structure of a pitch presentation

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How to create a successful pitch presentation

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Anete Ezera December 18, 2023

When it comes to startups and entrepreneurs, getting that first big deal can be tricky. It can be hard to put your business idea forward in a way that’s going to convince potential investors or partners. This is where pitch deck presentations come in handy as they are often short and precise. The goal is to explain your idea in a way that gets straight to the point and is easy to understand. These quick, punchy presentations are critical for those looking to make a strong first impression and secure funding for their business venture. Let’s talk about what a pitch presentation is and how you can create one with the help of Prezi. 

What is a pitch presentation? 

To get a better understanding of what a pitch presentation really is, let’s look at some of the important elements that make one: 

Conciseness: It’s typically short, usually 10-20 slides. This fast pace enables the presenter to captivate the audience and maintain attention. 

Clarity: The aim is to keep the content clear and straightforward, avoiding complicated jargon so that the message is understood. 

Powerful storytelling: It will often tell an interesting story about the problem being solved, the solution offered, and the potential market opportunity. 

Key information: Because of its fast-paced nature, it will often be packed with vital information like the business model, financial projections, and the unique value proposition of the product or service being pitched. 

Appealing visuals: Like other styles of presentation, having visuals that can draw in the audience is a must. Pitch deck presentations will often use graphics and minimal text to convey information better. 

To get a visual understanding of what a pitch presentation is, explore the following pitch presentation:

The evolution of pitch presentations: a look back and ahead

Ever wondered how pitch presentations became such a big deal? They started as simple PowerPoint slides but have evolved into something much more dynamic. This journey reflects changes in business, technology, and what investors look for. In the early days, pitch decks were pretty straightforward – just a few slides outlining a business idea. But as technology advanced, so did the expectations. Now, we see pitch presentations with interactive elements, attractive visuals, and even storytelling elements. This evolution shows how we’ve learned to communicate complex ideas more effectively. Understanding this history helps us understand how pitch decks have evolved into what they are today. 

Is a pitch deck the right presentation style for me? 

A pitch deck is perfect if you’re looking to present a business idea, especially if you’re aiming to attract investors or partners. It’s designed to be concise yet impactful, focusing on the key aspects of your business or project. Think of it as showcasing your business- you’ve got a limited amount of time to make a strong impression. So, if you’re in the early stages of a startup, seeking funding, or trying to win over some stakeholders with a clear, compelling story about your business or idea, a pitch presentation could be just what you need.

People who might also benefit from pitch presentations 

Pitch presentations are a versatile tool that can greatly benefit a wide range of individuals and organizations. We’ve discussed the role of pitch decks for startups and entrepreneurs, so let’s look at some other instances where these presentations might be particularly useful: 

• Business executives: Established business owners can use pitch decks to propose new projects or strategies to stakeholders, boards, and investors. 
• Sales and marketing professionals: To pitch products or services to potential clients or partners, highlighting their unique selling points.
• Non-profit organizations: For presenting their mission, impact, and funding needs to donors, sponsors, or grant agencies.
• Researchers and academics: To secure funding or collaboration for research projects, especially when presenting to funding bodies or at academic conferences.
• Inventors and innovators: To attract investors, partners, or attention to their new inventions or innovations. 
• Freelancers and consultants: To pitch their services and unique value proposition to potential clients or agencies.

What makes a good pitch deck presentation?

When we talk about pitch presentations, it’s important to compare the differences between a great pitch deck and the ones that just don’t hit the mark. 

What a pitch deck should look like 

A successful pitch deck should have a clean, uncluttered design . This way your audience can take in the information without being distracted by over complicated slides. Any images used should be of high quality, and be relevant to the text. A pitch presentation should flow logically , so the information provided tells a story about what you’re aiming to achieve. 

The colors used should match that of your brand, often logos and fonts will correspond with the theme of the brand, organization, or company. This is a great way to reinforce who you are and what you stand for. A good pitch presentation will captivate the audience by using each slide to convey a single key point, this way, the message is concise and easily absorbed. 

Pitfalls to avoid 

Now, let’s talk about what a pitch presentation shouldn’t look like. If you want to entice your audience, don’t cram too much information onto your slides . This is going to overwhelm your audience and make their attention span drop. Don’t stray away from key points by including irrelevant information. You want your pitch deck to persuade people to take action and have faith in you and your product, so don’t go off on a tandem.

Use a language tone that’s relatable to everyone – don’t use overly technical terms or industry-specific jargon. This can be off-putting for potential investors who don’t work in your field. One of the biggest mistakes you could make is to be inconsistent with your theme, color, and fonts. Remember, the idea is to appear professional, and inconsistency screams amateur. 

Things to consider when preparing to create your pitch presentation

Although it might be appealing to dive straight into making your presentation, there are certain points you should consider to get the best out of your pitch. Here are some things to think about when planning: 

Know your audience

Consider who you’re presenting to and include criteria that are going to be appealing to them. For instance, what resonates with venture capitalists may be different from what appeals to potential partners or customers. 

Engaging storyline

You want to hold your audience’s attention throughout the whole presentation, so tell your story in a way that builds anticipation and makes them want more. 

Keep each slide simple. Your audience will respond better to clear, concise content that’s not too busy and complicated. Keep text easily readable and appropriate for all levels of knowledge. 

Key messages

Plan out the purpose of each slide beforehand, that way you can be sure the key messages come across well. 

You can include things like graphs or charts to simplify complex data, but do this in a way that doesn’t overcrowd the slides. Remember to stay consistent with colors and fonts to reinforce clarity. 

Data and validation

Do your research when preparing to make your pitch presentation. It’s crucial to back up your claims, such as market research, growth projections, or case studies. Using real-world examples is a good way to back up your credibility. 

Business model

Think about how you’re going to explain your business model in a way that comes across clearly. Always be honest about your revenue streams, pricing strategies, and your position in the market. 

Investors often invest in people as much as they do ideas, so think about how you can highlight the strengths of yourself and your team. 

You need to clearly state what you’re asking for. Whether it’s funding, support, or a partnership, make sure your audience knows what you need from them. 

Practice your pitch so that it flows well and fits with the time constraints. Rehearsals are great for realizing flaws, which means you can rectify where needed to ensure the best possible pitch on the day. Be prepared to answer questions and address potential concerns- you can do this by listing some possible queries and preparing an adequate answer. 

Beginning and ending

How can you draw the audience in from the minute you start speaking? A successful pitch presentation often starts with a bang, such as a powerful punch line, a vibrant image, or a brain teaser. When it comes to ending your pitch, summarize the main points and offer a chance for discussion. 

Discover other crucial and noteworthy tips on creating and delivering pitch presentations by watching the following video:

Presenting your pitch deck presentation

Your presenting skills must be just as effective as the pitch presentation you’ve created. Imagine spending all that time and effort on making each slide perfect, to go and blow your opportunity by poorly presenting it. Here are some tips to help you own the stage for your pitch: 

Body language

• Posture: Stand tall and proud. A good posture reflects confidence and keeps you physically engaged. 
• Gestures: Gestures should be natural and purposeful. For example, you might use hand gestures to emphasize important points. Avoid being overly dramatic with gestures as this can be distracting. 
•  Movement: Moving can add energy to your presentation, but be careful not to pace around the stage, as this can make you appear nervous. A simple step forward when you’re reaching the punchline of your story can elevate impact. Similarly, turning your body to face different sections of the audience can make everyone feel included. 

Facial expressions

• Eye contact: Make eye contact with your audience, and maintain it. Don’t just focus on one area, move your gaze around the room to add a personal element to your presentation. This is going to help you build a connection and keep them engaged. 
• Smiling: Smile where appropriate. This is going to make you seem approachable and passionate about your subject. However, you don’t want to unnerve your audience by wearing a forced smile throughout the whole presentation. 
• Expressiveness: Your facial expressions should match the tone of what you’re saying. They can be a powerful way of transporting emotions from the screen onto the audience. 

Voice control

• Volume: You want everyone in the room to hear you, so speak loudly, but avoid shouting. 
• Pace: Remember that your audience needs to clearly hear every word for maximum impact, you can do this by keeping a moderate pace throughout. Speaking too fast can be hard to keep up with, and talking too slowly can become boring. 
• Tone: Use a varied tone to maintain interest, as monotone speech can be disengaging. For instance, you could change the pitch and intensity of your tone when discussing something positive or exciting. 
• Duration: Stick to the allotted time for your pitch presentation. Running too long can lose your audience’s interest, while cutting it too short may not deliver enough information. 
• Pauses: Pauses are handy for creating suspense, or allowing key points to sink in. They can also be helpful for a smooth transformation from one topic to another. 

Dealing with nerves

• Practice: The more familiar you are with your content, the less nervous you’re going to be. Practice your body language cues, speaking clearly, and using the right facial expressions. 
• Visualization: Envision a successful pitch presentation. It’s when we worry about the things that could go wrong that causes anxiety to kick in. 
• Relaxation techniques: Before taking the stage, simple techniques can help with nerves, such as mindfulness practices and progressive muscle relaxation. 
• Deep breathing: Practice deep breathing to control nerves and keep a steady voice. This helps in delivering a calm and confident pitch. 

If you’re struggling with nerves, watch the following video on how to not be nervous for a presentation:

Audience interaction

• Question prompts: To make your pitch presentation more interactive, encourage audience participation and questions. 
• Read the room: Always be aware of the audience’s reactions and adjust accordingly. If they seem disinterested, you might need to change your approach or pace.

As a pitch deck presenter, your role is to deliver your content in a way that makes an impact. Mastery of body language, voice, and timing all play a crucial role in yielding the results you want. 

Prezi: Your tool for creating pitch presentation

If you’re aiming to create a pitch presentation that sets you apart from competitors, Prezi is the tool for you. Here’s why: 

Unique presentation style

Unlike traditional slide-by-slide presentations, Prezi allows you to create a more fluid and dynamic pitch deck. You can move freely around the canvas, zooming in on details and out to the bigger picture. This helps in structuring your pitch presentation in a way that best suits your story, making it more engaging for your audience.

Zooming user interface

This is one of Prezi’s signature features. You can zoom in to focus on specific details and zoom out to show the overall context of your idea. Since pitch presentations are all about emphasizing key points, this feature is essential. 

Visual storytelling

The best way to tell a story through your pitch presentation is to turn complicated information into digestible parts. With Prezi, you can use appealing visuals to simplify ideas and make data easier to interpret. Prezi supports images, visuals, graphics, and animations, so you can create a pitch that captivates your audience. 

Experience visual storytelling in action in a Prezi presentation:

Templates and customization 

Prezi offers a variety of templates , which can be a great starting point for your pitch presentation. These templates are fully customizable, meaning you can align the design with your brand’s look and feel. 

As an example, take a look at this product launch template by Prezi. This would be a solid choice for a pitch deck presentation, particularly if you’re about to launch a new product or service. It provides a structured layout that guides you through the essential elements of a pitch. If you’re hoping to make a good impression, the design of this template looks clean and professional while focusing on key points. It allows you to highlight what sets your product apart in a compelling way. 

Like most Prezi templates, it offers customization options. You can tweak colors, add your images, and moderate the content to align with your brand and product. These are all essential elements for creating a personalized and relevant pitch. 

Collaboration tools

Prezi’s collaboration features come in handy when you’re working with a team. Multiple people can work on the pitch presentation at the same time, offering valuable inputs and different ideas. This way, your pitch deck presentation can reach its full potential. If you like to delegate tasks and give each team member a role in the creation, this feature is great for coordinating efforts. 

Prezi Video

For remote pitching, Prezi Video is the perfect solution as it allows you to add a video of yourself presenting alongside your content. This enables you to make your pitch just as personal as it would be in person. 

To explore how Prezi Video works, watch the following video:

Path tool for story flow

To help create a natural flow for your story, Prezi lets you set paths to move between topics. This easily guides your audience through your presentation in a logical way, which is crucial when it comes to pitch decks. 

Prezi is keeping up with the AI revolution by bringing you a set of AI presentation tools: AI text editing and layout features. These features give you text and layout suggestions, so you don’t need to stress about finding the right words or structure. It can adjust to your writing style, keeping your pitch personal to you but with added clarity and relevance. Discover more about Prezi AI features here .

Successful business pitch presentation examples

Many well-known companies famously used pitch decks in their early stages to secure funding and partnerships. Here’s some you may know: 

Back in 2008, Airbnb was just starting out and needed funding, so they created a pitch deck. This wasn’t just any pitch deck—it was really clear and straightforward, showing off their business model and what they hoped to achieve. They ended up raising $600k from an angel investment round. Their pitch presentation was so successful that people still talk about it today. It’s a classic example of how a good pitch can really set a company on the path to success.

Did you know about Uber’s beginnings? On their ninth anniversary, Garrett Camp, one of the co-founders, shared their first pitch deck. It was a 25-slide presentation that they used way back when they were just starting out. This pitch presentation was a major part of their strategy and really helped in the company’s early growth and evolution. It’s pretty impressive to think how those early slides contributed to making Uber the giant it is today. 

We all know how significant Facebook is when it comes to social media platforms, but it’s all down to their original pitch presentation back in 2004 that propelled them into such success. The pitch deck contained mix-and-match slides for summarizing Facebook’s value proposition, key metrics, and audience demographics. Shortly after the launch of facebook.com, Eduardo Saverin, who was 21 at the time, took their presentation to New York. He was there to pitch Facebook’s Ad platform to potential clients. Now, fast forward to today, Facebook for Business has grown massively. It’s the second biggest digital advertising platform, just behind Google, and holds more than 25% of the market share.

These examples are not only inspirational but show just how important pitch presentations are. A strong pitch is critical for making a good first impression, forming business relations, and opening up opportunities for scaling your business. 

