Whether you are trying to raise money from angel investors or venture capitalists for your business, or just want to perfect your business strategy, a solid pitch deck is an essential tool for achieving your goals.
The crux of any business pitch is value creation. Your value proposition must be strong and well communicated in order to get buy-in. Not only does it have to be believable, but it must provide enough value to create demand.
If you’re raising money for your business, having an impressive pitch deck is a key component in your fundraising toolkit. A great pitch deck gets potential investors excited about your idea and engages them in a conversation about your business, hopefully leading to an investment.
Check out several important tips to consider when making your own pitch deck:
- Be straightforward
- Prioritize story over stats
- Make it a standalone deck
- Keep it updated
In this article, you are going to get the formula for what you should include in your own pitch deck.
The introduction
The first slide should introduce the pitch deck and explain the business in simple and clearly understood terms. Businesses typically include a unique value proposition as part of their first slide, which compares their products and services to another established company.
Vision and value proposition
The crux of any business pitch is value creation. Your value proposition must be strong and well communicated in order to get buy-in. Not only does it have to be believable, but it must provide enough value to create demand.
The problem
If you aren’t solving some problem in the world, you are going to have a long uphill climb with your business.
Talk about the problem you are solving and who has the problem. You can talk about the current solutions in the market, but don’t spend too much time on the competitive landscape on this slide—you’ll have a chance to do that later on.
Ideally, try and 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.
Target market
A target market is a group of people that share common characteristics. Every service or product is aimed at a specific group, and yours should be featured in your pitch deck.
Include information on the competitive landscape in which your business exists and the market opportunity to succeed in that landscape.
Market dimension
Startups are about development. The high-risk nature of startups (1 in 10 startups fail) makes it a requirement that they have a substantial advantage. This way minority champions in the portfolio of startup financiers can greater than makeup for the losers.
Your market needs to allow enough to validate a prospective organization value of at least $100 million, yet ideally more than $1B. Trying to present yourself as humble and also down-to-earth by downplaying the potential of the business is a blunder.
Validation or traction
The big question that determines the success of your startup is the elusive product-market fit. In other words, is your solution the right one for the problem in question?
Investors won’t take your word for it. You need some form of proof. If your idea is in its early stages, you should show some form of idea validation. If your startup is at a later stage, you can view actual usage and revenue figures, showing that you are on track to match the market product.
The opportunity
Expand on who your ideal customer is and how many of them there are. What is the total market size and how do you position your company in the market?
If you can find the data, investors will want to know how much people or businesses currently spend in the market to get a sense of the total market size. This is where you tell the story about the scope and scale of the problem you are solving.
If it makes sense for your business, you’ll want to divide your market into segments that you will address with different types of marketing and perhaps different types of product offerings.
Summary
Hopefully, you can use the startup pitch deck components from above to quickly and painlessly build a convincing presentation of your new business. Remember to communicate as clearly as possible and to be concise.
A startup pitch deck is like a trailer to the full movie – it’s not supposed to answer all possible questions, it’s supposed to make investors interested and to invite them to have a more detailed conversation.
