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“Pitch deck” is a term that many of us who play in the emerging-technologies world have learned to dread. If you’re a CEO of a startup, that term evokes a bundle of emotions involving a storm of mixed messages from investors, advisors, and the heroes of your industry that set the bar you strive to reach. If you’re an investor, the pitch deck is the endless stream of slides that well-intentioned startups deliver and you’re obligated to review briefly but intensely (3 minutes, at most) to sort the wheat from the chaff of potential ventures your capital might help to fund and, hopefully, to succeed. Should you lead sales, the pitch deck is your most-prized business suit, and it needs tailoring weekly to keep you looking like the kind of star who deserves the President’s Club Award. If you’re a marketing manager, the pitch deck is a perpetual revision machine that insatiably feeds on CEO and investor feedback and grows to gargantuan sizes before the newest, hottest advisor prescribes a strict diet of 15 slides or less and resets the monster to its bikini-season beach body, at which point the swelling cycle begins anew.
In short, pitch decks are a torturously necessary pain. They are, for better or worse, the real language in which you convey your value to investors and clients. Often, they’re the only language, since you often don’t get a chance to meet in person or even via conference call – typically because, well … your deck sucks.
It’s an absolute fact that pitch decks are constrained and mutated by the committee input method typical to most emerging companies. Like young athletes with 18 coaches shouting different instructions, many of them lose their original clarity and storytelling strength, flipping that extra triple lutz and not sticking the landing.
Some companies have tried to introduce a new medium for these presentations, presented in video or delivered in a web-based format with animations Disney would envy. Yet even extremely well-connected venture capitalists will advise you that their colleagues still prefer a powerpoint slide deck, saved as a .PDF, emailed to them, with no videos or moving parts, thank you very much. Still others won’t even glance at a pitch deck without seeing its hyper-distilled cousin, the one-page executive summary.
The Core of a Solid Investor Pitch Deck
Ultimately, a pitch deck is meant to be a quick-hitting, focused and simple explanation of your business: its promise, its proof of concept, business model, early traction, projections, the ask, how you’ll use the funding, and your team. Let’s break these down:
- Promise: What’s the value proposition? What is broken about the status quo and how do you fix it enough for anyone to care?
- Proof of Concept: This is your MVP, your early clinical evidence, your user and market research – whatever demonstrates someone really needs what you’re selling
- Early Traction: Do you have any clients, free or paid, to support that you’ll be successful as you grow?
- Projections: Typically this is a financial projection, screenshotted from your 5-year projections, but you can add some color.
- The Ask: What are you raising, at what valuation, and through what investment methods?
- Use of Funds: Don’t go crazy, but at least specify the categories for use – typically Sales & Marketing, Product Development, Operations
- Your Team: Make sure you explain why you have the best team for launching and growing this venture
Several studies by Deloitte, McKinney, and Crunchbase indicate that clarity on these points increases likelihood of investments by >30%.
This is the core set of slides most ventures need at minimum, but no one stops there. You’ve got a unique offering and what makes it special must convey through your branding and messaging. The place that most ventures get it wrong is how they are conveying this.
You simply cannot underestimate the value of a well-designed, visually stunning pitch deck. When investors scroll through these presentations, they need to feel the product through your attractive visuals, choice of layouts, consistent branding, and thoughtful, concise messaging. Word salads and infodumps will not be read.
For example, this headline is clear and straightforward:
We return valuable time clinicians spend on EHR dictations and note-taking so they can spend more face-time on their real business: patient care.
And that headline won’t be remembered.
Instead:
Giving clinicians back their patient time.
How do your powerpoint visuals compare to a real designer’s? (Hint: Not good.)
At The Brand Leader, we recently redesigned a pitch deck following a rebranding project for a client who had, the year prior, attempted to raise investment and received low interest. Their brand needed to convey that it could fill a market gap and grasp buyer’s attention. The pitch deck got the same amazing design work to match, went out to investors, and the client had significant commitments in the first week.
When it comes to your pitch deck, reserve a reasonable amount of time and capital for a talented designer to make it the well-coached Olympic pitch deck with a perfect beach body you can be proud to email to anyone. At The Brand Leader, we provide not only pitch deck design from award-winning creative minds like Chris Huevel but feedback from industry experts like Rachael Sparks on your presentation messaging and delivery so you can have the confidence to nail any investor presentation.
Because you can’t afford not to.
For more tips on building the perfect pitch deck, schedule a free consultation with our team today.
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