Final thoughts on pitch deck presentations

To wrap up, pitch decks are more than just presentations; they’re your chance to make an impact. They’re vital for anyone looking to get their idea off the ground, especially in the startup world. So when you’re putting one together, keep it straightforward, focus on your key points, and make sure it reflects what you and your business are all about. A well-crafted pitch presentation can open doors, attract investment, and set the stage for your future success. Remember, simplicity and clarity are your best tools. Good luck, and here’s to making your ideas shine!

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What Makes a Great Pitch

• Michael Quinn

It’s all about reading the room.

A good pitch is a balancing act that can be adjusted to the currents in the room. A recent survey of HBR readers found — at least in this community — how important it is to understand not just what you are pitching, but who you are pitching to. The reason? The more senior your audience, the less you should rely on your deck and the more you should expect your pitch to be a conversation, showing your team’s authentic passion for the challenge or problem and their resilience for solving it creatively, together.

Pitching for new business is a make-or-break moment for many teams. You want to win the pitch, and so you develop a detailed slide deck, tout your credentials, capabilities and successes (case studies), and select your strongest presenter – possibly the leader of your team or company — to do all the talking. Right? Wrong.

• MQ Michael Quinn is the founder of Minor Nobles, the NYC-based consultancy offering workshops, webinars, rehearsals and 1:1 training to help teams and leaders update their behavior to win more pitches for new business and investment. He is also a faculty instructor for the Association of National Advertisers and host of the podcast, “Own The Room,” where top executives discuss their own experiences pitching and what they wish people would do more often, or avoid altogether, in pitches to them.

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How to Create a Pitch Deck (and the 10 Slides You Need)

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In the high-stakes world of startups, a pitch deck presentation is often the deciding factor for securing investment, whether in high-pressure situations like Shark Tank or pre-seed pitching rounds. With limited time to make a first impression, the quality of your pitch deck is crucial in leading to that all-important follow-up meeting with investors or VCs.

In this article, we’ll guide you through how to create a pitch deck and the ten essential slides you need. We’ll also explain what makes a good pitch deck (including examples), the 10/20/30 rule, and how to avoid common mistakes.

Success in entrepreneurship isn’t just about hard work, luck, and timing. It’s also about successfully convincing others to invest in your vision, whether you’re seeking funding, advice, mentorship, or partnerships. A great pitch deck will be your essential tool in persuading investors. Let’s get started!

What is a Pitch Deck?

A pitch deck is a slideshow presentation that succinctly conveys your business idea, market opportunity, and value proposition. Startup founders and entrepreneurs commonly use them to present their business ideas, products, or services, also known as a business or investor deck. It is necessary in securing funding, attracting partnerships, and closing deals.

With a concise format of 10 to 20 slides, this visual tool effectively conveys a business idea and its potential to help entrepreneurs connect with investors, clients, or partners. Suppose your pitch catches the interest of potential investors. In that case, there will likely be an in-depth next meeting (i.e., the start of the actual pitching process).

💡 The most common formats for pitch decks are PowerPoint slides, Google Slides, or Apple Keynote presentations.

Purpose of a Pitch Deck

The purpose of a pitch deck is to clearly and quickly communicate your business’s potential. Used in fundraising pitches, idea support, and forming strategic partnerships, it provides a visual snapshot of your business idea and its market viability.

Pitch decks are not only used by startups but also in a variety of other settings. The structure of your slides should enable potential investors to grasp your business idea’s potential quickly.

Types of Pitch Decks:

• Branding or marketing plan
• Fundraising
• Film & TV

The 10-20-30 Rule for Slideshows

The 10-20-30 rule, coined by venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, offers a structured approach to creating effective PowerPoint pitch decks. This rule is a favorite among startups but applies to all types of presentations. It includes:

• Keeping to just 10 slides.
• Limiting the presentation to 20 minutes.
• Ensuring a font size of at least 30 points.

However, sticking to 10 slides isn’t always the optimal approach for everyone. As David from NextView VC reminds us, it’s crucial to present in a manner that feels authentic to you. Treat pitch deck templates as flexible starting points, and tailor them to highlight the uniqueness of your startup.

What should be in a pitch deck

A pitch deck should concisely outline your business idea, market, strategy, finances, team, and funding needs in an engaging story. You should use between 10 and 20 slides depending on your needs and audience.

In the next section, we’ll guide you through creating each slide.

The 10 most important slides in an investor deck:

• Business overview: A brief introduction to the business, including the mission and vision.
• Problem statement: Identify the problem or need in the market the business intends to solve.
• Solution slide: The product or service offered by the business as a solution to the identified problem.
• Market size and analysis: Information about the target market and industry, including size, growth potential, and customer demographics.
• Product and business model: How the business plans to make money, including the product and pricing strategy.
• Go-to-market plan: The approach to promoting the product or service and acquiring customers.
• Competitors: A look at the competitive landscape and how the business differentiates itself from competitors.
• Financials: Financial projections and current financial status.
• Team: Information about the key team members, their roles, and their experience.
• Ask: The specific funding request and how it will be used to grow the business.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, we’ll move on to how to create a pitch deck.

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How to create a pitch deck

We’ll take a step-by-step approach to making the essential 10 slides in a pitch deck. It will cover the most critical aspects of your business idea and pitch presentation. You may add more slides as you go, but let’s start by looking at each of these 10 slides, their purpose, and what information should be included.

Slide 1: Business overview

The first slide of your pitch deck will set the tone for the rest of the presentation. The business overview (title slide) should briefly capture the core of your idea and stand out to investors.

• Include your logo.
• title slide
• Name of your idea, business, or startup.
• Summarize your concept into a catchy headline.

Slide 2: Problem

Use this slide to lay the groundwork of your pitch by focusing on the problems or pressing needs that your business addresses. Highlight the market gap and illustrate why it’s an important opportunity.

• Present the problem your business solves in the form of a problem statement.
• Emphasize its relevance to your audience.
• Back up your points with solid data like market statistics or instances of current inefficiencies.

Slide 3: Solution

The solution (or value proposition) slide should address each problem mentioned in the previous slide. There could be many ways to solve a problem, so clarify how your solution benefits your target segment.

• The value proposition of your product or service.
• What sets it apart from competitors.

Slide 4: Market size

This slide should provide a clear picture of the market analysis and landscape based on your research. Illustrate the scale of the market you’re targeting or part of, demonstrating growth prospects and business opportunities. Key points to include:

• Break down the market opportunity into TAM, SAM, and SOM.
• Note any important market trends.
• Use visual aids like charts or graphs to effectively depict market size and trends.

Slide 5: Product & business model

Summarize your product and business model in this slide to show how you will make money, scale, and be profitable.

• Highlight your product’s main features or services.
• Add visuals like screenshots or images for clarity.
• Detail your revenue streams, cost structure, and pricing strategy.

Be ready to explain any challenges within your business model and your solutions.

Slide 6: Go-to-market strategy

The go-to-market (GTM) slide outlines your strategy for entering the market and acquiring new customers. Explain how you will distribute your product or service and reach your target audience.

• Outline each phase of your GTM strategy.
• Define your ideal customer or buyer persona and how you provide value to them.
• Explain your sales and marketing approaches to reach customers.

Having a good idea or product isn’t enough to convince investors. They need to know if you have a viable, thought-out strategy to reach and serve the target market.

Slide 7: Competitive analysis

Demonstrate your understanding of the market and the competition in this slide by providing data and market research. Offer data-driven research to map out the competitive landscape, including:

• Identification of major competitors and alternatives.
• Specify your unique selling proposition (USP) and competitive advantage.
• Strategy and positioning against competitors.

Be straightforward in this slide and reassure investors that you are aware of your competition and have a plan to achieve and maintain a competitive edge. You could mention potential challenges, risks, or disruptors.

Slide 8: Team

Many investors often consider the team behind a startup as one of the most critical factors in their decision-making process. A study done on over 21,000 startup founders suggests that the founder’s personality – or the combined personalities of the founding team – is paramount to entrepreneurial success.

• Include all founders, management, and advisors.
• Roles and responsibilities.
• Highlight key skills and relevant experience.
• Mention any meaningful connections.

The team slide has to instill confidence in potential investors that this is the right team for the job, even if you are a solo founder.

Slide 9: Financials

This is a critical slide where investors may spend the most time reading to get a glimpse into the business idea’s financial feasibility and potential return. Describe how you plan to generate revenue and your pricing strategy. Each startup will show different financial figures based on their stage.

Basic financial data:

• Income statement
• Sales forecast
• Expenses and burn rate
• Profitability
• Market size (Total Addressable Market, Serviceable Available Market, Serviceable Obtainable Market)
• Projected revenue growth for at least three years.

Other KPIs you may include:

• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• LTV/CAC ratio (indicates how sustainable the business model is)
• Customer growth

Coming up with these figures demonstrates your financial acumen and your understanding of the key metrics that drive business success.

Slide 10: Ask

The last slide should wrap up the pitch with a snapshot of your current standing, any accomplishments, a timeline, and the use of funds.

• The current state of affairs (growth, market share).
• State the amount of funding needed and how you plan to use it.

Investors want to know if your startup/idea is worth investing in, so show them evidence of progress, past successes, or the potential for future success.

What makes a good pitch deck?

A good pitch deck gets your point across to investors and captures their attention. Successful pitch decks are clear, focused, and persuasive. Many investor pitch decks follow a similar structure because they give investors a snapshot of a business’s investment potential.

These are traits of a good pitch deck:

✅ Concise and clear, without fluff or distracting details.

✅ Focused on telling the story of the startup/idea and its potential.

✅ Structured with a logical flow. Each slide supports the overall narrative.

✅ Persuasive , backed by data, research, and appropriate graphs and charts.

💡 Save time by using an AI pitch deck presentation maker like SlidesAI

Best pitch deck examples

Here are some of our favorite pitch deck presentations. The best pitch decks balance detailed information with simplicity. Take a look at these pitch deck examples across different stages of funding:

Airbnb pitch deck (Pre-seed)

LottieLab pitch deck (Seed)

Copy.AI pitch deck (Series A)

Wanderlist pitch deck (Series B)

Crunchbase pitch deck (Late stage)

💡 Check out more free pitch deck templates here .

Top 3 mistakes to avoid with your pitch deck

These common mistakes can diminish the impact of your presentation. Strive for a balance between thorough information and simplicity for maximum impact.

Mistake 1: Overemphasizing aesthetics

Overdesigning your slide deck can detract from your core message while pitching. In most cases, it is safe to leave out PowerPoint animations and excessive graphics. Use brand colors if possible; any image, graph, or chart you include should directly support your narrative.

💡 Pro tip: Maintain a consistent visual theme and leave out flashy design elements.

Mistake 2: Overloading information

It’s natural to want to share a lot of information on each slide, but doing so can make it harder for your audience to tell what’s important. VCs hear hundreds of pitches each year – you need more clarity in your pitch to catch their interest within your allocated time. Focus on the key information and overall structure of the pitch deck presentation.

💡 Pro tip: Prioritize clarity and conciseness to make a lasting impact.

Mistake 3: Lack of personalization

Pitch deck templates are a great starting point, but remember to tailor your pitch and content to your audience. Investors differ in their interests and priorities. Understanding what your audience value can significantly improve your pitch’s impact.

💡 Pro tip: Find out what resonates with your audience and include or address them in your deck.

• No design skills required
• 3 presentations/month free
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A thoughtfully prepared pitch deck is essential for securing investment. View your pitch deck as a brief yet compelling introduction to your startup’s potential, aiming to secure further discussions and, ultimately, funding. By adhering to the 10-slide structure recommended in this article, you can effectively convey your business vision, introduce your team, emphasize your market edge, and outline your financial forecasts.

Organize your slides to ensure your business concept is easily understood. Be succinct and clear, and align your content with what investors typically seek. Steer clear of common pitfalls like cramming slides with information or not customizing your deck to align with investor interests. Wishing you success!

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a pitch deck the same as a business plan.

A pitch deck and a business plan are not the same. While a pitch deck visually presents key aspects of your business idea, a business plan is a comprehensive written document that outlines all aspects of your business. A pitch deck can summarize your business plan but cannot replace it.

What happens after a successful first pitch?

Pitch deck guides often focus on the initial meeting with venture capitalists, but that’s just the start. Investment decisions involve multiple meetings, due diligence, negotiations, and paperwork. As NextView VC’s David Beisel puts it, “The purpose of all venture capital meetings is to get another meeting.” Read more about what to expect after a successful first pitch .

What about other slides, like the traction slide?

Traction slides are to showcase proof of any progress, achievements, and market acceptance. For early-stage startups, including pre-seed, traction might not necessarily mean revenue. It can be any evidence that validates your business idea and market demand, such as user sign-ups.

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How to create the perfect Pitch Deck presentation

What is a Pitch Deck?

In the world of business, there are numerous ways an organization can reach out to potential investors, customers and partners. Popular methods of link-building and bond-strengthening include face to face meetings, outings, video conferences and business tours. The main aim of these interactions is to provide your contact with insight into your business and give them a valid reason as to why they should invest their time and money into your venture. This type of presentation is the initial offering – the first visual representation of your business that a potential investor will see. Due to this fact and the nature of a pitch deck, it is important that you understand exactly how to craft one, and how to maximize its potential. A successfully crafted and presented pitch deck could open the door for your business and lead to future encounters.

The following guide will take you through the various stages involved in creating and implementing a first-rate pitch deck.

Planning and Research – Understanding the requirements

Before you even think about creating the actual presentation, it is of vital importance that you take the time to perform adequate planning and research. Simply creating a pitch deck from scratch without understanding why it is required, what its purpose is, and who your target audience is can lead to future issues and could mean that your presentation falls on deaf ears. The following is a list of considerations that your business should look at before implementing your pitch deck.

Who is your target audience?

