what to charge to design digital presentation deck
If you're raising coin for your business, having an impressive pitch deck is a key component in your fundraising toolkit. A smashing pitch deck gets potential investors excited about your idea and engages them in a conversation about your business, hopefully leading to an investment.
In this article, I'm going to give you the formula for what you should include in your own pitch deck.
I'one thousand leveraging the knowledge I've gained from listening to hundreds—if non thousands—of elevator speeches and pitch presentations. I've seen all different kinds of pitch decks and presentation styles and establish that there's a simple formula that only works.
I've besides built my own and presented to major Silicon Valley VC firms over the years and have learned a lot about what works and what doesn't.
What is a pitch deck?
A pitch deck, besides known as a slide deck or start-up deck, is a presentation that provides a cursory but informative overview of your business concern. It should cover the key points of your business programme, the products and services yous provide, high-level fiscal projections, and funding needs. Your pitch deck should piece of work well on its own every bit a visual document, but it will primarily exist used as a tool to tell the story of your business.
What is the purpose of a pitch deck?
This may sound counterintuitive, but the goal of your pitch deck is not to raise money. What? I know that doesn't sound right, but the real goal of your pitch deck is to get to the side by side meeting.
Remember, your pitch deck and pitch presentation are probably some of the first things that an investor will meet to learn more about your company. And because investments rarely are made after but one meeting, your goal is to spark involvement in your company. You want investors to enquire for more than after they hear your pitch and not just show you to the door.
So, while a solid pitch deck is critical to raising money, the fundamental goal of the deck is to get to the next step—another coming together and a request for more information.
What to include in your pitch deck
While every business concern is dissimilar, I've plant that the following format works for most businesses and is most likely to generate interest from potential investors.To get started, download our costless pitch deck template, and read on for insight into the importance of the following 11 slides every bit y'all develop your own deck.
i. Vision and value suggestion
This is a quick one-judgement overview of your business and the value that you provide to your customers. Keep it short and elementary. A great way to remember about this slide is to imagine it every bit a short tweet—describe your business organisation in 140 characters or less in a way your parents would sympathize.
Information technology's common for tech companies to brand their value suggestion a comparison to another well-known company. For example, you see many pitches that get-go with things similar:
"We're the Uber for Pets"
"We're the Netflix for Video Games"
This tin can work, only be careful to brand certain your comparison makes sense and you're non just using a high profile visitor like Uber to signify growth potential. Your business organisation model has to truly be similar to the company you are referencing.
2. The problem
If you aren't solving some problem in the globe, you are going to have a long uphill climb with your business.
Apply this slide to talk about the problem you are solving and who has the problem. You can talk about the electric current solutions in the market, but don't spend too much time on the competitive mural on this slide—yous'll accept a chance to do that later on.
Ideally, effort and tell a relatable story when y'all are defining the problem. The more than you can make the problem as real every bit possible, the more your investors will understand your business organisation and your goals.
iii. Target market and opportunity
Use this slide to expand on who your ideal customer is and how many of them in that location are. What is the total market size and how do you lot position your visitor in the marketplace? If you can find the data, investors will want to know how much people or businesses currently spend in the market to go a sense of the total market size. This is where you tell the story nigh the scope and scale of the problem you are solving.
If it makes sense for your concern, you'll want to divide your market place into segments that you will address with different types of marketing and perchance dissimilar types of product offerings.
Be careful with this slide, though. Information technology's tempting to effort and define your market to be as big as possible. Instead, investors will want to see that y'all have a very specific and reachable market place. The more specific you are, the more realistic your pitch will exist.
four. The solution
Finally, you become to dive into describing your product or service. Depict how customers use your product and how information technology addresses the problems that yous outlined on slide two.
Y'all'll be tempted to move this slide closer to the beginning of your pitch deck, just try and resist the temptation. This is classic storytelling where yous build upward the problem and describe how bad information technology is for lots of people. At present your product or service is coming to the rescue to help solve that trouble.
Well-nigh entrepreneurs are very focused on their product when instead they need to be focused on their customers and the problems those customers face. Try and keep your pitch deck focused with this format and yous'll tell a ameliorate story.
If possible, use pictures and stories when y'all describe your solution. Showing is nearly always ameliorate than telling.
v. Revenue model or business model
Now that y'all've described your production or service, y'all need to talk well-nigh how it makes money. What do yous charge and who pays the bills? For some businesses (content sites, for example), advertisers pay the bills instead of users, so information technology's important to flesh out the details hither.
Yous can also reference the competitive landscape here and hash out how your pricing fits into the larger marketplace. Are you a premium, loftier-price offering, or a budget offering that undercuts existing solutions on the market?
