The video outlines the key components of a pitch deck, explaining the purpose and essential elements of each slide, including the cover, problem, solution, market size, and competition slides. It emphasizes setting investor expectations and effectively presenting your company to potential funders.
What this video covers
The cover slide. The cover slide is more than just putting your logo or putting your contact information at the front and center. That’s what most founders do. You need to understand that the cover slide is essentially like what the movies are.
It’s basically the same thing with the cover slide. It’s essentially establishing and setting up the expectations so that the investor gets an idea of what they’re about to review because remember that on average, investors spend 2 minutes and 41 seconds per presentation.
Then you go into the problem slide. The problem slide is essentially what you’re tackling. Think about a world where your company doesn’t exist.
Then is the solution slide. On the solution slide is what you’re bringing to market – what you’re doing with your business and how you’re covering that problem that you’ve identified, and it needs to come across with a really nice solution statement.
Then you want to tackle the market size. The market size needs to be really big, and we’re talking here about at least one billion or more because, remember, that the market is going to potentially limit the returns that the investor is able to capture out of their investment.
On the competition slide, don’t try to hide logos. Maybe you want to put in a diagram where you’re putting yourself at the top-right in a very powerful way because that’s always where the eye is going to go.
Then there are the target customers. Who are you going after? Who are these people? What are the age brackets? What is the gender? Where do you find them? What are their interests? Maybe there are some quotes that you can allocate from some of those customers.
The traction slide is super important. Here, if you are in the early stage and you don’t know what to include, maybe there are some other aspects that you can insert. You can even go week-by-week rather than going month-by-month or year-by-year. Here, you can talk about the number of customers, number of repeat customers, their revenues, something.
Then, on the business model slide, keep it simple. Here, you want to showcase how you’re making money. Is it a subscription on a monthly basis? Is it a one-time purchase? Is it a setup fee? How are you making the money? Break it down here, so the investor understands where those revenues are coming from? What are those ways in which you’re monetizing those customers so that they can model it out on their end and then see and project?
Then, on the financial slides, I always see founders making the mistake of grabbing a screenshot from their financial model and dumping it into the pitch deck. You can actually take a look at the pitch deck template below, which is a template that founders are using all over the world to raise millions.
You do not want to just put a screenshot. You need to hand-hold the investor, and the best way to do it is by breaking it down in three or four slides, the financials, and that’s one thing that investors are going to appreciate because remember, there are studies that have followed pitch decks, the way that investors invest their time with pitch decks.
Then you’re going to go into the other investor slides. Maybe you want to talk in this slide about who else has invested, how much money you’ve been able to raise. Maybe you put some logos of some of those venture funds or private equity firms or whoever invested in your firm.
Then you’re going to go into the team slide. The team slide is your opportunity to shine and tell that investor why you have the right people in the right seats.
Then you want to talk about the amount that you’re raising. Here, you can talk about a range, perhaps from X to Y, rather than just throwing the specific amount because this way, you’re making the net a little bit wider rather than just going by – let’s say if you’re raising 2 million, to the people that are investing 2 million and down, here if you were to say between 2 to 4 million, you’re capturing every single one in-between.
Then you’re going to have the use of funds slide. In the use of funds slide, essentially, what the investor wants is to get an understanding of where you’re planning to deploy the capital.