This is possibly the most important factor and is the question that should be given the highest consideration. Understanding your target audience will ensure that you pitch deck is delivered in the correct manner and style, and that your message is portrayed successfully. Creating a generic pitch deck that you can use again for various meetings could result in poor feedback and an incorrect message being delivered to your potential investors. The following are a list of questions that you should consider concerning your target audience:

• What is their preferred method of communication?
• What is their primary language?
• Who will represent the business?
• Do they have an understanding of your business or industry?
• Will they understand technical terminology?

Answering these questions will ensure that you tailor your pitch deck to suit your audience and maximize its desired effect. For example, if you create a pitch deck that contains extensive use of technical terminology to an investor that doesn’t have a deep understanding of your business; you risk confusion and alienating your audience.

What is the purpose of your pitch deck?

Once you have dissected your target audience, it is prudent to have a clear understanding of the purpose of your pitch deck. Why are you using a pitch deck? What information do you wish to display to your audience? What aspect of your business do you wish to present? What message do you wish to portray and how do you want the audience to view your business? Having a clear purpose will ensure that your pitch deck is straight to the point, concise, clear and well-delivered.

What do you wish to gain from the presentation?

Although this might sound similar to the purpose of a pitch deck, it is entirely different and is also an important factor. Understanding the purpose of your pitch deck will ensure your message is delivered efficiently, but understanding what you wish to gain from it will ensure you have realistic expectations, and can review its effectiveness afterward. Write down or make a list of some actual outcomes that you wish to arise from your pitch deck; examples of potential gains could include:

• Instigating a second meeting with an investor
• Prompting an investor to pledge funds to your business
• Prompting a customer to place an order or set up an account

Once you have created a list of desired gains, you can use this to customize your pitch deck and prompt these actions to happen. Furthermore, once your presentation has been completed, you can look back at this list, and see if you were indeed successful.

As you can see, planning and research will greatly help improve the feasibility and effectiveness of your pitch deck. Consider asking for input from various different departments and individuals from your organizations to widen your knowledge pool and to gain a variety of perspectives on what you are proposing. Once you have sufficiently planned your pitch deck, you can then turn your attention to its design and creation.

Creation and Composition – Putting your planning into practice

By now, you should have a bullet proof plan and be fully aware of what direction you wish to take with your pitch deck presentation. It is time therefore to create your pitch deck! Consider forming a specialized task force to create this presentation and allow sufficient time and resources for its implementation – the short-term expense could reap huge dividends for the future of your business. Throughout the following sections, you will learn how to craft a pitch deck and what slides to include in your presentation – first, take a look at our comprehensive list of do’s and don’ts.

Important Do’s and Don’ts

Creating an effective and appealing pitch deck is like crafting a piece of art – there are certain things you should definitely do, and certain things you should try and avoid. You should strive to find a fine balance between aesthetics and functionality to ensure that your presentation is easy on the eye but informative and beneficial. See below our list of Do’s and Don’ts for creating the perfect pitch deck:

• Tell a story: an audience can follow a story and become invested in its outcome.
• Invoke emotions: an emotive pitch deck will resonate at a deeper level with your audience.
• Promote one idea per slide: any more than this could cause confusion and mixed messages.
• Provide a face to your business: an audience can relate to an idea if they know who is behind it.
• Remain consistent: a recurring theme, structure, and colors should be used on each slide.
• Proof Read: there is nothing more unprofessional than a presentation littered with errors.
• Overuse Bullets: Although lists can help, too many can be counterproductive.
• Drag it out: 10 slides should be the maximum – any more than this and you risk losing your audience’s attention
• Use only text: images, graphs, and pictograms should be present too.
• Use only images: on the flip side, no text can result in a lack of understanding.
• Use small fonts: everything should be legible, clear and easy to read.

By taking into consideration this list of do’s and don’ts you should be capable of creating the perfect pitch deck. When creating each individual slide, refer back to these important pointers to ensure you are including only relevant information, and that your content will engage your audience. Now that you have a clearer understanding of some of the standard pitch deck practices, it is important to understand the commonly used slide compositions in a presentation such as this.

Standard slide composition

Slide 1 – introduction.

Your introduction should be short, snappy and enticing. This is literally the first piece of text your audience will see therefore it should be memorable. Generally, the introduction of a pitch deck will consist of a single sentence that provides a summary of your business and what it does – this is sometimes known as a vision statement or a value proposition.

Slide 2 – The Team

Who are the key players in your business? Who will be the point of contact? What experience does your team have and what makes them stand out from the crowd? This slide should introduce your team and allow your audience to see exactly who they could be working with and what makes them model employees.

Slide 3 – The Problem

If your business isn’t solving a problem, then why should your audience take an interest? The core of business is based on supply and demand, and problem-solving. For example – aviation solved the issue of time-consuming trans-continental travel. What problem does your business solve? Why is this problem relevant to your targeted investors? Consider using a story or a real-life scenario to add extra weight and credence to your problem so that your audience can truly relate to it.

Slide 4 – The Solution

Now that you have presented a genuine problem and the reasons as to why this affects your audience, it is the perfect time to reveal how your business/product/service solves this problem. Provide statistics, figures and factual evidence to show that your business is the logical answer to the aforementioned problem, and just how much your audience stands to gain from investing/partnering with your organization.

Slide 5 – Your product/service

Slide 5 is where you divulge a little more detail about your problem-solving product/service. Now that you have grabbed your audience’s attention, you can explain how your solution works to improve their understanding. Consider showing examples, or even giving a short demonstration if applicable. If you are seeking investment for a product, you should showcase exactly what it looks like together with technical data and a concise section on how it is beneficial.

Slide 6 – Traction

As the pitch deck continues, you can now turn towards your existing customer base to add validity and traction to your presentation. Investors and partners like to see statistics and real-time figures that promote your product or service in a positive light. How can you reassure them that your solution is worth their investment? Traction. Slide 6 should contain any relevant data that shows your solution is already proven and successful; this could include sales figures, customer feedback or other metrics.

Slide 7 – Financial forecasting

Now that you have shown that your product or solution has potential, it is prudent to provide a set of financial forecasts that show what you expect for the future of your business. What are your projected sales forecasts for the next 5 years? What is your estimated business growth for 2018 and expected profit margins? Do you have a set of open accounts that shows your expenditure and cash flow? Remain realistic and transparent, and be ready to answer questions about your organization’s financial stability.

Slide 8 – Potential competition

It is virtually impossible to operate a business without competition – there are few businesses in the world that have a monopoly in their market or industry. Slide 8 should discuss in brief your competition and what alternative products or services are available on the market. The emphasis should, of course, be placed on your own business and how you offer something unique that distinguishes you from the competition. How is your product or service superior? How does your business fit into the marketplace? Why should someone choose you over Business B? Reassure your audience that you are without a doubt, the leader in the market.

Slide 9 – Desired investment

At this point in time, your audience and investors should have a clear idea of what you can offer. It is now time to make it clear what you expect in return. The whole point of a pitch deck is to build relationships, seek new business and generate funds, so at some point, you will actually have to ask! Present a clear set of figures detailing specific funds you require, together with how these funds would be used, and what ROI (if any) an investor can expect to make. If you have already successfully lobbied other investors, you could use them as evidence that your business is a worthwhile venture.

Slide 10 – Closure

The final slide should contain your contact details together with a clear set of instructions on what happens next. If you simply end your pitch deck without leaving any details, how is your audience expected to contact you? Furthermore, if you do not state clearly how they can invest, then how can they take the next step in your relationship? Ensure to be thankful and appreciative that your audience has taken the time to entertain your pitch deck.

The order and content of these slides can vary, however, it is advisable to follow a logical order that isn’t confusing or convoluted for your audience. Popular platforms for creating a pitch deck include PowerPoint, Prezi, and Keynote; each of which offers a variety of templates and customization options. Before presenting your pitch deck, ensure it has been proofread to remove any error, and you could even consider a trial run.

The final stage of a pitch deck is the delivery and implementation. It is important that the presentation is delivered by someone who is confident and has an innate ability to speak calmly and coherently to strangers. A pitch deck should flow naturally, and you should avoid simply reading each slide word for word – this can seem robotic and too rehearsed. Take cues from the information presented on your pitch deck, but don’t be afraid to ad-lib or embellish each slide with your own wit and words.

Hopefully, your business will benefit greatly from your new found insight into the art of crafting a pitch deck. This type of multi-media presentation is a fantastic way to gain the confidence and support of investors, and provide a concise and engaging display of what your business has to offer. A pitch deck can give your business a huge boost, and open up a plethora of new possibilities and opportunities – this is why it is important to get it right and make the right impression.

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Create a winning pitch deck with tips and design examples. Showcase your startup's unique value proposition and potential for success with a concise and engaging pitch deck.

November 28, 2023

A winning pitch deck is a crucial component of any startup's fundraising efforts. It is a well-designed and persuasive presentation that has a clear and compelling story, a clever structure, and the ability to showcase your startup's potential to investors. A pitch deck is essentially a visual representation of your business plan, highlighting key aspects of your startup such as your target market, competition, and financial projections.

When crafting your pitch deck, it's important to remember that investors are often inundated with pitches from other startups, so it's crucial to make a strong first impression. This means that your deck should be visually appealing and easy to navigate, with a clear and concise message that grabs the investor's attention from the get-go.

In order to achieve this, you'll need to carefully consider the components of your pitch deck and the order in which they appear. A solid pitch deck outline typically includes slides that cover your company's problem statement, solution, market size, competition, revenue model, team, and financials. However, the exact content and structure of your pitch deck will depend on your specific startup and the audience you're presenting to. It is important to follow the Pitch Deck Structure as well as create a Pitch Deck Outline to guide you in creating a winning pitch deck that will help you secure funding for your startup.

So, whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or a first-time founder, this lesson will guide you through the process of creating a winning pitch deck that will leave investors excited about your startup's potential. If you don’t want to do all the work yourself, but you’re unsure if you can afford a professional helping you out, take a look at How Much Does A Pitch Deck Cost?

Introduction Slide: Make the Start of your Pitch Deck Structure

The introduction slide is arguably the most important slide in your pitch deck. It sets the tone and the mood for the rest of the presentation. It is the first slide that your audience will see, and it is crucial in establishing your credibility with investors .

The introduction slide provides an overview of your business and its opportunity, and is often the first impression investors will have of your startup. It includes a brief background on the founders, any founding partners, CEO or senior managers, as well as any other key executives who may be involved in making decisions related to the business's success. It can be helpful to have a fundraising consultant review your introduction slide to ensure it is tailored to your target audience and effectively conveys your startup's potential.

The purpose of the introduction slide is to grab your audience's attention right from the start. You want to make a strong first impression, so it is important to keep it concise, focused, and customized to your audience. The introduction slide should define what your company does in simple terms and highlight what sets it apart from competitors.

A well-designed introduction slide can establish your credibility with investors and generate interest in your pitch deck. It is an opportunity to showcase your startup's potential and persuade investors to take a closer look at your business.

Tips for Creating a Winning Introduction Slide

Creating a winning introduction slide requires careful consideration of your audience and the message you want to convey. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

Keep it concise and focused: The introduction slide should be concise and focused on the key aspects of your business. Avoid overwhelming your audience with too much information.

Define what your company does and what sets it apart from competitors: Your introduction should define what your company does and highlight what sets it apart from competitors. This will help establish your credibility with investors and generate interest in your pitch deck.

Customize it for your audience: Customize your introduction slide depending on your audience. If you're presenting to multiple audiences, you want to tailor your introduction to each audience.

Design Examples

• Photo of your team : Use a photo of your team to introduce your startup and put faces to the names of your team members. This can help establish a personal connection with investors and make your startup seem more relatable.
• Product or service screenshot : Use a screenshot of your product or service to give investors a visual representation of what your startup does. This can also help make your startup seem more tangible and real. To create this design, you can take a screenshot of your product or service and include it in your slide.
• Tagline or mission statement : Include a tagline or mission statement that summarizes your startup's mission or value proposition. This can help establish your startup's purpose and generate interest in your pitch deck.

Market Challenges and Problems: The Core of Your Pitch Deck

The problem slide is typically the most important slide in a pitch deck and also for the Pitch Deck Outline. It encapsulates all of your content and most likely the core message you want to convey.

This section of a Pitch Deck has the goal of raising awareness about a specific set of problems. It usually has three parts: A description of the problem, what it is costing the company, and what actions are being taken to solve it. The Problem Slide should be short enough to capture attention but long enough to provide all the necessary information.

The purpose of the problem slide in your pitch deck outline is to showcase the market challenges and problems that your startup aims to solve, and how solving these problems can benefit your target audience. This slide serves as an opportunity to demonstrate the relevance of your startup and generate interest in your pitch deck.

Tips for Creating a Winning Problem Slide

Be specific: The problem slide should be specific to the market challenges and problems that your startup aims to solve. Avoid using generalizations that do not apply to your target audience.

Highlight the cost of the problem: Your problem slide should highlight the cost of the problem to your target audience, whether it is financial, social, or environmental.

Think from the other perspective: When creating a problem slide, try to think from the perspective of your target audience. What would be the biggest pain points for them? By putting yourself in their shoes, you can make the problem seem even more urgent and important to solve.

Make the problem huge: Highlighting the potential consequences and impact of not solving the problem can help make it seem even larger and more pressing. This can help motivate investors to take action and invest in your startup.

• Before and After Comparison : Use a split-screen image to show the current state of the problem on one side and what it could look like after your solution has been implemented on the other side. This can help emphasize the value of your startup and the importance of solving the problem.
• Infographic : Use an infographic to visually represent the market challenges and problems that your startup aims to solve. This can help investors understand the problem and generate interest in your pitch deck.
• Real-life Examples : Use real-life examples to illustrate the problem you are solving. This can help make the problem seem more urgent and important to solve. To create this design, you can use images or videos that showcase the problem in action.
• Statistics : Use statistics to illustrate the scope and impact of the problem you are solving. This can help investors understand the market potential of your startup. To create this design, you can use data visualization tools like Tableau or Excel to create charts and graphs.

