The video outlines the ideal format for a pitch deck, suggesting a 15-20 slide presentation that emphasizes the team, market size, and the problem the product addresses. It also advises sending the pitch deck after an initial conversation with an investor.
What this video covers
To start off, let’s talk about the format. The format, at the end of the day of the pitch deck, as we’ve said multiple times, as you can see underneath on the pitch deck template that you can see for free, that you can use for yourself, is a 15-to-20-slides type of presentation. That’s what it’s all about.
But when you’re at the early stages, it’s really all about possibility; it’s all about the future, and for that reason, during those slides, you want to make sure you’re capturing very well the team, the market size that you give a sense and an understanding of what the key drivers of the business are going to be about, and then what the potential service or product is going to be addressing.
The next thing is when to send the pitch deck to investors. When you’re sending the pitch deck to investors is when you’ve had that first initial call.
You want to have that first call, that first conversation with the investor to really understand what’s driving them, so see if there’s an alignment between what your vision is and your mission, then also what that investor intends by making an investment in your business.
The pitch deck is something that you’d never want to send upfront. You always want to send it after you’ve had that initial call so that you’re basically filtering them, and they’re also filtering you. If there’s a match, then it’s obviously worth it to continue exploring, then you send the pitch deck as a follow-up.
The next thing is, what happens once you send the pitch deck? Once you have sent the pitch deck, they’re going to review it. Remember that typically investors only spend about 2:41 on a presentation. So, you want to make sure that you’ve condensed, very nicely, the information in a way in which they can skim very quickly through what you have put together.
The next thing is, at what point you’re going to be delivering the pitch on those slides that you have presented or that you’ve sent over to the investor. Typically, you’re not going to walk the investor through the slides on the first initial call where they’re getting to know you, and you’re getting to know them. That is one of the big mistakes that I see founders making.
Ultimately, the pitch or the deck that you’re sending, that’s going to only be done and reviewed in person when you’ve had a couple of touchpoints, and perhaps at that point, there is serious interest in your business. Typically, for example, if you go after a venture capital firm, maybe it could happen at the second or third meeting. It could happen, as well, at that partners’ meeting where you’re pitching to all the partners to see if they want to make an investment or not. But essentially, it’s going to happen later on. So, keep that in mind as the expectation.
Now, when it comes down to the format or how you are structuring that presentation being sent out, remember that you do not want to add friction to the process. My strong recommendation is that you go against using tools where you’re making that investor insert an email, to review it, where it’s clear to the investor that you’re tracking their movement and having like maybe a program with analytics where you know where they’re clicking, how much time they’re spending on this slide or this other slide. Investors hate that, and investors hate inputting their email on anything to have access to a presentation.
So, my advice to you is to put it on a super-frictionless format whether you’re sending it directly as an attachment, or my even better recommendation to that is to put it in a Google Drive folder, or in Dropbox, and then send them the link, so the less size on the email, the better. Again, make it frictionless and don’t make them give you their email in order for them to access the pitch deck.
