How to Craft a Pitch Deck For Investors

You have about 20 minutes to give a presentation that could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to your startup. Additionally, investors only review pitch decks for about 3 minutes and 44 seconds before deciding whether or not they'll invite the company to pitch.

This stat makes sense as each venture capital firm receives about 1,000 proposals every year.

So how can you stand out among those thousand proposals?

Here's how to structure a winning pitch deck you need to get funded.

Overview

Your first slide should include your elevator pitch and a simple overview of the problem you solve and your solution. Keep it as simple as possible and avoid using overly technical language.

Here's an example elevator pitch for Airbnb that could be used on the overview slide.

Tourists looking for a place to stay are usually price-conscious and hotels are typically the bulk of all travel costs. Airbnb is a platform that connects travelers with locals and allows locals to make an income off of travelers looking for a cheaper place to stay. We make money by charging a 10% commission for every room booked.

Notice that it states the problem, presents their solution, and demonstrates how they make money.

The Problem

Your next few slides should address the problem a little deeper and dive into supporting data.

For example, if you're Uber, you could include statistics about the average wait time for a taxi, quotes from ideal prospects that suffer from the problem you solve, and any other supporting evidence that people might pay to solve the problem (for example, talking about competitors).

Investors also want to know the total addressable market (TAM). The larger the TAM is, the more money they'll make on an exit.

The Solution

Once you’ve unpacked the problem, you can introduce your product/service as the solution. Longtime investor and author Brad Feld claims that the key to successfully presenting your solution is to show rather than tell.

He gives the example of rather than saying, “Our customers love us,” say, “In the past 30 days, 93 percent of our new customers returned to make an additional purchase.”

Use data to support any of your claims and consider even using video to show complex products

Competition

You must show investors how you will be different from the competition. Your market should have some competition, as that proves there is a demand for that product/service, though your brand needs to have a differentiating factor.

For example, Uber wasn't the first company to create a taxi app. Companies like Taxi Magic existed before Uber, though they didn't have SMS alerts, and users complained about this. By doing competitive research, Uber could show investors that there is the demand for a ride-sharing app, but that many current users have these pain points with the existing solutions. This created a gap in the market for Uber.

The only differentiator you should avoid is the price. If you're simply a cheaper, less robust version of the competitor's product, you likely won't succeed.

Team

Finally, the slide that investors spend the second-highest amount of time viewing (about 23 seconds) is the team slide. One study showed that investors care more about the team than anything else, even more than the idea itself.

Include hard data to show what each team member has contributed to the company.

For example, show how your VP of Marketing was able to cut ad spend by X% and increase sales by X% in the past X months.

Start Executing

Don't be discouraged if you don't get investors immediately. Research shows that the optimal number of investors to contact is roughly 20-40. However, contacting more won't necessarily bring you better results, so it's best to laser focus on investors with high interest in your field. The more you pitch, the easier it will become, so keep practicing.