Solution Slide: Highlighting Your Unique Approach to Problem-Solving

The solution slide is a vital component of a pitch deck and should never be missing from a Pitch Deck Outline. It summarizes the key elements of a business and provides a map for investors to understand your company's vision. It is a concise and visual representation of your product or service, designed to capture the audience's attention and generate interest in your offering. A well-designed solution slide can be further enhanced with investor outreach services to help attract potential investors and secure funding for your startup.

The purpose of the solution slide in your pitch deck is to showcase your startup's unique and innovative approach to solving problems. It is an opportunity to communicate how your product or service solves the customer's problem and provides a solution that is not currently available in the market.

Tips for Creating a Winning Solution Slide

Focus on your Value Proposition: Clearly articulate the benefits that customers will receive from using your product or service, and how it solves their problem.

Make it unique: Highlight what sets your product or service apart from competitors. This will help establish your credibility with investors and generate interest in your pitch deck.

Provide examples: Help investors understand how your product or service works in everyday life by providing relatable examples. This can make the solution seem more practical and applicable to the real world.

Communicate clearly: Keep your pitch concise and focused on the key features of your product or service. Avoid overwhelming your audience with too much information.

• Process Diagram : Use a step-by-step diagram to visually represent how your product or service solves the customer's problem. This can help investors understand the process and the value of your solution.
• Product Screenshot : Include a screenshot of your product or service to give investors a visual representation of what your company does. This can also help make your solution seem more tangible and real.
• Infographic : Use an infographic to visually represent the key features of your product or service. This can help investors understand the value proposition of your solution and the benefits it provides to the customer.
• Demo Video : Include a demo video of your product or service to give investors a visual representation of how it works. This can help make your solution seem more tangible and real, and can also help investors understand how it solves the customer's problem.

Pitch Deck Structure: Opportunity Slide to Showcase Your Startup's Potential

The opportunity slide is a critical component of a pitch deck outline. It presents a summary of the unique opportunity that your startup is positioned to capture. This slide communicates the market potential for your solution and provides an overview of what makes your opportunity unique. To make sure that your opportunity slide delivers the message in a clear and compelling way, you may want to consider using professional presentation services to perfect your pitch deck.

The purpose of the opportunity slide is to showcase how your startup has a unique opportunity to disrupt the market and provide a high-growth opportunity for investors. This slide should demonstrate how your startup is uniquely positioned to capture this opportunity and how you plan to execute your strategy.

The opportunity slide should detail any recent success stories and how they are making an impact in the industry. Finally, it should detail where the company is headed in terms of future goals and detailed plans for achieving them.

Tips for Creating a Winning Opportunity Slide

Show the potential: Clearly articulate the market potential for your solution, including the market size and potential for growth.

Explain why now: Investors need to know why now is the right time for them to invest in your business.

Identify market trends: Include market trends to showcase the potential for growth in your market and demonstrate how your startup is uniquely positioned to capture the opportunity. Additionally, discuss any emerging market trends that may benefit your startup in the future.

• Market Size Infographic : Use an infographic to visually represent the market potential for your solution. This can help investors understand the size of the market and the potential for growth.
• Customer Persona Image : Use an image of a fictional customer to represent your target audience. This can help investors understand who your product or service is designed for and generate interest in your pitch deck.

Pitch Deck Components: Product Slide to Showcase Your Startup's Solution

The product slide is the centerpiece of a pitch deck, where you showcase the unique value proposition of your startup's solution or product. This slide should communicate the features and benefits of your product in a visually compelling way and show how it addresses the pain points of your target audience.

The purpose of the product slide is to showcase how your startup's solution or product provides a unique value proposition and solves a real problem or addresses a real opportunity. This slide should communicate the features and benefits of your product in a clear and concise way and show how it addresses the pain points of your target audience.

The product slide should also demonstrate how your startup is uniquely positioned to deliver this solution and how you plan to execute your strategy.

Tips for Creating a Winning Product Slide

Focus on benefits: Clearly articulate the benefits of your product or solution, and how it addresses the pain points of your target audience.

Showcase features: Highlight the key features of your product that make it stand out from competitors.

Provide evidence: Include data or customer testimonials to demonstrate the effectiveness of your solution or product.

• Product Showcase Video: Use a video to showcase the features and benefits of your product in action. This can help investors or potential customers visualize your product and generate interest in your pitch deck.
• Prototype Showcase: Use a prototype or demo to showcase your product in action. This can help investors or potential customers visualize your product and generate interest in your pitch deck. You could also consider using a video or screen recording to showcase the prototype or demo, making it easy for investors or potential customers to see the product in action from the comfort of their own computer.

Remember to keep your product slide focused, clear, and engaging, with a strong narrative that tells a story about your startup's solution or product.

Traction Slide to Showcase Your Startup's Progress

The traction slide is where you showcase your startup's progress and growth over time, providing evidence that your business model is gaining traction and generating results. This slide should communicate key metrics such as revenue, user growth, or customer engagement rates, and demonstrate that your startup has achieved product-market fit and has a clear path to continued success.

The mission of the traction slide is to demonstrate that your startup is gaining traction and making progress toward achieving its goals. This slide should showcase your startup's accomplishments, provide evidence of product-market fit, and build credibility with investors or potential partners.

The traction slide should also demonstrate how your startup plans to leverage this traction to achieve its goals and continue growing in the future.

Tips for Creating a Winning Traction Slide

Focus on key metrics: Highlight the most important metrics that demonstrate your startup's progress and growth, such as revenue, user growth, or engagement rates.

Provide evidence of product-market fit: Use data or customer testimonials to demonstrate that your startup's solution or product is solving a real problem or addressing a real opportunity.

Include future plans: Detail your startup's plans for leveraging its traction to achieve its goals and continue growing in the future.

• Infographic Timeline: Use an infographic timeline to visually represent your startup's progress and growth over time. This can help investors or potential partners understand the trajectory of your startup and build confidence in your business model.
• Customer Success Story: Use a customer success story to demonstrate that your startup's solution or product is solving a real problem or addressing a real opportunity. This can help investors or potential partners understand the impact of your startup and generate interest in your pitch deck.

Team Slide to Showcase Your Startup's Capabilities

The team slide is an essential component of your pitch deck that provides an overview of your startup team and their relevant experience. It demonstrates to investors and potential partners that your team has the necessary skills and expertise to execute on your startup's strategy and overcome challenges.

The purpose of the team slide is to build confidence in your startup's ability to succeed by showcasing the expertise, skills, and experience of your team members. This slide should demonstrate that your team has the necessary skills and experience to execute on your startup's strategy and overcome any challenges that may arise.

The team slide should also communicate how your team members work together and complement each other's skills and expertise. This can demonstrate your startup's strong organizational culture and its ability to attract and retain top talent.

Tips for Creating a Winning Team Slide

Highlight unique qualities: Emphasize the unique qualities and expertise of each team member that make them uniquely qualified to contribute to your startup's success.

Demonstrate teamwork: Show how your team members work together and complement each other's skills and expertise to achieve your startup's goals.

Showcase achievements: Highlight the achievements, accolades, and experience of each team member to demonstrate their track record of success.

• Professional Headshots: Use professional headshots of your team members to showcase their expertise and professionalism.
• Timeline of Experience: Use a timeline of each team member's experience to demonstrate their track record of success and relevant skills.

Competition Slide: Evaluating Your Competitors and Identifying Your Competitive Advantage

The competition slide's mission is to evaluate your competitors and identify your competitive advantage. This slide showcases your startup's understanding of its competitive landscape, highlighting your unique value proposition, and building credibility with investors and potential partners.

The pitch deck competition slide provides an overview of your startup's competitive landscape and how it plans to overcome challenges and obstacles presented by competitors. This slide demonstrates your startup's ability to adapt and innovate to maintain a competitive advantage in the future.

Tips for Creating a Winning Competition Slide

Identify your competitors: Provide an overview of your key competitors and their strengths and weaknesses, demonstrating your understanding of the competitive landscape.

Differentiate your startup: Clearly articulate how your startup differentiates itself from its competitors and why it has a unique value proposition that sets it apart.

Communicate future plans: Detail your startup's plans for maintaining a competitive advantage in the future and how you plan to stay ahead of your competitors.

• Comparison Chart: Use a comparison chart to visually compare your startup's strengths and weaknesses to those of your competitors. This can help investors or potential partners understand how your startup differentiates itself and why it has a unique value proposition.
• Competitor Analysis Matrix: Use a competitor analysis matrix to evaluate your competitors' strengths and weaknesses across different dimensions. This can help you identify areas where your startup can differentiate itself and gain a competitive advantage.

Financial Slide: Demonstrating Your Startup's Financial Viability and Projections

The financial slide is a critical component of a pitch deck outline. By using a "Financial Slide" and showing how much money is being invested and returned on an investment, you can provide an overview of your company's financial health. We will also include the Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR) for a project. NPV is the value that takes into account cash flows from both years one and two, while IRR is the discount rate which gives us the same value as NPV.

The Financial Slide showcases your startup's financial performance to date and its projected financial performance in the future, providing investors with valuable insights into your business model and potential for success.

Tips for Creating a Winning Financial Slide

Highlight key financial metrics: Showcase key financial metrics such as revenue, expenses, and profitability to demonstrate the financial performance of your startup.

Communicate financial projections: Detail your startup's financial projections, including revenue growth and profitability, and showcase how your startup plans to achieve its financial goals.

Mitigate financial risks: Highlight any potential financial risks and communicate how your startup plans to mitigate them to achieve financial success.

• Revenue Chart: Use a revenue chart to showcase your startup's revenue growth over time, providing investors with an overview of your financial performance.
• Financial Projections Table: Use a table to detail your startup's financial projections, including revenue, expenses, and profitability. This can help investors understand the financial potential of your startup.

Investment Usage Slide: Communicating Your Startup's Funding Strategy

The Investment Usage Slide is where you communicate how your startup plans to use the funding it receives from investors to drive growth and achieve its strategic goals. This slide showcases your startup's financial acumen and ability to allocate resources effectively.

The Investment Usage Slide provides investors with transparency regarding how their investment will be used and the potential outcomes. By showcasing your startup's investment strategy and demonstrating how funding will be used to achieve strategic goals, this slide helps build investor confidence and generate interest in your business.

The Investment Usage Slide also demonstrates your startup's potential for growth and the value of investing in your business. By communicating a clear vision for growth and the steps you plan to take to achieve it, this slide helps investors understand how their investment can contribute to your startup's success.

Tips for Creating a Winning Investment Usage Slide

• Clearly articulate your startup's investment strategy and how funding will be used to achieve strategic goals.
• Communicate a clear vision for growth and the steps you plan to take to achieve it.
• Provide transparency regarding how funding will be allocated and the potential outcomes for investors.
• Pie Chart: Use a pie chart to visually represent how funding will be allocated across different areas of your business. This can help investors understand where their investment is going and the potential outcomes.
• Timeline Infographic: Use an infographic timeline to showcase your startup's growth strategy and how funding will be used to achieve it. This can help investors understand how their investment can contribute to your startup's long-term success.

Creating a winning pitch deck is essential for any startup looking to attract investors, partners, or customers. By following the tips and design examples outlined in this guide, you can create a pitch deck that showcases your startup's unique value proposition, demonstrates its potential for growth and success, and builds credibility with investors and potential partners.

Remember to tailor your pitch deck to each audience, focusing on the most important elements of your startup and communicating them clearly and concisely. With a well-designed pitch deck, you can generate interest in your startup, secure funding, and achieve your strategic goals.

Key Takeaways

Tailor your pitch deck introduction to each audience

The problem slide is typically the most important slide in a pitch deck and encapsulates all of your content and most likely the core message you want to convey

The solution slide summarizes the key elements of a business and provides a map for investors to understand your company's vision

The opportunity slide is a critical component of a pitch deck outline. It presents a summary of the unique opportunity that your startup is positioned to capture

The team slide is an essential component of your pitch deck that provides an overview of your startup team and their relevant experience

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How to pitch your startup, 1. introduction.

• 2. Elevator Pitch
• 3. 1-Minute Pitch
• 4. Pitching to Investors
• 5. Guidelines

6. Organization

• 7. Presentation Tips
• 8. Example Decks
• 9. Download Templates

tl;dr Pitch Deck Templates

• Elevator Pitch Template
• One-Minute Pitch Template
• Simple Pitch Deck Template   (To edit and use, click “File” and then “Make a Copy”)
• Long Template  
• Angel/VC Template  

If you’re like most founders, you probably think about your startup 24/7. You wake up in the morning brainstorming product features, and you fall asleep at night contemplating marketing campaigns. You can’t remember the last movie you saw at the theater; your idea of a fun, Saturday night is collaborating with developers overseas. And stalking VCs on LinkedIn has become a favorite past-time. Passion, hardwork and a healthy amount of obsession are essential ingredients to entrepreneurial success. However, it’s not uncommon for founders to become hyper-focused on initial ideas at the expense of an important fact:

A startup founder’s ultimate success is dependent on others buying into his or her vision.

Translation: Your progress is contingent upon your ability to pitch the value of who you are, what you’re doing and why it matters. Reaching important milestones like raising venture capital, sourcing top talent and acquiring new customers all require the same skill — telling a story that makes someone say, “Heck, yeah!” Sometimes you have 30 minutes to make that happen; other times you have 30 seconds. Regardless, your job is to clearly communicate why a given audience should care about your business.

If you are a startup looking to get to traction and funding, check out the Founder Institute pre-seed accelerator program .

