Building the ultimate startup investment pitch deck

Building the ultimate startup investment pitch deck_5ee33c3358ce8.jpeg

No matter the product or service, when trying to secure funding and faith in your creation, your investment pitch deck is your best friend.

How many slides should be in an investor pitch deck?

It’s hard to say how many slides you should include. Some people suggest keeping it simple and minimum, capping it around 10, whereas others might recommend a number more around 15 or 20.

It will ultimately be determined by how much information you need to include, how complex your offering is and the existing knowledge of investors.

You should ensure that your pitch deck doesn’t leave any holes or unanswered questions, as this could result in investors less likely to part with their cash to support your ideas. But equally, don’t waffle or you could lose their attention.

Designing a pitch deck

It’s okay if you’re not a graphic designer or even if you simply have no eye for design. There are plenty of skilled professionals who can take your data and ideas and make them beautiful.

It’s important to have your logo, illustration and photography assets to hand to ensure that your pitch deck is aligned with the rest of your brand’s visual representation and guidelines. If you don’t have these, you should work closely to carry out some brand development, to ensure you have a strong visual identity for your company.

You can then share your ideas on how you would like to present your brand, the colour schemes you would like to use and share any ideas that you have seen utilised for other brands. By culminating all of your ideas into a Pinterest board or similar will help any designer get a good idea of how you would like your pitch deck designed.

Great design is essential to increasing the appeal of your investment pitch deck. Without a great looking presentation, you will often fail to be memorable, stand out from the crowd and accurately communicate your brand personality.

Whether it’s a corporate or creative brand, the design is a significant part of your pitch deck communication.

Organising your investment pitch deck

Tell a story

Before you begin formulating what you’re going to tell them, you need to decide how you will tell them this information.

Your investment pitch needs to revolve around telling a story that conveys all of the core components; who, what, when, where, how and why? Without this formula, you run the risk of missing out key elements that your investment could very well be leaning on.

Your pitch deck should hinge on three key pillars: data, persuasion and creativity.

Executive summary

Considered a non-essential by some, this is a judgement call. This summary, if you choose to include it, should provide initial due diligence for investors and organise the key components of your business or startup plan.

The problem

Absolutely essential, otherwise why have you invested your time into creating something new? You will need to clearly set out what the problem is, how substantial is it and why your investors should care about it. 

You should use examples, research or case studies to emphasise your point and break the problem down into key elements to make it super clear.

Solution and value proposition

This is a non-negotiable element of your investment proposal, which aims to set you apart from any other business in the world. Do you do it better, faster, cheaper, to a higher quality or skill level?

Use this opportunity to show investors what you have developed, how it came to be and the skills and knowledge that contributed to it.

You likely have a valuable product or service but you also have a valuable team and circle of knowledge behind it, which should also be showcased too.

Market validation

Who wants to buy what you’re selling? 

In this section, you will use your data and stats, derived from market research, to build a case for who your target market is and demonstrate your knowledge of its composition, size and demographics.

This is also an opportunity to preview your existing value in the eyes of consumers. If you have reviews or social media posts from fans, here’s your opportunity to wave them in front of your investor’s faces.

At this point, you should be demonstrating in-depth knowledge of the wider market, competitors, barriers to entry and customer feedback. All of this should clearly determine the need for your product in the market and fill your investors with confidence. 

Business model

This essential component of the pitch deck shows investors that you’ve done your homework. Showing how you’re going to make money will be one of the main elements that are going to convince your investors to part with their cash. 

Assuring would-be investors that they are to make their money back is crucial. You should be able to clarify with accuracy how much revenue you’re planning on generating each year. This will allow investors the opportunity to see how much return they should expect to receive.

With this slide being so absolutely crucial to the success of your investment pitch deck, you should spend a fair amount of time on developing it and ensuring it is informative and easy to follow.

Competition

If you don’t know who you’re up against how can you ever convince their customers that your brand is the better choice? Moreover, you need to show investors that you’re thinking about the state of the industry and the demand for your product.

Here, you need to be able to have a holistic view of your market. This should include key big-name competitors, mid-market operations and small businesses, all of whom have the capability to draw business away from yours and equally, you from them.

If you can determine what would entice customers of each of these types of businesses away, you will be in for a better shot of showing your investors how you have considered multiple points of entry to your brand. 

You should also include consideration for why you’re better than your competition. Your USP, if you will, that determines why anyone should choose you over other companies.

Go-to-market plan

Your go-to-market should combine all of the learnings you’ve demonstrated into a plan of how you intend on reaching and converting customers.

What does your customer funnel look like and how does your marketing strategy plan on moving them through these points to making a purchase or becoming a brand advocate? 

This will help any investors understand how you intend on making the revenue you mentioned earlier in the pitch deck, which will make them very happy.

Grand finale

The end of your investment pitch deck should be impactful and memorable. You could round up your deck with some key stats that demonstrate how you’re going to supersede any of your competition and make sure that your investors are wowed. 

Your final slide should include your business logo, name and your mission statement. This will leave a lasting impression and will round-off everything that you’ve presented nicely.



Also published on Medium.

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