Pitch Deck

A pitch deck (also known as a slide deck) is a business slideshow presentation, and this page provides a quick start for creating your own pitch deck.

Contents:

• What is a pitch deck a.k.a. slide deck?
• SixArm.com pitch deck with 6 slides (informal)
  • Slide 1: Vision
  • Slide 2: Reason
  • Slide 3: People
  • Slide 4: Context
  • Slide 5: Proof
  • Slide 6: Needs
• SixArm.com pitch deck with 12 slides (formal)
  • Slide 1: Vision
  • Slide 2: Problem
  • Slide 3: Target
  • Slide 4: Solution
  • Slide 5: Revenue
  • Slide 6: Validation
  • Slide 7: Marketing
  • Slide 8: Team
  • Slide 9: Financials
  • Slide 10: Competition
  • Slide 11: Partnerships
  • Slide 12: Investment
• Links to more
• Thanks

Pitch deck advice by teams:

• Pitch deck advice by Atrium
• Pitch deck advice by YCombinator
• Pitch deck advice by Twine
• Pitch your startup - advice from Stripe

What is a pitch deck a.k.a. slide deck?

A pitch deck is a business slideshow presentation.

• It summarizes the business idea of a startup company, and the business model, team, goals, needs, and more.

• A carefully crafted pitch deck is a fundraising fundamental, and is often requested by investors prior to a company’s pitch presentation.

The SixArm.com pitch deck is a quick start. When you create the pitch deck, you can use it as a start to expand your deck into a formal investor pitch deck (described in the next section).

SixArm.com pitch deck with 6 slides (informal)

Slide 1: Vision

Can you write a simple summary of your idea and its value to the user?

Slide 2: Reason

What broad problem are you solving, and what is a specific relatable example?

Slide 3: People

Who are you focusing on helping, and how do you reach them?

Slide 4: Context

How does your idea fit among any related ideas, products, services, etc.?

Slide 5: Proof

How do you demonstrate that your idea is worthwhile to try?

Slide 6: Needs

What do you need to succeed, such as teammates, partnerships, investments, etc.?

SixArm.com pitch deck with 12 slides (formal)

Slide 1: Vision

• One sentence overview of your business.
• Emphasize the value that your business provides.
• Keep it short and simple.

Slide 2: Problem

• Talk about the problem you are solving.
• Tell a relatable story when you are defining the problem.
• The more you can make the problem as real as possible, the more your investors will understand your business and your goals.

Slide 3: Target

• Talk about your ideal users.
• Who are they?
• What do they need?
• Where are they?
• When do they need your idea?
• How many are there?
• Why are they your target users?

Slide 4: Solution

• Describe how customers use your product/service.
• How does it address the problem that you presented on slide 2?
• Use pictures and stories when you describe your solution.

Slide 5: Revenue

• What do you charge?
• Who pays the bills?
• Describe the competitive landscape.
• How does your pricing fit into the larger market?

Slide 6: Validation

• Talk about any proof you have that validates your problem, target, solution, and revenue.
• What have you achieved, such as milestones or goals?
• What are your next steps to validate your plan?
• Investors want to see proof points because these reduce risk.

Slide 7: Marketing

• Talk about how you plan to get customers’ attention.
• Show you have a solid grasp of how you will reach your target market and what sales channels you plan on using.
• Investors know finding and winning customers can sometimes be the biggest challenge for a startup.
• If your sales and marketing is different than your competitors, then highlight the differences.

Slide 8: Team

• Talk about your team.
• Why are these the right people to build this company?
• What experience do you have that others don’t?
• Highlight the key team members, their previous accomplishments, and key expertise they bring to the table.
• If you don’t have a complete team yet, then identify the key positions that you still need to fill, and also why those positions are critical to company growth.

Slide 9: Financials

• Show your sales forecast, profit and loss statement, and cash flow forecast for 3 years.
• Do not show in-depth spreadsheets because these are difficult to read in a presentation format.
• Limit yourself to charts that show sales, total customers, total expenses, and profits.
• Prepare to discuss any underlying assumptions that you’ve made to arrive at your sales goals and what your key expense drivers are.
• Be realistic.
• If you can explain your growth based on traction you already have or compared to similar company in a related industry, that is extremely useful.

Slide 10: Competition

• Describe how you fit into the competitive landscape.
• Why will customers choose you?
• How are you different than the competitors and the alternatives?
• What key advantages do you have over the competition?
• Is there any "secret sauce" that you have and others don’t?

Slide 11: Partnerships

• Talk about any strategic partnerships that are critical to success.
• For example do you have any key intellectual property licensing partnership?
• Do you have any key distribution partnerships?
• How does your success rely on these types of partnerships?

Slide 12: Investment

• Ask for the money.
• Why do you need the amount of money you are requesting?
• What is your plan for using the money?

Links to more

• https://www.marsdd.com/mars-library/how-to-create-a-pitch-deck-for-investors/
• http://www.garage.com/files/PerfectingYourPitch.pdf
• https://www.twine.fm/blog/pitch-deck-used-to-raise-a-million/

Thanks

• Wikipedia
• MarsDD
• Garage
• Shawn Carolan and Menlo Ventures
• Fred Wilson and AVC
• Stuart Logan and Twine
• Patrick McKenzie and Stripe