One of your most powerful tools in achieving this objective is the pitch deck. Early-stage founders can use templates to create visual presentations that provide brief overviews of business value propositions, market opportunities and metrics. At the Founder Institute , we see dozens of decks every week. The majority of them are completely forgettable because someone overlooked a few essential ingredients to storytelling success.

The purpose of a presentation deck is to enable entrepreneurs to effectively tell the story of their business,” says Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark Capital . “In many ways it’s like a structured scientific proof. You want to walk the listener through an argument as to why this is going to be an amazing business.

The reality? Phenomenal pitches aren’t thrown together in a weekend — they are thoughtfully contemplated, tested and refined. In this guide, we’ll make a case for why founders should master both The Elevator Pitch and The 1-Minute Pitch before tackling decks. We’ll also provide guidelines for constructing narratives, customizing pitch deck templates and communicating with potential investors. These are many of the same techniques Founder Institute alumni have used to procure $1.85BN+ in funding. Finally, we’ll conclude with some examples of real decks utilized by globally recognized startups. After reading this guide, you will know exactly what it takes to create a compelling deck, give a memorable presentation and stand out from the crowd. Let’s get started... 

Three Types of Startup Pitches

Think back to elementary school: Did your foray into your first language begin with a 1,200-page copy of War and Peace ? No, you started by learning simple words. Similarly, you shouldn’t expect to construct “the perfect” pitch deck right away. Instead, begin by constructing the simplest description of your business possible: The Elevator Pitch.

2. The Elevator Pitch Template

As a startup founder, you will meet hundreds of people at various meetings, events and conferences. You will also, routinely, introduce yourself to complete strangers by email. In such situations, you have seconds to peak someone’s curiosity. And the best way to do that is a compelling Elevator Pitch.

This one-sentence statement explains what you do, who you serve and why it matters in simple language. As the name implies, the summary can quickly be recited to a stranger on an elevator ride.

Founder Institute CEO and Co-founder Adeo Ressi has developed an awesome Elevator Pitch template dubbed “ Startup Madlibs .”

• The  defined offering  must be short, simple and capable of being understood by everyone, like "a website", "a mobile application", "hardware" or "desktop software."
• The  defined audience  is the initial group of people that you will market your offering to. In the case of consumer applications, it is usually a demographic, such as "women age 25 to 35 years old." In the case of business applications, it is usually a job function at a type of corporation, such as "system administrators at medium sized technology businesses."
• Now that you have an offering helping an audience, you need to  solve a problem.  The problem needs to be something that everyone understands, such as "reduce the time collecting bill payments" or "engage in an immersive entertainment experience."
• The final component, the  secret sauce , adds your unique approach to solving the problem and demonstrates a mastery of the market. Some examples are "by sending automated email alerts based on analysis of highest response times" or "with virtual worlds constructed in reaction to the movements of the players."

OK, let’s look at a couple of examples…

Mediocre Elevator Pitch Example:

My company Socialista , Is developing a revolutionary, social utility To help female consumers Find deals online faster .

What’s wrong with this pitch?

• The offering is vague: A ‘social utility” could be a phone company. The pitch should read “ecommerce website.” 
• The adjectives are empty: This person may think their business is revolutionary, but it’s an over-inflated claim. Let the numbers speak for themselves! 
• The audience is vague: It could be more clearly defined (e.g. female consumers between the ages of 18 and 25).
• The problem isn’t obvious: Why can’t the target consumer use search engines to find deals online? Why is this platform better than her current options?

Including these details implies the person has done their homework, knows their stuff and has a viable business idea.

Improved Elevator Pitch Example:

My company Socialista , Is developing an ecommerce website To help female consumers between the ages of 18-25 Shop for hip, baby products at wholesale prices , With automated ordering of diapers and other staples . As you can see, the Elevator Pitch format is deceptively simple. The key to standing out is (a) being super specific, and (b) emphasizing your startup’s “secret sauce.” In this case, the founder’s unique differentiator is providing a fashionable solution at an unusually affordable price. Mastering this exercise is extremely helpful in refining Unique Value Propositions.

3. The One-Minute Pitch Template

Once you’ve articulated your Elevator Pitch, you are ready to move onto the One-Minute Pitch. Here you can add several key details to your Elevator Pitch, including:

• The value of the market your business is in.
• Your competition, and how you differentiate from them. 
• The current state of your business or product. 
• Your Ask (how the person/ people you are pitching can help you). 

Check out the easy-to-use "One Minute Pitch Template" from the Founder Institute below: 

4. Preparing to Pitch Investors

Before you begin creating your pitch deck, it’s important to consider the perspective of potential investors. Top VCs see and hear dozens of pitches per week, both in-person and via email. Luminary Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) hears from around 3,000 startups each year. How many of those company’s procure investments? Only 15 of them. The current VC landscape is showing bigger deals spread amongst fewer startups. Despite funding reaching its highest levels since 2000 , seed-stage investments consisted of only 25 percent of total deals made in 2018. Translation: The competition is tough.

Pre-requisites for Pitching to Investors

As Mike Suprovici (Founder Institute EIR) lays out in his  Startup Guide: How to Raise the First Round of Funding for Your Startup , before you even begin to approach investors, you need the following:

A strong startup idea that is vetted and backed by solid market research.  See this  startup idea guide  from the Founder Institute.

A prototype, a patent, or a proof of concept for the final idea.

A simple and scalable  startup financial model  that shows at least $10M in revenue after 3 years.  See this  revenue forecasting template  from Aaron Patzer, Founder of Mint.com and FI Mentor.

A strong 10 to 15 page presentation that meets investors' expectations. We will discuss this in the section below.

An incorporated entity with a smart capitalization table ("Cap table").  See this  simple cap table  from Venture Hacks.

The ability to quit your job and live for six months on savings while you conclude the financing and launch the business.

Another factor to consider is what kind of investor you are approaching. Consider the stage of your own company, before trying to pitch to certain investors. Do you meet their pre-requisites? If you are raising your first round of funding, then you are likely still at a pre-angel or angel investment stage. As a result, you should NOT try to pitch venture capitalists.

What Investors Want to See in a Pitch

If you are ready to pitch angels or venture capitalists, it's critical to understand what those investors are looking for. In order to stand out, your pitch must include both (a) the specific informational components investors are seeking, and (b) a memorable story that illustrates a compelling opportunity. As Jasmine Foroutan, CEO and Founder of Pitch Genius , says, investors want more than rote slideshows:

The biggest challenge of making a memorable deck is building a storyline that echoes outside of the pitch deck. This means, building a storyline that is not only easy for investors to remember, but also a storyline that’s easy for them to repeat and regurgitate to other potential investors.

Investors make decisions based on return and risk: How big of a return could they receive? And what might prevent them from receiving that return? Most VCs want a 10-20x return. 

As a founder, your job is to convince investors your startup offers the greatest potential return, with the least amount of risk — in comparison to the others on their list. Generally speaking, investors will evaluate risk in three main areas:

• Market Risk: Are you addressing a large, growing market?
• Product Risk: Do you have a sustainable competitive advantages?
• Execution Risk: Can your team “pull it off?” 

What Makes a Startup "Fundable"?

During one of Naval Ravikant's (Founder of AngelList) talks at the Founder Institute, he described  'The Anatomy of a Fundable Startup' , which you can watch below:

Similarly, when Aaron Patzer (Founder of Mint.com) described his  Pitching Secrets  to the Founder Institute, he outlined four main questions investors will ask themselves whever they evaluate a startup pitch:

• Does it solve a problem?
• Does it solve that problem in a big market?
• Is it something that has a competitive or sustainable advantage?
• Can you make money or make a profit?

Address those four questions, and you will have a much higher chance of attracting funding from professional investors.

5. Pitch Deck Guidelines

Think of your deck like a visual business plan. Your objective is to succinctly illustrate your marketplace knowledge, business model and qualifications for execution. A standard deck consists of 10 to 14 slides . The most common mistake made by newbie founders? Providing too much detail, too soon. Jenny Lefcourt, General Partner at Freestyle Capital, cautions early-stage founders against making this error :

What's really important is to not go into the weeds of all the details because what you’re trying to do is give them enough information that they want more information. Your goal at meeting No. 1 is to get people interested enough that they want meeting No. 2.

• Avoid excessive text. 
• Use large fonts that are easy to read. 
• Include colorful charts, statistics and graphics. 
• Label each slide (e.g. problem, solution, team). 

Don’t:

• Include unsubstantiated growth projections.
• Describe extraneous hiring details.
• Use tons of bullet points.
• Inflate your capabilities. 

Make Two Decks

Many founders are surprised to learn they need two decks: (1) a detailed version that can be shared with investors via email, and (2) a simplified version that can be elaborated upon in person. It’s not uncommon for investors to request to see a deck before agreeing to meet. For this reason, your “reading” version should include enough detail to stand alone. Conversely, a standard deck should be streamlined to ensure investors spend more time listening and less time reading. Most of the presentations available for online viewing showcase “listening” decks. We recommend beginning with the construction of the “reading” deck, which can then be edited for pitch presentations.

Is there a RIGHT way to organize a pitch deck? The answer is both yes and no. In terms of information provided, there are certain points you absolutely must cover. However, you have creative freedom when organizing and presenting your slides. Here are the four most common types of decks :

• The Problem-Solution Deck
• The Vision-Opportunity Deck
• The Team Deck
• The Traction Deck

The most commonly used pitch deck template is the Problem-Solution Deck, which is ideal for founders with especially unique solutions to widespread problems. 

All four frameworks contain the same informational points, organized in different ways. A variety of templates exist online and can be modified to meet your needs. However, don’t be afraid to venture outside of existing formats, so long as you're including necessary information.

The biggest misconception founders have about pitch decks is that there’s a simple formula for building a perfect pitch, and that’s by replicating other successful pitch decks,” says Foroutan. “Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. How will startups ever stand out to investors if everyone is using the same pitch to persuade them?

The most compelling elements of your business plan, your unique value proposition (UVP) and your intended audience should all inform how you structure your deck.

With that said, the Problem-Solution Pitch Deck Template is a great place to start. In this section, we’ll walk through all of the elements included in the standard deck: 

The Problem-Solution Deck Format:

Announce your big idea — the one thing you do better than anyone else. You have 10 seconds to engage your audience. Include:

• Name of Company
• CEO First & Last Name
• CEO Email (must be the CEO’s direct email address)
• CEO Phone number
• A simple image (reinforce the idea without distraction) 

2. Summary 

Summarize the highlights of your business opportunity, emphasizing minimization of market, product and execution risk. Include:

• Metrics that prove traction. 
• Special advantages your startup has. 
• Summary of investment size you are seeking.

Describe the problem you solve, who you solve it for and the reasons why your target customer are unsatisfied with current solutions. Include:

• Title: Problem
• One sentence description of the problem (10 words max).
• Sub-description of the problem (3 bullet points max).

4. Solution

Describe your solution and the major benefits it entails. Are current solutions slow, expensive or difficult to use? Are your solutions faster, cheaper and easier to use? Do customers care? Include:

• Title: Solution
• One sentence description of the solution (10 words max).
• Sub-description of the solution (3 bullet points max).

Make your product more tangible by illustrating how it works in three simple steps. Utilize screenshots, graphics and/or video. Skip the demo. Depending on your idea, this might be the ideal place to showcase the filing status of important patents. Include:

• Title: Product
• Product Screenshot
• Multiple Slides (if necessary)

NOTE : The order of slides 6, 7, 8, 9 can be rearranged to fit your particular narrative.

6. Business Model

Illustrate your primary revenue model. Generally, investors prefer active revenue streams to passive revenue streams. They also, particularly, like recurring revenue streams like monthly and annual subscriptions. Note: Companies that make money via advertising revenue are the exceptions – not the rule. Include:

• Title: Business Model
• Proof your market is willing and able to pay. 
• Use a quote if you haven’t launched yet.

7. Market Opportunity

Illustrate how much money you could, theoretically, make if you dominate your target market. Many investors like to see both a top-down and a bottom-up analysis. Although bottom-up is more difficult to calculate, including it will increase your credibility. Here’s an article on how to calculate it .  Include:

• Title: Market
• Total Addressable Market (TAM): All the people who could use your product or service. eg: All auto detail customers in the US.
• Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM): The subset of your TAM who are likely to use a product like your current product. eg: All mobile auto detail customers in the US.
• Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM): The subset of your SAM that you can reasonably obtain in the next 3-5 years. Aka your realistic market share. eg: 10-20% of all mobile auto detail customers in the US.

8. Competition

This might be the most important slide of the entire presentation. However, many founders struggle to clearly differentiate their products and services from the competition. Your offering must be SO compelling that users enthusiastically switch from existing solutions. In this slide, your objective is to provide 3-4 reasons why your solutions is superior to both direct and indirect competitors in the marketplace.

Warning : Don't make the mistake of saying you have no competitors. Investors will assume your idea isn’t worth pursuing.

Of course, if you’re pioneering a new technology, your competition will be its traditional counterpart. Nonetheless, your job is to clearly compare the differences between the status quo and your game-changing solution. 

You have two options regarding layout: The"Gartner Magic Quadrant" shown below or the “Competitive Grid” shown above.

Here your objective is to demonstrate your knowledge of customer acquisition, customer retention and product innovation. Investors expect you to know a few key metrics:

• Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC): What's your fully loaded cost of acquiring a paying customer? Ex. $100
• Lifetime Value of Customer (LTV): How much will someone pay your startup before they leave? Ex. $4,800
• Payback Period: How long does it take to cover acquisition costs? Ex: $100/$100/mo = 1 month. 
• Generating an LTV that is a strong multiple of CAC is a prerequisite for profitability. Of course, don’t forget to consider the cost of revenue[m] and other operating expenses, such as product development and customer service. 

