the customer which would in turn result in business gain.
8 GTM/ Distribution / Marekting Plan Marketing strategy is not natural to many business founders because they lack prior marketing experience. This section is very critical as you need to have proven track record of growth hacking or be very realistic in showcasing your plan. B2B Marketing is very hard and Cost of Acquiring a customer increasing 30% each your, unless you have a sold plan to marketing burn be very modest with your numbers. Investors hire a 3rd party marketing expert to check on these numbers on regular basis. Along with a plan you need you make sure your plan has diverse strategies/ experiments to reduce the
S&M Burn, Remember this number is gonna impact your EBAT your are projecting on the financial support documents.
9 Team
Here we are not putting any order to a pitch, as one should know thy strengths and play to the strengths. If you have a great team good track record, have deep domain expertise then showcase it upfront, if not balance you team slide along with traction what you have proved. There are VC funds which can trust you with capital just for the great leadership team you. Investors must first be aware of the company's backdrop in order for them to care about your team's performance in a meaningful way, explain the teams expertise within a minute or so is very difficult. For VC fundraising single founder startups don't usually get through the fundraising smoothly, so it's better to go as a pack. Include founders, employees, advisors, and board members.
10 Ask
It's crucial to conclude your pitch with a declaration that calls for immediate action. Sketch you milestone and how much your are raising for what breakup of investments, what kind of investment partner are you looking for and what you are willing to offer them. Make sure to get in touch with them after you're finished and inquire if they have any questions. Use the time to ask for next plan of action and how the followup process is going to be, is it non binding term sheet agreement or is it due-diligence process. Most of all be very clear on your communication, investors should know exactly how much to give you and what they get it return.
Conclusion
Beyond making sure the information fits the format of your pitch deck's slides, what's crucial is that it accurately describes the character of your firm. Each firm & idea , make sure the journey and the passion you posses come out in the Pitch Deck , thats the "X" factors which makes investors open up limits , those are the founders who create exceptions. We at Pitchworks help you tell your story from heart to the deck , we don't believe in per slide consulting, we believe in delivering your success story for which we help you with mock pitch sessions train you along with a narrative for a pitch.
Do contact us here in case you are fundraising for your business
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