This video focuses on what makes a successful pitch deck, including its structure, length, and content. It also covers common reasons why some pitch decks fail.
What this video covers
Are you ready to raise capital? Pitch decks are the ultimate document that investors are going to look to review. In today’s video, we’re going to be talking about the different facts, the different data, what goes in successful pitch decks, what goes in pitch decks that fail, and you can use that data and facts to compile better your slides and to optimize for those chances of being successful and getting that money in. So, without further ado, let’s get into it.
Before anything, let’s talk about what pitch decks are. A pitch deck is ultimately the form of presentation that investors are going to expect in order to review and understand your business and to consider a potential investment. Those pitch decks are between 15 - 25 slides in terms of length. They are slides that combine images and text and that follow a certain flow and structure like cover, problem, solution, and so forth, in order for them to get what you’re up to. That’s pretty much it.
There are over 1,000 pitch decks being created every day. To give you an idea, that’s a crazy amount because venture capital firms only invest in 1,500 companies every year. Think about the amount of pitch decks that are being created and only a small amount of companies that end up receiving an investment, a first-time investment from those venture capital firms. It’s almost none. Again, really standing out and putting a compelling story are going to be absolutely everything to capture the attention and to move, touch, and inspire the investors with your story.
So, 10 slides are what are going to essentially determine for you to get money. You don’t need to go the lengthy route. Just create 10 slides. You can put the cover, the back cover, and maybe you can get up to 15, but those 10 slides where you’re covering the essence of the story, you really need to nail it. The other slides that you may add on top of those 10 could be to dress it up, to create a nice wrapper around the story, and your packaging and positioning. But, again, you need to be very clear and very concise and have a very nice balance between the images and the text that you’re adding as part of the pitch deck.
In terms of font size, the best font size is 30 points. This is what people like Guy Kawasaki are recommending. You want to follow this direction because you want to have a nice font size because the investor is ultimately going to be skimming through the presentation.
Typically, investors only spend two minutes and 41 seconds, 2:41, per presentation. That’s it, so that’s why when I say that investors are really skimming through your presentation, they actually are skimming through the presentation.
Typically, investors only invest in 1% of the pitches that they receive. To give you an idea, in venture capital firms, they probably are going to see 400 pitches, and out of those 400 pitches, they would only invest in 1 out of those companies.
One hundred is the number of pitches that you’re going to be delivering in order to get just one single investor.
Twelve weeks is the average amount of time that it takes to close a seed round of financing. That’s it, and that’s from the beginning all the way to close.
Investors spend the most amount of time on the team, on the financials, and also on the competition. Those are the three most important slides, and according to data, the ones where investors spend the most time reviewing.
Only 58% of pitch decks that are successful include financials. This is a crazy stat because you’ve got to remember that financials are essentially the slide or slides that investors spend the most amount of time reviewing.
Twenty minutes is the amount of time that it should take you to deliver your presentation.
Between 50,000 and $5 million dollars, that is what you should expect to receive if you’re at a seed round or at a Series A round of financing. When you’re going out to raise money, and you’re at an early stage in those two financing cycles, you should expect to fall in that range in-between.