10. Traction

This is another important slide that showcases customers love your product and are happy to pay for it. The Traction Slide should seek to mitigate the three types of risk: Market risk, product risk and execution risk. It should suggest that your startup can replicate initial success at scale, decrease future acquisition costs and increase profitability.

Use key metrics[o] to illustrate traction, highlight trends and rates of change. An ideal scenario for investors, for example, might be customer and revenue doubling monthly coupled with declining customer acquisition costs. If you have yet to launch, use this slide to illustrate major milestones in product development, key hires and funding.

11. Financials

How much money do you expect to make within the next 3 to 5 years? Do your best to estimate projected revenue, costs and expenses based on hitting your funding goals. Include:

• Title: Financials. 
• EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Tax) 
• Percentages alongside numbers for gross margin etc. 

Your Team Slide should mitigate investor concerns about execution. VCs love to see team members who have previously worked with successful startups, similar technologies and in similar markets. Check off as many of those boxes as you can. Note that your Team slide should include every important member of your extended team. This should include founders, key employees, advisors and investors (if any).

Creating an advisory board is a very simple way to add industry expertise to your "team" and is something that I strongly recommend For example, being able to drop a line like "We have the CMO of the largest real estate brokerage in the world on our advisory board" really boosts your credibility if your are focusing on a real estate opportunity.

A second and equally important benefit of advisors is that they can quickly help you refine your business and product vision themselves and connect you to people they know who can do the same. You can also use advisors to add significant technology and startup experience and expertise to your team.

13. Funding

Finally, it’s time to ask for the money you need. Include:

• Title: Funding
• Amount you are raising
• Financial objectives (i.e. reach $2mm ARR in 12 months)

14. Summary

After your presentation finale, end on a copy of your Summary Slide in the background. At this time, you will be fielding remaining questions that have yet to be answered.

15. Appendix

Though not mandatory, some founders include an Appendix with supporting information positive PR, customer testimonials, technological details and/or in-depth financial information.

Remember: Creating a pitch deck isn’t a “one-time exercise.” Practice your pitch often in front of peers, advisors, and mentors. The clearer your messaging becomes, the faster you will close deals.

7. How to Ace Your Presentation

Here are some of  Ressi’s best pitch presentation tips:

• Keep it under 10 minutes: Be respectful of your audience’s time, and summarize your ideas into a brief presentation. 
• Tell a story: Don’t just talk numbers —  take your audience on a journey  of why this business matters.
• Have a clear UVP: Investors often hear dozens of presentations a week. Stand out with a real unique value proposition. 
• Show your passion: Don’t be afraid to let investors see your excitement over your idea.
• Anticipate questions: Though it may not seem like it, getting interrupted is a good thing; it shows your audience is listening and cares enough to voice their concerns. Think through answers to potential questions ahead of time. 

Investor Pet Peeves

Investors listen to a ton of pitches, so it is only natural for them to see (and be slightly irritated) by common mistakes.

One of the biggest pet peeves of Manu Kumar, of K9 Ventures , is when presenters say they will answer a question later: 

You have to follow the flow,’” says Kumar. “When somebody asks you a question, that’s the right time to address the question. Even if it means you have to jump ahead or jump back.

Over the years, we’ve spoken with several VCs who echo this sentiment — entrepreneurs must demonstrate flexibility, spontaneity and willingness to “jump off” script. You may be eager to talk about your team because it’s in the next slide. However, the investor sitting in front of you may care more about customer acquisition costs. Which is why practicing your pitch in low-stakes situations is SO important. The more familiar you become with addressing unexpected interruptions, the more confidently you will handle diversions in meetings that matters.

Adeo Ressi (CEO of the Founder Institute) has something that frustrates him even more: 

One of my biggest pet peeves is when founders pitch me a business, and they don’t clearly define who their customer is,” says Ressi. “If you don’t know The Who , it’s very hard for me to understand The What or The How .

See more investor pet peeves from funding experts Manu Kumar of  K9 Ventures , James Cham of  Bloomberg Beta , Adeo Ressi of the  Founder Institute , and Alex Gurevich of  Javelin Venture Partners  below. 

The bottom-line : Delivering “the perfect pitch” takes practice. It’s normal to feel nervous before speaking to a room full of strangers. However, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Founders who wanting to expedite progress should consider joining an intensive accelerator program.

8. Successful Pitch Examples

Below are some examples of decks and presentations — from both big and small names — that have resulted in funding. Notice the common elements we’ve discussed woven throughout the decks. And take note of any presentation strategies that might be advantageous to your startup:

Pitch Deck Examples:

Founder : Aaron Patzer Funding : $31.8M in 5 rounds, acquired by Intuit

Airbnb 

Founders : Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk Funding : $4.4B in 13 rounds (as of March 2019)

Pitch Presentation Examples

Should you study the pitch presentations of legends like Steve Jobs, Marc Benioff and Elon Musk? Absolutely. However, it’s often helpful to watch entrepreneurs who are less removed from your current stage of business. Below are some pitch presentations from up-and-coming Founder Institute Alumni:

1. Pethub 

Pethub is an award-winning software company helping pet owners manage their pets’ lives online. PetHub ID tags are officially in-use by over 250 communities and 20 states in the U.S as their government or shelter issued ID tag, and 98% of PetHub recovered pets are reunited with family without ever entering a shelter. The company has raised several million dollars in funding and is on pace to track and protect over 1 million animals by 2021. Pethub is also a Seattle FI alum, founded by Tom Arnold .

2. Spaceishare

SpaceiShare , a Toronto FI company founded by Sarah Selhi , is a marketplace that allows people to offer their empty physical spaces as storage for people who need the room. They secured a sizable deal on on Dragon's Den, and have been featured across Canadian press.

And here is Sarah's presentation on Dragon's Den, where she delivers a modified pitch and fields a very different set of questions: 

Bridgr , a Montreal FI company founded by Amira Boutouchent , is an online platform that helps small and medium-sized manufacturing companies find and collaborate with validated and qualified independent experts to solve their operations issues, allowing them to grow quickly without the need for expensive and time-consuming consultancies.

Climber is a Lisbon FI company founded by Mário Mouraz . They build revenue management software that takes data from external sources, such as weather, air traffic, online shopping, and claims regarding a hotel’s reputation. They cross analyze all of that with information from the hotel user, in order to automatically calculate what to sell and how much to sell it for.

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How to Make a Successful Pitch Deck Presentation

A strong narrative is the key to a successful presentation and securing funding for your company. However, there are other supporting characters to help support your pitch. The pitch deck can make a significant impact on winning investor attention. This article explores what makes an effective presentation pitch deck and provides relevant pitch deck examples from successful startups.

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What Is a Pitch Deck Presentation?

A pitch deck presentation is a set of engaging slides designed to provide a brief overview of a business idea or startup to potential investors. The goal of a pitch deck is to intrigue and compel potential investors to provide funding to help the company grow. A great startup pitch deck contains information on the company, its products or services, the problem it wants to solve in the market, and the investment opportunity.

Combined with well-designed visual elements, an effective pitch deck can communicate the company’s story and make potential investors interested in learning more.

How Do You Structure a Pitch Deck Presentation?

When creating a pitch deck, it’s important to remember to keep it simple and focused. A presentation pitch deck needs to avoid including too much information and making potential investors feel confused and overwhelmed. Every pitch deck will look different, depending on your funding stage and other factors. However, the following presentation slides are usually included in successful pitch decks.

Title Slide

First impressions mean everything, so make your first pitch deck slide memorable. It should cover your company’s unique value proposition or mission statement. The first slide may only contain a one-liner.

Problem Slide

The first part of your pitch deck discusses the problem your company’s target audience is facing. You want to make potential investors aware of a gap in the market and how your company is uniquely positioned to fill it. The problem slide provides context to the market, so your presentation may also want to include your customers and their pain points.

Target Market Slide

The target market is more than just who is the intended audience of your business. The target market slide should reveal the size of the market opportunity. Consider including data to accurately describe your target market. The information on this slide should provide further context to your potential investors of the market opportunity.

Solution Slide

Now that your audience has context for the problem and market opportunity, the solution slide reveals how your business solves the problem in a way no one else can. Your presentation needs to cover your business and its uniqueness in the industry. You may also want to tell stories about how customers had their pain points resolved because of your business.

Traction Slide

The traction slide covers the business model of your company. A business model slide proves that your business has a viable strategy to grow and become profitable. You may opt to show revenue, but you could also demonstrate traction using metrics such as financial projections or user engagement. Ultimately, you want to prove that your business model works.

Competition Slide

Differentiating yourself from the competition is oftentimes necessary to prove your unique value proposition. A diagram can help investors understand where your business compares against alternatives in the market.

In the team slide, your aim should be convincing potential investors that your team has the right skills and experience to deliver on the business vision. Share the key team members of the company and what advantages they bring to the organization. The team slide builds trust with investors that your company is capable and experienced.

Financials Slide

Investors normally want to see at least three years of financial projections of the company. Don’t underestimate the importance of the financials slide. Investors want assurances that they will get a return on their investment; this slide should help persuade investors of your profitability.

Visual aids are an important part of financial presentation. Easy-to-understand charts and graphs will help investors better understand and feel confident about your company. You can share detailed financial information after the presentation when investors want to learn more.

Investment Slide

Your final slide should include a call to action. You’ll want to tell investors how their funding will make an impact on the business and reach its goals. Asking for a financial investment in the final slide will help create clear communication between you and the investors.

Investor Pitch Deck: Knowing Your Audience

While creating investor pitch decks, you need to keep your audience in mind. Startup pitch decks will need different information than those of established companies. Potential investors will look for different key elements during your presentation, so it’s necessary to ensure they have the information they need in the slides presented. Outlined below are a selection of investor pitch deck examples—each targeting organizations in varying stages of their funding journey.

Pre-Seed and Seed-Stage

Your company doesn’t have key metrics like revenue or traction to include in your slide deck. Instead, consider focusing on:

• How the product solves a problem
• Market size
• Showcasing the business plan

Successful startup pitch decks will prove that their business model is progressing. Some key points to include in your slide deck for Series A funding may include:

• Highlighting the team
• Early traction results
• Product proposition in the market

Series B and Beyond

A winning pitch deck in this category may want to have multiple slides that authenticate the company’s business model. Some bullet points you may want to add to your slide deck include:

• Traction milestones
• Performance metrics
• Ongoing product vision

How to Create a Pitch Deck Template for Financial Projections

When presenting your pitch deck, it’s important to communicate your financial projections clearly. Whether the slide includes financial modeling or an acquisitions analysis, a pitch deck template can facilitate the standardization of materials produced by your company. A successful pitch presentation will need to highlight accurate financial projections. Here are some tips on creating pitch deck templates for the financial side of your pitch decks.

Use Simple Formats

The pitch deck template needs standard formats on all the slides, including income statements and balance sheets.

Add Data Visualizations

Use visual aids like graphs and charts to emphasize key trends in your financial modeling.

Define Assumptions and Inputs

Transparency builds trust with investors. Clearly defining the assumptions and inputs helps provide an understanding of financial projections.

Share Key Metrics

Focus on sharing key metrics like projected profits over time. Investors value their time, and highlighting the main points helps them quickly grasp your financial projections. Creating a pitch deck template with these guidelines can help investors understand and evaluate your pitch. Ultimately, this improves the effectiveness of your pitch deck.

Startup Pitch Deck Examples

A great pitch deck example can help you consider what you can add to your own pitch deck. Fortunately, many organizations have shared their successful pitch decks. If you would like some inspiration, take a look at these startup pitch deck examples for successful companies:

• Sequoia Capital

Tips to Create a Pitch Deck Template

Be concise and only use relevant content.

There is only so much space in a PowerPoint slide, so take into consideration what points will best convey your message. Keep each slide simple, and don’t try to insert too many details to avoid overwhelming the investors. You can always include additional information in an appendix.

Include Visual Elements

Visuals can help engage your audience. Charts, graphs, and supporting images can make your presentation more interesting and enhance comprehension of data like financial modeling. By using relevant and appealing visuals, investors can better understand and remember your presentation.

Create a Shareable Presentation Slide Deck

Investors may want to view your pitch deck after your presentation. You’ll want to ensure you’re sending a digital copy of your slides to them. Providing a standalone deck is a useful tool of reference for investors and lets them easily share it with other people in their network.

What Makes Good Pitch Decks?

Along with a stellar presentation, the best pitch deck focuses on the key points of the elevator pitch. It helps investors understand and focus on your main message and how your company can achieve its goals if it obtains the funding it needs.

A great pitch deck has the key points and visual aids to help make your message intriguing and interesting to investors. The overall aesthetic can help reflect your company’s branding and professionalism.

You can make your next pitch deck presentation great with Macabacus templates . Our templates make it easy to visually display your financial modeling without losing investors in complicated data. Our presentation features create a sharable pitch deck with other entities and provide an easy opportunity for follow-ups.

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Pitch Deck Structure: What Investors Want To See

In the startup world, a pitch deck is what gets companies funded. Typically comprising 10-20 slides, a pitch deck serves as a concise business presentation highlighting key aspects of your company, including the business model, traction, and roadmap. Its uses range from securing investor meetings to delivering presentations at demo days - but it's almost always the defining factor on whether or not you'll raise funds from investors.

In this article, we'll go over:

• The Basic Pitch Deck Structure

Company Stage

• The Intro Section
• The Status Quo Section
• The Product Section
• The Market Section
• The Why Us Section

The Basic Pitch Deck Structure

Different scenarios and time constraints allow adding more or less slides and information, but the basic structure remains similar. The structure of a pitch deck includes six main sections: the intro, the status quo section, the product section, the market section, the why us section and the ask.

A pitch deck should strive to achieve three objectives: ‍

• It needs to tell your company story .
• It needs to convince the investor that they can make money with this.
• It needs to do that in under 4 minutes.