6. Traction and validation/roadmap
If you already have sales or early on adopters using your production, talk about that here. Investors want to run into that you accept proven some attribute of your business model every bit that reduces hazard, so any proof you have that validates that your solution works to solve the problem yous have identified is extremely powerful.
Y'all tin besides utilise this slide to talk well-nigh your milestones. What major goals have you achieved then far and what are the major next steps you lot programme on taking? A product or company roadmap that outlines key milestones is helpful here.
7. Marketing and sales strategy
How are you planning on getting customers' attention and what will your sales process look like? Use this slide to outline your marketing and sales plan. You'll desire to detail the key tactics that you intend to utilise to get your product in forepart of prospective customers.
Finding and winning customers tin can sometimes be the biggest challenge for a startup, so it's important to show that you accept a solid grasp of how you volition reach your target market and what sales channels yous plan on using.
If your marketing and sales process is different than your competitors, it'southward important to highlight that hither.
8. Team
Why are you and your team the correct people to build and grow this company? What experience do yous have that others don't? Highlight the central team members, their successes at other companies, and the central expertise that they bring to the table.
Fifty-fifty if you lot don't have a complete squad all the same, identify the key positions that you still need to fill up and why those positions are critical to company growth.
9. Financials
Investors will wait to see your financials: sales forecast, income statement (besides called turn a profit and loss statement), and greenbacks catamenia forecast for at least three years.
Merely, for your pitch deck, you shouldn't take in-depth spreadsheets that will be difficult to read and swallow in a presentation format. Limit yourself to charts that evidence sales, total customers, full expenses, and profits.
You should exist prepared to talk over the underlying assumptions that you've made to make it at your sales goals and what your central expense drivers are.
Recollect to try and be realistic. Investors meet "hockey stick" projections all the time and volition mentally exist cutting your projections in half. If you tin can explicate your growth based on traction yous already accept or compared to a similar company in a related industry, that is extremely useful.
ten. Competition
Every business has contest in ane grade or another. Even if you are opening upwards an entirely new market place, your potential customers are using alternative solutions to solve their bug today.
Draw how y'all fit into the competitive mural and how you're different than the competitors and alternatives that are on the market today. What fundamental advantages practice you lot have over the competition or is there some "hugger-mugger sauce" that you lot have and others don't?
The cardinal here is explaining how you are dissimilar than the other players in the market and why customers will choose you.
11. Investment and use of funds
Finally, it's fourth dimension to really ask for the coin. That's why you're doing this pitch deck, right? I know—I said that this pitch deck isn't nearly actually getting funded. That's still true, only your potential investors do need to know how much money y'all are looking for.
More chiefly, you lot need to be able to explain why you need the amount of coin you are asking for and how you program on using the money. Investors volition want to know how their money is being used and how it is going to aid you reach the goals yous are setting out for your business.
If you already accept some investors on board, now is when you lot should be talking near those other investors and why they chose to invest.
Other slides y'all might include in your pitch deck
While y'all do want to keep your pitch deck brusque, sometimes you may need or want to include a few actress slides that help explain your business. You likely won't utilize them when yous present, but it can be a great resource for investors to review later on the fact.
Here are a few boosted slides that are often found in investor presentations.
Exit strategy
If yous are raising coin from investors, you'll need to show them how you lot plan on giving them a render. Y'all exercise this in the course of an "get out strategy" slide that outlines who your potential acquirers might be if you manage to abound your visitor and be successful. Having an IPO and going public is a viable option for some high-growth startups, while other businesses are more probable to exist bought by larger players in your market place.
Partnerships
Some businesses have fundamental strategic partnerships that are critical to their success. This can often be in the form of intellectual holding licensing from a university or a key distribution partner who will be taking your product to marketplace. If your success relies on these types of partnerships, information technology's important to showcase them.
Demo and screenshots
If you take a paradigm of your product, screenshots of your online service, or any other "show and tell" opportunities, it's great to include a placeholder slide in your deck where you will actually prove your potential investors how your product works and what it does.
Other documentation
Keeping your pitch deck as short and succinct every bit possible is disquisitional. Remember, your goal isn't to provide investors with all the data they need to make an investment decision. Its main purpose is to tell a story, build excitement, and assistance go that earth-shaking request for boosted information and a follow-up coming together.
In addition to your pitch deck, you lot should have more than detailed, additional data that yous can provide if requested. Preparing these additional documents tin likewise help ensure that you don't endeavor and make full your presentation with likewise much overwhelming data.
Tips to brand your pitch successful
Hither are a few tips to make your presentation as successful every bit possible:
Keep your pitch elementary
All entrepreneurs spend countless hours "in the weeds" thinking about every concluding detail nearly their business. But, for an investor pitch, less data is better than besides much. Yous want your slides to be simple, convey high-level ideas, and exit room for questions. Simple and straightforward presentations always do better than detailed presentations total of bullets.
