Many entrepreneurs have found out the hard way the never-ending importance of an investor pitch deck in acquiring the right partners and raising startup or expansion funding for their businesses.
There are several ways to make your application for grants, business scholarships, and startup funding stand out from the crowd, and one of the major step is ensuring that you have a strong and winning pitch-deck.
However, consulting and talking with many new and established entrepreneurs has seen me receiving many questions about writing an investment-guaranteed pitch deck.
Many entrepreneurs have asked me over the years questions like; what does a winning pitch deck look like? Some are more concerned about what should they include in their pitch deck? While some are worried about the right template or format to use.
Having created hundreds of pitch decks for startups and established businesses across different continents, I’ve found some few pointers that has made about 50% of them go on to win their desired funds, and about 30% of the pitch decks acquiring their desired partnership.
Now, don’t go on thinking, well, the success rate is low and just around 80%. The success of an investor pitch deck largely depends on some other factors as well which are well beyond the reach and impact of a pitch deck writer. Some of it are late submissions, poor presentation skills, poor negotiation skills or low negotiating power among others.
My little connection with investors and work experience so far has made me realize that people spend a few minutes reviewing your investor pitch deck. In essence, it means that you should always go straight to the point, with little text and images.
My work over the years has revealed that a solid pitch deck shouldn’t have more than thirteen sections and should be within 10-15 slides.
Your pitch deck should have the following key elements explained in this article if you are thinking more about its success than your comprehensive writing skills.
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Key Elements of A Solid Investor Pitch Deck
Elevator Pitch and Brand Image
Well, as an entrepreneur, I’m sure you must have heard about the importance of making a good first impression. This is what this slide is all about. It should summarize the brand or product, stating its target customers, their problems, the solution been offered and how exceptional the solution is in one sentence.
In short, it should give the investor or reader adequate information about the uniqueness of your product or service. And my advice is that you don’t go too techy or sophisticated in this slide. Just make the statement as if you’re trying to communicate with a 9-year old.
The Problem
After getting the elevator pitch/Introduction right, then you should dive right into the problems your product is solving in the second slide of your investor pitch. Investors and sponsors are more interested in the problem/want (market) your product is solving. And professionally, I advise that you explain the problems from the perspective of your major customers.
For instance, if your product is dental scheduling and monitoring, don’t focus on the problem the patients are facing. Rather you should focus on the money the dental hospitals that will make use of your product are facing. For example, you can say; “Dental hospitals are losing about $10B annually due to lack of technical resources to correctly schedule or monitor patients remotely.”
The Solution
The solution is all about your product or service offering. Now that the investors/sponsors have an idea of the problem you are solving, it is better to introduce your product/service next before you lose their attention. In fact, I advise that nothing else should come up in your pitch before this once you state the problems.
Here is the slide where you tell us how your product solves the problems listed in the previous slide. List the top benefits, the unique and key features, and how it relates to the wants of the market.
How it Works
Trust me, in my course of writing professional pitch decks for several businesses, I’ve come across wonderful products and services that need to be explained for a tech mind like mine before I can have a full grip on the product.
Unfortunately, your investors will not be any different. My piece of advice for you is that; never assume that your investors will understand how your product/service works.
This is also the best place to show any differentiating features of your product and get into the techy or advanced details of the product.
From my years of professional experience, I believe that this is also a good place to showcase your customer’s journey – how they’ll get to use the product. You can best complement this slide with some screenshots of the product.
Traction
Now that your readers and Investors understand how your product works, it is good you blow their mind with the success of the product/service so far. In your investor pitch, you must be very conscious of getting and keeping the attention of your readers.
In this slide, you can showcase the revenue, partner, and user growth of the product/service. If the product has any of these, please indicate it in this slide. This can be highlighted through a chart or with numbers. For startups with none of the above mentioned, you can literally talk about the growth and the progress of your brand so far.
In short, I advise that you should never leave this slide in your investor pitch empty.
Business Model
Well, you don’t need to attend any class to know that the number one goal of any investor, sponsor, or partner is to make more money. This slide should see to that goal. It should explain how you make money with your product or service. And if it is a new product or service, then you should viably explain how you plan to make money in the nearest future.