This logic follows the three-act structure of storytelling: In the first act, it’s critical to engage your audience, capture their attention and establish the status quo. In the second act, your story should be developed to build excitement about the business opportunity, by providing numbers that are as irresistible as they are irrefutable. The third act is where the rubber meets the road and you deal the killer blow, making your point about why investing in your company is a fantastic opportunity.

A pitch deck can become especially effective when it's structured like a compelling story following the structure above, with a payoff that highlights your product and company, and a cliffhanger that'll make investors want to fund your vision.

Our team has helped hundreds of startups write and design their pitch deck in exactly this way.

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Time is of the essence when pitching investors, so deciding if a slide has a place in your deck is essential. This answers mostly to your company's current stage, how much you're aiming to raise, and from whom.

In the Intro Section, there's the Cover slide and the Traction Teaser slide. The Status Quo Section is comprised of the Problem, solution and Business Opportunity slides. The Product Section is made up by the Product, Features or Benefits, How does it work, Tech Infrastructure, Market Validation, Business Model, Roadmap and Target Audience slides. The Market section includes the Traction, Go-to-Market or Customer Acquisition, Market Size or TAM, and potential outcomes slides. The Why Us section has the Competitors, Advantages, Case Studies or Testimonials, and Team slides. Finally, The Ask has the Financials and Fundraising slides.

Again, not all the slides need to be included in every single pitch deck. If you're only in the idea stage and raising money from friends and family, you won't have traction or testimonial slides, and your financials won't be very detailed.

We generally recommend including at least the slides below, depending on your current stage. You can read more about the stages of a startup company here .

Intro Section

The cover slide should have a 5-7 word description of what you do : simple, self-explanatory, so short that you read without even trying. This tagline is not a marketing tagline: it's a very brief description of what your company does. In the case of Slidebean, We help founders pitch investors .

It's common to include the name of the presenter and some contact details, but this isn't really necessary. If you're pitching in person, nobody will bother to write them down at the very start. If you're sending the deck by email, then they'll already have your contact details.

Traction Teaser

If you want to hook your audience early on, you can include a short Traction slide that validates your company and gets people excited about what's to come.

Remember, they are coming in without knowing the context of your business: they aren't really sure what you do or how you make money (yet), so the information you put in here needs to be universally understood without context. This is the place to brag about your most impressive achievements so far, those that anyone can understand without further explanation.

Status Quo Section

Problem/business opportunity.

Most great companies solve global problems :

• Uber solved unreliable taxi services.
• Slack solved excess emails and meetings.
• Dropbox solved file syncing across devices.

There's a bit of an " aha! " moment if you get this slide right - if you can point out a problem that people experience regularly; that's standing right in front of them, that's so obvious, and yet they haven't seen it.

This slide can also make your whole pitch fall apart when you come up with questionable statements that the investor can't get behind. If they 'disagree' with you about this premise, then you might lose them here.

Some companies aren't necessarily solving a problem but instead tackling a business opportunity that has arisen. Examples here are mobile games, which certainly don't solve a problem; they are just jumping on a business opportunity they discovered.

Think of the solution slide as a mirror to the problem slide. Remember: this is the main plot point. This is when you break the status quo.

Great solution slides are also concise. They don't involve technology or features; it's not time to talk about the product yet. We are presenting our thesis: what if instead of doing things like this… we do things with this new approach. Focus on a single heavyweight statement. The end result, the main benefit of your product of service. Not the how, but the what.

‍ In line with the previous example, think of Uber's solution: a fast and efficient on-demand car service that lets you know exactly when you'll be picked up, when you'll arrive, and how much you'll pay.

Product Section

How does it work.

This part of your pitch deck will be the one that's more uniquely yours, as it needs to showcase the uniqueness of your product or service. You can approach this slide in many ways: as a (short!) video demo, a how-does-it-work diagram, or even a series of product screenshots. These slides will probably not be too different from your marketing landing pages; you can get some inspiration there.

Rather than a list of what your product does and how it does it, think of this slide as a list of benefits to the user. A feature would be: Slidebean is fully responsive . A benefit would be, edit your presentations anywhere, even on your phone on the go . Think of it backwards, not what your product does, but what convenience or major change it represents for the target audience.

It's important for this section to remain concise and impactful. While investors care about the product, they care more about numbers. 

Product Details (Demo video, screenshots, tech infrastructure, etc)

This section depends a lot on your specific product too. For products with a strong technological component, or when the tech infrastructure is one of their core differentiators, it's also relevant to include an 'Underlying Magic' slide that explains in simple terms how the tech works to deliver the final benefit to the target user. If your product is a physical object and you'll be pitching in person, it's totally feasible to leave a blank "demo" slide and demonstrate the product yourself.

Videos might work in some cases, but remember that investors expect to be able to consume the entirety of the deck in under 5 minutes, so keep it brief and to the point.

Market Validation

A 'Market Validation' slide is included to support products where adoption could be a challenge. For example, on their 2009 pitch deck, Airbnb had a market validation slide to support their thesis that people would be willing to stay at stranger's couches.

Target Audience

It's common for this slide to be skipped in many pitch decks, especially for later-stage companies. If you're just started or if it's one of your early rounds, this one could make the difference.

The idea of a Target Audience slide is to prove that you understand who the product is for: so many companies don't know the answer to this question, and that is a common deal-breaker. Great market adoption is easier if you start from understanding the end user and working backwards.

Business Model

Now on the Business Model. This is one of the easiest slides to solve, and one of the slides that many entrepreneurs get wrong. 

It’s simple: how do you make money? 

Is it a subscription, you need to lay out every single plan and its ins and outs, in my experience, that should be changing regularly as you experiment with different combinations: just tell us $XX subscription. With or without trial. Done. 

Is it a product or a service, tell us what the price is, or maybe the average order size, and give us an idea of margin. Is this a 30% or a 60% margin product?  That applies to ecommerce as well. 

Keep it simple. This slide is not about projections, it’s not about how much money you could make if you get 1 million customers, it’s just about how you make money. 

Some companies, of course, use a mix of different business models, but there’s often no need to lay out the full scope of things here. Try to limit this to 2, maybe 3 sources of revenue, and don’t get into too many details about the ins and outs. What you want is to offer something that’s simple and clear, and answer follow-up questions in the meeting that this pitch deck will get you. 

An ideal Roadmap slide goes over some of the major highlights in your product evolution and your company history, and then it talks about what you intend the product to become over the next few months. 

For hardware or medical companies that are not likely to generate any revenue until an extensive and years-long R&D process, then this roadmap slide becomes critical. 

Keep this in mind: we are not doing financial projections yet- this is the product section so we are talking about product vision, not numbers, yet. Don’t get revenue projections mixed in here. 

Market Section

Go-to-market strategy.

The most common mistake on Go-To-Market slides is lack of focus and spreading the company's marketing efforts too thin, spending money on crowded marketing channels, or channels that don’t yield short term results unless you are an expert on them. Tackling many marketing channels at once may be just as innefective as not doing marketing at all.

A great Go-To-Market slide talks about 2, maybe 3 very clear, very specific channels that you are already using to grow your customer base, and that you will continue to use. 

• What have you done to get here?
• What are you doing that shows promise?
• What are you going to do next?

Remember, rounds of capital usually fund 18-24 months' worth of operations, so we are looking for a growth plan: a marketing plan of how you will get the company to the next fundable milestone.

Market Size/TAM

The question this slide answers is "how big does this company get?"

The concept of that is TAM, or Total Addressable Market, but it’s a bit foreign to many of us. What does TAM mean? Well, again, it’s about how big this company gets, how much revenue would it make if it had all of its target customers? That’s TAM. 

You approach calculating TAM by estimating how many people, or how many companies would pay for your product. 

Two previous slides become absolutely critical here: first, of course, the business model. You have to understand how much money you will be making from each one of your customers. And second, the target audience slides. If you are not really sure about who your customer is, then this TAM number can become astronomically high, and that’s usually bad news. 

You have to be really sure about what your pricing is, and who your customer is. This video from our channel is a great guide on how to estimate your TAM:

If you're struggling to understand how to estimate your TAM, our team can help!

Why Us Section

Competitors.

Most companies will have competitors. Coming out with a Competitor slide that says that you have NO competitors usually represents a red flag. Many founders make the fatal mistake of believing that there’s nobody else doing what they do. 

If you say you have no competitors during your pitch and an investor happens to know of a company that does compete, you can pretty much give up on that lead. There’s nothing worse than lack of research. 

You can approach this slide as a simple business grid chart, a table comparing features, or a simple summary of your core competitors.

The founding team on a startup needs to have the skills to get the company to $1M in Revenue.

If you are building an app, getting to $1M in Revenue requires marketing, development, UX, and business/operations. If you are building a B2B SaaS platform targeting enterprise, you need engineers, business development, and sales.

Secret Sauce

This slide is more commonly called Competitive Advantages. This secret sauce slide can be used to talk about patents, unique factors in your technology, unique players in your supply chain… overall, anything that makes you UNIQUE. 

When you talk about competitors, more than comparing features, more than comparing what your pricing is, it's about showing that there's something that you understand about the market that others don't seem to get.

The Ask Section

Financial projections.

The Financials slide is straightforward:

• If you've been operating, we want to see the last financial year of data; and then, for everyone,
• 3-5 years of financial projections for your company.

Founders typically add a simple table with their SG&A, COGS, CAPEX, and revenue- with a final profit margin and percentage number, requiring you to do some financial modeling. If you're looking for a budgeting template to run your financials, our financial modeling template is a great tool to get started.

We've also helped hundreds of startup founders understand driver-based financial modeling which helps them understand how to model their financial data and run projections for their companies. If you wish to learn more about this service, check it out here:

Financial Modeling Service

The fundraising slide should cover how much money you are raising and be super clear about that next fundable milestone we have talked about. 

A Seed round is supposed to last until a Series A. Closing a round takes about 6 months, so this round should last enough for you to get to Series A status, plus an extra 6 months to close that round. 

You’ll see a lot of decks that talk about ‘this round funds 18 months of operations’, and that’s not necessarily a bad slide, as long as the math behind that number responds to a fundable milestone. It’s not about time, it’s about metrics. 

Tips for pitching

Writing a first investor pitch deck is an overwhelming process for many startup founders. From calculating your market to figuring out your go-to-market strategy, financials... we get how many founders just get stuck halfway. 

The first challenge here is- a pitch deck is a tool to paint a quick and exciting picture of a business opportunity. Sometimes that idea is not fully formed, or sometimes the founders haven't had the chance to sit down and figure out some key business components. 

The point here is, by solving your pitch deck, you are solving many strategic decisions about your business. Pitch decks are company stories. If you think of a deck as a story, then you can start thinking about a story arc, with plot points, developments, antagonists, and a climax. 

For MOST companies, this is a pitch deck outline that translates into a fantastic story.

That's what our team of experienced consultants is expert at: storytelling. We will work with you to understand your business and craft a pitch that showcases your unique value proposition.

Whether you're raising funds for a new startup or looking to grow an existing business, our pitch deck consulting services can help you get the funding you need. Contact us today to learn more.

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Build a Winning Pitch Deck: A Slide-by-Slide Guide with Examples

Masterclass, episode 5: learn what to include in your slides, and what not to include, with (many) examples to copy from.

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This post is part 5/12 of our Masterclass series. Subscribe to get access to the slides and updates for new episodes:

Episode Highlights:

Love it or hate it, the pitch deck has become an inseparable part of the fundraising process. If you want investors to hear and understand your startup’s story, you’ll need to do it with some compelling slides. In this Masterclass we cover general best practices and specific, slide-by-slide examples showing you how to implement them. By the end, you’ll know exactly how to create a deck that hits hard. 

What you’ll learn:

Using storytelling techniques in your pitch

The 4 questions your deck needs to answer

What to include in your slides, and what not to include

Examples to copy for each section of your presentation

Meet the expert:

Ori Luzia is a consultant and public speaking expert with vast experience working with accelerators, VC’s, and over 1000 startups in different verticals. Ori works with entrepreneurs in Israel and abroad on all things storytelling and messaging, and has helped build hundreds of pitch deck presentations.

Why Does the Deck Matter? Can You Do Without It?

It’s easy to forget that PowerPoints and slide decks are a relatively new phenomenon. Human beings have been telling stories long before these tools came into existence. As a founder, your ability to tell a compelling story shouldn't depend on the slides. You should be able to own the narrative and pitch your startup's story in any situation, with or without visual aides. You should literally be able to give your ‘elevator pitch’ in an elevator.

“The deck isn't the story; the deck helps you tell the story.” — Ori Luzia

That being said, pitch decks have become a staple that VCs expect to see. A good deck will rarely be the factor that makes or breaks the investment decision, but it can help you get your message across and stand out from hundreds of other entrepreneurs the same VC is meeting with.

Your Pitch Deck Needs to Answer Four Questions

As you build your pitch deck, you should keep these four key questions top of mind – your slides will need to address them:

What is the market need you identified?

Which product did you develop to address that need?

How fast are you growing, and do you expect to maintain that growth rate?

Why are you the best team for the job?

This doesn't mean you have to include a specific slide dedicated to each question. Think of these as the story threads that should be woven throughout your pitch. By the end, they should be answered in a clear and satisfying manner.

Three Versions, Three Purposes: Tailoring Your Slides for the Setting

Every entrepreneur should have three versions of their pitch deck, based on where it will be used. Managing three different versions of your deck is a hassle, but it’s worth it in order to ensure you make the right impression and set yourself up for success.

Demo-day or conference

While traditional demo days are less common nowadays, conferences are a great opportunity to showcase your startup. Here you’ll need to tell the entire story in 5-10 minutes. The deck needs to be concise, snappy, and get straight to the point. You're going to be on the stage talking — the slides should complement your talk, rather than distract from it. You might need to adjust design elements like color, contrast, visuals, and font sizes for presentation in front of a large audience.