Skip the bullets
Speaking of bullets, skip them. Slides full of bullet points are boring and don't assistance tell a story. Try and use large fonts and limit the number of words on each slide. Use images wherever possible to help tell your story and build an emotional attachment to your ideas.
Tell a story
Don't merely talk most the facts. Instead, focus on grabbing involvement and getting your audition excited. Your deck doesn't need to exist the complete guide to your business. It just needs to generate interest and then you can motility on to the adjacent step.
One of the all-time ways to practise that is to tell stories about how your customers use your product, how they currently experience bug that demand to be solved, and how your visitor will make the lives of your customers better. The more than you tin tell stories that investors tin can relate to, the more than you'll exist able to build excitement for your company.
Keep your presentation short
Make sure you take plenty of time for questions, demos, and word about your business idea. If you have a one-hour meeting, aim for your presentation to accept 20 to 30 minutes.
Don't overstate the marketplace opportunity
Instead of top-downward forecasts where yous "only need to get one percent of a huge market" to exist successful, focus on bottom-upwards forecasts where you detail your expectations for how you're going to acquire customers.
If you already have data on how an early version of your product is selling, use those numbers to assist drive the rest of your forecast.
Inquire for the money
Yeah, it's a slide in the presentation deck higher up, but entrepreneurs sometimes forget to ask for the money. When you ask, it's very important to be able to intelligently discuss how the money volition be used. Your detailed financial forecasts should also take an influx of cash into business relationship.
Keep your deck current
Fundraising takes fourth dimension. You'll likely pitch your visitor many, many times before y'all get an investment. As legend has it, Pandora pitched more than 300 VC firms earlier getting investment.
Assuming you're working to build your visitor while you pitch to raise money, make sure that you keep your deck up-to-date with your latest progress, roadmaps, and then on. There'southward aught worse than presenting an out-of-date deck to potential investors.
Send your deck as a PDF
You'll almost always exist asked to either send your slides ahead of time to investors or to leave a re-create behind. If this happens, don't ship Powerpoint or Keynote files. Instead, transport a PDF. This means that anyone who looks at the deck will see it as yous intended with your called fonts and styles.
Make sure your deck stands alone without your presentation
Your pitch deck will e'er be meliorate when yous nowadays it, but it should ideally be able to tell some of your story without yous being there to tell it. Investors might want to flip through the deck again after you're done with your presentation and it needs to take plenty content that the deck can stand alone and communicate some of your core ideas.
Documents to have prepared after yous pitch to investors
Developing your pitch deck is just the start of your concern planning journeying. You'll desire to follow-upwardly on a successful investor pitch with the necessary planning documentation to support your presentation. The post-obit are simply a few documents that you should take prepared to send afterwards you pitch.
Executive summary
An executive summary sometimes called a summary memo, is a two-to-three-page overview of your business. It's a certificate that investors can share with their partners and others in their firm to provide an overview of your business. Your executive summary should embrace what'southward in your pitch deck only in written form.
Technical documentation
If y'all are starting a tech company or medical company, yous may be asked to provide some additional item on your applied science. Investors in these types of companies will often desire to vet your technical claims with an expert, so providing more detailed documentation, diagrams, workflows, and then on might be important.
Detailed financial models
Any investor that's seriously interested in your business will want to see detailed financial forecasts for at to the lowest degree the next three years then they can go an understanding of the underlying assumptions that are driving your forecasts.
Investors will want to encounter your plans for hiring and employee-related expenses, R&D expenses, manufacturing costs, marketing expenses, and so on. Exist prepared to provide a detailed sales forecast, profit and loss forecast, and cash period forecast. A residual sheet is also often required. Whenever possible, visually represent your data with graphics. Information technology's proven to exist more than constructive.
Detailed market research
You may be asked to provide more details on your target market place and the market inquiry you've done to appointment. This isn't always the case, merely if you lot accept the information it's a good idea to exist ready to present it in some format. Over again, this information shouldn't be part of your initial pitch deck, but instead should exist ready if it's asked for.
Start developing your pitch deck
Gear up to go started? Download our costless pitch deck presentation templates and beginning working on your pitch in either PowerPoint or Keynote.
You lot tin can also find plenty of additional communication in our Elevator Pitch Guide. You'll learn how to deliver an impactful lift speech and notice all the resources you need to perfect your pitch.
Hear more than pitching tips with Peter and Jonathan on the 10th episode of The Bcast, Bplans official podcast:
Click here to subscribe to The Bcast on iTunes »
Source: https://articles.bplans.com/what-to-include-in-your-pitch-deck/
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