A pitch deck (also known as a slide deck) is a business slideshow presentation, and this page provides a quick start for creating your own pitch deck.
Contents:
- What is a pitch deck a.k.a. slide deck?
- SixArm.com pitch deck with 6 slides (informal)
- SixArm.com pitch deck with 12 slides (formal)
- Links to more
- Thanks
Pitch deck advice by teams:
- Pitch deck advice by Atrium
- Pitch deck advice by YCombinator
- Pitch deck advice by Twine
- Pitch your startup - advice from Stripe
- Pitch checklist by David Teten
- Seven questions by Peter Thiel
A pitch deck is a business slideshow presentation.
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It summarizes the business idea of a startup company, and the business model, team, goals, needs, and more.
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A carefully crafted pitch deck is a fundraising fundamental, and is often requested by investors prior to a company’s pitch presentation.
The SixArm.com pitch deck is a quick start. When you create the pitch deck, you can use it as a start to expand your deck into a formal investor pitch deck (described in the next section).
Can you write a simple summary of your idea and its value to the user?
What broad problem are you solving, and what is a specific relatable example?
Who are you focusing on helping, and how do you reach them?
How does your idea fit among any related ideas, products, services, etc.?
How do you demonstrate that your idea is worthwhile to try?
What do you need to succeed, such as teammates, partnerships, investments, etc.?
- One sentence overview of your business.
- Emphasize the value that your business provides.
- Keep it short and simple.
- Talk about the problem you are solving.
- Tell a relatable story when you are defining the problem.
- The more you can make the problem as real as possible, the more your investors will understand your business and your goals.
- Talk about your ideal users.
- Who are they?
- What do they need?
- Where are they?
- When do they need your idea?
- How many are there?
- Why are they your target users?
- Describe how customers use your product/service.
- How does it address the problem that you presented on slide 2?
- Use pictures and stories when you describe your solution.
- What do you charge?
- Who pays the bills?
- Describe the competitive landscape.
- How does your pricing fit into the larger market?
- Talk about any proof you have that validates your problem, target, solution, and revenue.
- What have you achieved, such as milestones or goals?
- What are your next steps to validate your plan?
- Investors want to see proof points because these reduce risk.
- Talk about how you plan to get customers’ attention.
- Show you have a solid grasp of how you will reach your target market and what sales channels you plan on using.
- Investors know finding and winning customers can sometimes be the biggest challenge for a startup.
- If your sales and marketing is different than your competitors, then highlight the differences.
- Talk about your team.
- Why are these the right people to build this company?
- What experience do you have that others don’t?
- Highlight the key team members, their previous accomplishments, and key expertise they bring to the table.
- If you don’t have a complete team yet, then identify the key positions that you still need to fill, and also why those positions are critical to company growth.
- Show your sales forecast, profit and loss statement, and cash flow forecast for 3 years.
- Do not show in-depth spreadsheets because these are difficult to read in a presentation format.
- Limit yourself to charts that show sales, total customers, total expenses, and profits.
- Prepare to discuss any underlying assumptions that you’ve made to arrive at your sales goals and what your key expense drivers are.
- Be realistic.
- If you can explain your growth based on traction you already have or compared to similar company in a related industry, that is extremely useful.
- Describe how you fit into the competitive landscape.
- Why will customers choose you?
- How are you different than the competitors and the alternatives?
- What key advantages do you have over the competition?
- Is there any "secret sauce" that you have and others don’t?
- Is there any "moat" for acquisition and/or retention?
- Are there any "network effects" for you or the competition?
- Talk about any strategic partnerships that are critical to success.
- For example do you have any key intellectual property licensing partnership?
- Do you have any key distribution partnerships?
- How does your success rely on these types of partnerships?
- Ask for the money.
- Why do you need the amount of money you are requesting?
- What is your plan for using the money?
- https://www.marsdd.com/mars-library/how-to-create-a-pitch-deck-for-investors/
- http://www.garage.com/files/PerfectingYourPitch.pdf
- https://www.twine.fm/blog/pitch-deck-used-to-raise-a-million/
- https://bluetieslides.com/anatomy-perfect-startup-pitch-deck-11-critical-pages/
- https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17wRgJpjHIyhtgglmn31CPL_O9h2oEdy80uodjd5iaQE/edit#slide=id.p
- https://www.slideshare.net/PitchDeckCoach/sequoia-capital-pitchdecktemplate
- Wikipedia
- MarsDD
- Garage
- Shawn Carolan and Menlo Ventures
- Fred Wilson and AVC
- Stuart Logan and Twine
- Patrick McKenzie and Stripe