To all founders: What's your top tip for creating a winning pitch deck, and why is it important? 💡
Sebastian Janus - derStartupCFO
43 replies
There are many different approaches to create a pitch deck and I'd love to hear from you about your own experiences and insights. Whether it's focusing on a clear and compelling narrative, showcasing your team's expertise and passion, or incorporating data and metrics to support your claims, we believe that every tip and perspective is valuable.
Let's share our best practices to learn from one another's experiences!
🚀 And keep up!
Launching a new product on Friday to make your pitch captivate everybody's attention.
Replies
Jason Diller@jasondiller
keep it short then add 20 blank slides and have a huge appendix that you can refer to as questions come up and have every slide memorized so you can skip exactly to the appendix slide that you need to if it comes up in conversation. if you're pitching in person this is always worked really well for me and maybe you don't need anything in the appendix but it's better to have it and be able to tell a story visually.
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I think it is always important to introduce the product with short and clear communication and to really focus on clear USPs. Investors really want to understand your solution!
@silverio_reinecke Thank you for your insight! I totally agree, don't overcomplicate & focus on communicating USPs clearly
I'm waiting for your next product launch, the last one was really helpful!
@daria_malin I'm happy you liked our pitch check! I am sure you will find our new product equally valuable
Research pitchdecks that got major funding. Also, do your pitching before you monetize, since when you do, all your TAM and data on market size, etc. - all out the window. They just look at what you're making and then they look away.
@osakasaul I agree! Looking at successful fundraisings is a great source of inspiration and can serve as the perfect foundation.
@osakasaul Saul, you've got to say more about this pre-monetization point - I'm very intrigued. I assume you mean this only for pitching to funds/angels/syndicates who describe themselves as explicitly pre/seed?
It's either that, or the "come back in a few months when you have traction" response basically = "get the @(*#& out of here" - right?
@martin_demkowicz It isn't a "get out of here" thing, but rather, they want to be sure your thing will make money.
The problem is, and this is coming from my experience with RiteKit, we bootstrapped it 100%. So, I kept the team together when, for the first 18 months, we had zero revenue. And then, for the next five months, never even hit US$300/month in gross revenue. And then, thing gradually got better.
So, if we were able to do that, you might correctly imagine that when we hit larger achievements in profitability, making progress without giving away equity for cash we would be able, and far more easily, to keep making progress. Thus, when they say, "if you're doing a consistent 50K MRR and growing at least 5% month on month, we would like to invest 600K for 8% equity, well, they can take a flying fuck at a rolling donut.
Excuse me if this was a little too American a reply ;-)
@osakasaul I don't know what nationality your reply was but it made me laugh out loud! :)
But going back to the original question... is your point, essentially, "don't ask for VC money unless you can't grow without it?"
I have very limited experience (read: almost none) with VCs but, ostensibly, they have different preferences for when they invest, in addition to a given thesis. It stands to reason that some of them would, indeed, be interested in pre-seed or seed opportunities and others specialize in growing already-proven endeavors.
Are you saying that only the former (the ones supporting pre-commercialization projects) are worth talking to?
Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts/experience here.
All the best for your launch @derstartupcfo :)
My experience is that investors get a lot of pitch decks. So you need a razor-sharp equity story, where the headlines on each slide can already be the success factor.
I am looking forward to Friday and your help with the perfect Pitchdeck
@marlon_komnick 💯 you have to make sure you stand out. Your equity story is your make or break! I am sure you will like our pitch deck catch phrases, so don't miss our launch on Friday.
Tell a good story, make sure you overcome objections early. It’s important to customize the story to the client, know his goals and tailor the story to show how your product or service benefits him.
Create and communicate a consistent equity story
Probably keeping it short and succinct rather than dragging it out
I haven't pitched giant companies or big names, however, I've learned from experts that keeping pitches short is very important in their effectiveness.
Good story, be clear with financials and add a slide "why not to invest".
Focus on telling a compelling story. While it's important to include key data points and figures in your pitch deck, it's equally important to craft a narrative that engages your audience and paints a clear picture of your vision for the business or product.
Not a founder but still wanted to chim in :)
My top tip for creating a winning pitch deck is to tell a clear and compelling story. It's important because investors are more likely to invest in a startup if they understand and are excited about its vision, market opportunity, and potential for growth.
Wishing you good luck with your launch!
I've worked on a lot of pitch decks for other founders before and noticed that they tend to be super wordy.
My advice is to make your slides concise and straight to the point! Use less words, but make them more impactful. 👍 Pair that with clean design, and you should be off to a good start.
I would say it completely depends on the audience; there is no one-size-fits-all approach. When I was working on my startup, I used to have four different pitch decks:
- For Investor,
Focus more on Execution Plan, Team Strength & Advisory board, Sales & Product Economics, Financial projections, and IRR.
- For Government Grant, Accelerator Program, or any Start-up pitch competition
You slides should talk more about your USP, Competitive advantage, Impact metrics, Marketing opportunity (TAM), Team.
All the best for your startup. It's always an adventurous journey, regardless of the outcome.
For me, being a VC, there were two things:
1) the basic, please make them really easy to understand. Give the proper context and examples. You would be surprised how many pitch decks are not understood by VCs.
2) the key, give a highlight that make them understand the problem and that is easily shareable with their colleagues. I have read today in one of the threads of Contrary Research the following “More than 99% of exploration projects fail to become mines and the industry makes 60% fewer discoveries than 30 years ago despite spending three times as much”. And I have thought, fuck! Thats a problem. And I can easily share that to others when selling it internally.
Here is how I have done it in the past:
Mission
Team (if that is strongest)
Problem
Market Response
Market Opportunity
Competitor Positioning
Solution
Technology
Traction
Funding and Roadmap
Appendix with features
The most important is to create a presentation with 1 main goal and understand the audience. If you try to use 1 deck for each pitch it's not a good idea
My top tip for creating a winning pitch deck is to keep it clear, concise and focused on the most important information. Your pitch deck should tell a compelling story that captures your audience attention from the very beginning.
If you are at an early stage, and given how few unique products exist in tech, you should say what makes you different from others.