This slide in your investor pitch should make the reader understand your top sources of income. And my advice for you is that, you should prioritize and list these revenue channels with respect to their sizes.
Let the readers know whether your product is operating in the direct revenue model such as e-commerce and subscription, or indirect revenue model such as advertising, lead generation, and affiliation.
This slide in your pitch deck can also be used to explain to your investors, sponsors, or prospective partners your method of customer acquisition. Well, take it from me, you might have a wonderful product or service, but lack the right framework to acquire customers. Well, fortunately, you won’t be the first if you find yourself in this category.
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Competition
In my years of helping businesses write and design investor pitch, I’ve often heard many entrepreneurs say things like; “our product is so unique, we don’t have any competitor.” Well, just so you know, there are direct and indirect competitors in every market. As long as it is an open market, then there are competitors. Some of them are just waiting for your product/service.
In your pitch deck, this is the slide where you let the investor know your competitors and how you are unique and stand out from them. You can use this format of direct comparison such as; “unlike (competitor), our product offers (features and uniqueness) differently.
The Market Opportunity
In your investor pitch, this is the slide to intimate your investors and readers about the opportunities that abound in the market for your product or service. Every investor or sponsor wants to put their money where they believe there is positive and booming growth.
There are several ways of going by this. You can either find a market analysis and research that has been conducted by another third party to use, or you come up with the estimates yourself.
That doesn’t sound so easy right? Well, you can read up on the article I’ve written on how to conduct professional market research for assistance.
Progress/Milestones
This is where to prove some worth in your pitch deck. This is a perfect slide to show some progress of the business and the growth journey you’ve carved out for the business for the coming months or years.
Investors are interested in seeing the progress you’ve made so far. They also need to know where you are currently in the business journey you’ve created. If you have received any recognition or partnership, then be proud to showcase these in this slide of your investor pitch. You know why? Credibility, feasibility, and viability sells a business.
And if you have received any investment before the set time of the writing, please indicate that in this section of the investor pitch. This helps paints your business as investment-worthy and gives you a solid negotiating ground.
The Management Team
Irrespective of how exotic and powerful a car is, the driver is the most important in its functionality. Without the driver/controller, the car is going nowhere.
Many investors and sponsors you are pitching to actually believe that the management team is the most important part of any startup. They’re more interested in those that make up the management team more than the idea itself.
You must know that your investors and sponsors are giving their money and resources to the founders and the management team and not the product itself. Showcase any of your founders that have deep industrial experience, tech experience or sales experience in this part of your investor pitch deck.
And for the record, work with highlights, and not too much texts. Stuffing too much texts in this slide of will only make it to be less attractive and easily forgotten.
Use of Funds
What’s the importance of a pitch deck you intend to raise money with without it stating the amount of money you need? Your potential investors, sponsors, or partners need to know how much you are looking for and how viable what you’re spending it on.
You know how we all got the feeling that people won’t treat our hard earned money right when parting with it? Well, that’s exactly how many investors and sponsors feel too. No one really cares if you have a great idea once they don’t trust you enough to manage the financial resources entrusted to you.
So, this is a nice place in your investor pitch to wow your readers and make them see reason why their money is safer with you. Everyone wants to feel smart, with their money especially. Every human being wants to feel smart whenever they’re putting their money somewhere. This is your opportunity to help your investors and sponsors feel smart about investing with you.
And if you already have some investors prior to the presentation, then I advise that this slide can also be used to talk a little about why the other investors decided to trust you with their money. It is really a good way to start.
Key Takeaway
So, there you go! If you are interested in making your investor pitch stand out anywhere, then making use of the outline above is a good way to go. Following this guideline outlined above in this article will greatly help increase the chances of your pitch deck standing out.
And if you’re still finding it difficult to create a professional one, or in need of a professional’s service, then you can easily get started with me here! You qualify for a free 30-min consultation for your business before we get started on the pitch deck creation. With a professional investor pitch, going wrong is off the table!