Deck sent over email

This is typically the first interaction an investor has with your company. The deck needs to be digestible within 2-5 minutes. It should be able to stand on its own since you won’t be there to talk over it. However, it’s still just a teaser for the full presentation that will happen in the meeting, so you don’t want to give everything away. 

Ori notes that it’s a good idea to pay attention to details here:

“The deck you send over email is both your business card and the first impression investors have of you. Things like typos or bad design are like walking into the first meeting with a mustard stain on your shirt.”

Deck for the pitch meeting

Similar to the demo day presentation, but less flashy and more to the point. Here you have slightly more room to talk about the specifics of your technology, your team, and all the rest. In this case you’ll be speaking over the slides again, so you’ll want to reduce distracting elements. The slides shouldn’t compete with you for the investor’s attention. This version can be more flexible, allowing for optional slides and appendices that you can skip or expand on based on the dynamic in the room.

Battle-Tested Principles for Creating Impactful Slides

Minimalism: You are the star of the show, not your slides. Keep details to the bare minimum needed to get your message across. Cluttered slides create visual noise which burns through your audience’s limited reserves of attention. If you see people squinting or leaning in, it's a sign your slide could beoverly complex.

Continuity and support for the narrative: Each slide, and the deck as a whole, should form a cohesive unit. "Frankenstein" slides — where disjointed image or text elements are grafted one on top of the other — stand out in a bad way. Your story should be consistent in both narrative and design.

Internal logic: Each element of your presentation should have a reason for being there and the entire thing should have a logical progression. Pay attention to the order your slides appear in. If things don’t make sense or are referenced before being explained, this could create confusion that interrupts your flow.

”Your slides should follow the principle of Checkov’s gun: every element you include should be necessary, and unnecessary elements should be removed.”

Simple = effective: Aim for slides that can be understood in 3-5 seconds. Avoid flashy transitions and special effects that distract from your message. Choose clear and concise over cool and sophisticated.

Getting Down to Business: What to Include in Your Pitch Deck, with Examples

Most pitch decks will follow a similar flow, which you should not deviate too far from. (Differentiation should come from the content, not the structure of your presentation.) 

You should keep the presentation to 8-12 slides and include any other pertinent information in appendices.  

Tip : Titles are important real-estate and get more attention than other elements. You can use them to say something more than just signposting where the reader is. E.g., instead of titling your slide The Market Opportunity , you could opt for The Opportunity: A Fast-Growing and Untapped Market .

The Intro Slide

The intro slide is often treated as an afterthought, but it’s actually very important because it frames the conversation.

What to include:

Your startup's logo

A one-liner describing what you do

For conferences: Details of the CEO or presenter

The goal is to create a connection with your brand (logos, colors) and your mission. The one-liner should be descriptive – this isn’t the place for a cryptic, three-word marketing slogan. This slide helps investors ‘place’ your startup in the right mental compartment and get a feel for whether your pitch is relevant to them.

The Problem and Business Opportunity

This chapter should take up 1-4 slides. It should describe the problem space you operate in and demonstrate that there is a broad and urgent need for a solution.

This is a slide that you must get right. If the investor isn’t convinced that there is a need - you have a problem. You don’t want to get into a debate about this.

Detail the need you've identified. Present evidence! Use research, customer feedback, and statistical data to show how big a problem this really is.

Describe the target audience for your solution.

Outline the gaps in existing solutions.

If it’s a niche that the investor may be less familiar with, you might want to also include more background information.

The Solution or Product

This should mirror everything you described in the problem slide(s) and offer a clear explanation of how your product or service addresses the identified need.

The bird’s-eye view of your solution.

Explain what your solution is, how it works, and the value it provides.

Include no more than 3-5 features and focus on the benefits and value of your product.

Use images to help convey your solution (including any hardware components). If you have a demo and are confident it will work, you can consider presenting it.

Don’t try to hide the reality of your product or confuse investors with aspirational features that you don’t really know how to develop. Your pitch should be transparent and accurate — both for investors to better understand your product, and to help you gain insights on ways to improve it.

Market Sizing

This slide describes the size of the market you’re operating in (investors want this to be a big number), and establishes the opportunity size for your startup in terms of TAM, SAM, and SOM. This topic is covered in great depth in our previous Masterclass: [link to Rotem Shacham’s episode]

Momentum / Traction

This section highlights your startup's success so far and how your solution has been positively received by the market.

Show the progress you've made: This could be signed contracts, pilots, or letters of intent (LOIs) — the specifics depend on the stage your company is at.

Provide external validation: named partnerships, customers, or industry recognition.

Share examples: customer testimonials, case studies, growth metrics. Think about the story the data is telling, not just the numbers themselves. (E.g., investors love to see a ‘hockey stick’ trajectory.)

‘Big logo’ customers or partners add credibility, trust, and prestige.

The Business Model

The main purpose here is not necessarily to show a very specific roadmap, but to demonstrate that you've given serious thought to the business side (not just the tech) and have a plan for generating revenue.

Explain potential revenue sources and strategies, even if you haven't finalized the exact approach yet.

Outline how you plan to make money: Is it through a cut from each sale, a subscription model, or something else? Avoid listing too many theoretical monetization strategies - this could signal a lack of focus or maturity.

Investors know that your business model will likely evolve over time. It's okay to admit there are aspects still being worked on or that you're mainly focusing on user engagement at the moment.

The Competitive Landscape

This is another important slide that shows investors how your startup positions itself in the market and what sets it apart from competitors.

There are two standard ways to present the competitive landscape:

Feature comparison: A table showing competitors and which features they offer versus your own solution (indicated by 'X' marks or checkmarks).

Axis-based: Plotting competitors along two specific axes that capture the essence of your competitive advantage (e.g., pricing vs. ease of use).

Investors want to see that you know who your key competitors are, and that you've selected meaningful axes or criteria that align with your value proposition and the problem you set out to solve.

Include a reasonable number of competitors, typically between 3-10. Listing too few competitors might seem unrealistic, and listing too many could be overwhelming and distracting.

Investors choose to invest in a team as much as they do in the idea. Show them why your team is worth betting on.

 Highlight what makes you the ideal team for this venture: relevant experience, past successes, or unique skills that add value to the company.

- Showcase entrepreneurial pedigree, previous collaboration successes, or a track record of executing in high-pressure situations.

- Use consistent, high-quality images to create a professional impression.

- Highlight only the most relevant skills or experience and avoid walls of text.

Fundraising

Tell investors how much funding you need and what you need it for.

How much money are you raising?

Why do you need this specific amount for?

What will you do with the funds?

Avoid using apologetic or belittling language ("we intend to..."). You want to create the sense that the train is leaving the station with or without these investors. Making confident statements (without coming across as arrogant), show investors you know where you’re going, and get them excited about joining your journey.

That a Wrap

That’s all for today! Remember to subscribe for access to the slides Ori presented in the video and high-res versions of the examples shown above. You can also listen catch the next episodes on Od Pocast .

Discussion about this post Ready for more? Pitch Presentation: How to Make the Case for Your Idea in Minutes! You’ll probably have heard the word “pitch” in connection with PowerPoint and business ideas – but what exactly does it mean, and why is it so important in business? This article will explain why pitch presentations are so vital , how to create a pitch presentation and what type of pitch might be suitable for your presentation goal. So what does pitching, or a pitch, actually mean? The basic meaning of pitching is throwing an idea at your audience, hoping to score a hit, as in baseball.  It can also be thought of in terms of music (like a pitch change), or electronics/science. In the context of PowerPoint presentations, a pitch is a special type of sales presentation. Read on! What is a pitch presentation? A pitch presentation is a short presentation in which you introduce your company, product or idea . You only have a few minutes to convince your audience and attract potential investors. So you need to plan what you want to say really carefully. First impressions matter . While you’re preparing your pitch presentation, keep the time constraint firmly in mind. Pay special attention to getting your key messages across clearly and precisely, to achieve your goals. Read more about this in our articles on Preparing a Presentation and Goal Setting .  We at PresentationLoad have a range of professionally designed PowerPoint pitch presentation slides for you to use! Your goal is to attract direct investment , or to be invited to further talks with investors. Investors are looking for businesses that have growth potential. They want to see that your company is able to grow quickly, making profits. So when you prepare your pitch, you need to focus on your growth potential. Show investors why and how your company will grow quickly in the future, and why it is worth investing in. To present your company vision and growth, we recommend slides from PresentationLoad ! How do I make a pitch presentation? The most important thing is to keep your presentation simple . Investors don’t have time for complex presentations and explanations. They want facts, and to grasp what your company has to offer. Keep your presentation as short and simple as possible and focus on the core elements that make up your company, market and product. The following structure is great for covering all the important information in your pitch presentation in the short time available: Slide 1:  Title slide (Short, snappy dsecription of your business idea) Slide 2:  The team (Who does what) Slide 3:  Initial situation (What’s the problem?) Slide 4: Solution (What you are offering!) Slide 5:  Your product / service (What exactly are you proposing?) Slide 6:  The market (Is the market environment / target audience big enough?) Slide 7: Added value / USP (Why is your solution better than others?) Slide 8:  The competition (Who are the competitors? How do you differ from them?)  Slide 9:  Your business model (What do the financials look like? How will sales be generated?)  Slide 10:  Your business plan (How would the business model be implemented?) Slide 11:  Funding requirements (How much money is needed, and for what?) Slide 12:  Contact data  A good pitch presentation needs to be clear and concise, while getting the most important information over. Introduce your idea and the team briefly at the beginning. Follow this up with the most important facts and figures , as well as information on how you intend to implement your business plan. BELIEVE in your business idea , and you’ll be effortlessly persuasive. If you believe in your company and its potential, so will your investors. Convince them that you are the next big thing, and that they should definitely invest in your company right now! Types of pitch Elevator pitch As the name suggests, this is one where you only have a very short time to get your ideas across . In an elevator ride, you only have a few minutes to talk to fellow passengers. So an elevator pitch should be a meaningful, brief introduction to your idea. Be prepared for how little time you have! Introduce yourself, your company and your business idea. Your goal should be make a brilliant first impression in minutes. Find more informations in our blog elevator pitch . Start-up pitch / business plan pitch This sort of pitch presentation allows you to set out not only your business idea or product, but your business plan too. Good figures and future potential attract potential investors, particularly for start-ups. Make a convincing pitch, and you’re so much more likely to get the investment you need. Speed-pitching essions Speed pitching is basically a fixed event where speakers have something like five minutes each to convince investors of their idea. You get the opportunity to present your idea to several potential investors. This concept is similar to speed dating. Sales pitch As the name suggests, a sales pitch is about selling a product . Potential investors and customers need to be persuaded to buy. A good sales pitch is tailored to individual customers or small groups and should focus, for best effect, on what benefits your product will give them. Agency pitch An agency pitch is a competition on a level playing field, putting marketing or new business ideas to a potential client . The goal of the pitch is for you to win the contract . This form of pitch is often seen in the architecture business. A company will invite potential contractors to an agency pitch for a particular job, giving them a briefing. Proposals which appeal to the client are then developed into presentations. The winner gets the job; everyone else goes away empty-handed. So if you’re participating in an agency pitch, keep in mind that you could also lose, using up time, money and resources. Tip: Weigh the pros and cons of the pitch, and read the briefing carefully. Job planning / production pitch This sort of pitch is about smoothly linking phases of a job . In order to efficiently produce goods, without a hiatus, there need to be skilled workers, machines available, and sufficient raw material. Timing everything appropriately can be highly complex, so your pitch needs to emphasize your company’s efficiency and experience. Side note: Pitching like in Hollywood – The Pixar Pitch Pixar is known worldwide for its mega successful movies. But how do they always stay at the top? It’s simple: they’ve found the perfect marketing formula. It’s not complicated, but punchy and unique – just like their movies. Pixar movies are just incredible, keeping us spellbound from start to finish . Who doesn’t remember Marlin’s desperate search for his son Nemo, or Buzz Lightyear’s famous line, “To infinity and beyond…”? They all follow the same, time-tested formula – the secret of their success. Every screenplay, every movie, and every good investor pitch can be put together following simple but archetypal story structures. How does the Pixar pitch work? And why on earth are we talking about a success formula for animated films here? Because, as Daniel Pink explains in his book “To Sell is Human”, the Pixar success formula can be applied to your business as well . And we’ll tell you how to use this technique to improve your pitches. The Pixar pitch is strongly grounded in storytelling . Nowadays, all the best TED Talks, Apple keynote speeches, and successful pitches use the storytelling principle to get their ideas across effectively. This is because stories matter . They’ve been used since time immemorial to pass on facts and knowledge, from generation to generation. Why are we so captivated by stories? Because they evoke emotions in us, inspiring people to action, conveying values, virtues, humanity and morals. So we can use storytelling to create emotions that inspire customers and win their trust. The structure of the Pixar pitch The Pixar pitch consists basically of six consecutive sentences: 1. “Once upon a time…” …lets you start with a general description of the situation. 2. “Every day… ” …presents what is happening on the ground, letting you show what the problem is.  This is where you can elaborate on the habits, expectations, and general way of doing things of the user or consumer, adding statistics or evidence for them as needed. 3. “One day…” …this is the climactic, decisive moment. This is the catalyst. This is the reason that change is needed (the reason for what you’re proposing). 4. “Because of this…” … What happened? What started to be done differently? 5. “That’s why…” …. What changed as a result of this? What has the change done for the user or consumer? 6. “Until at last…” …this rounds up and highlights the essence of your message. A successful solution! The Pixar pitch, using “Finding Nemo” as an example 1. “ Once upon a time … there was a fish named Marlin, who loved and wanted to protect his only son, Nemo.” 2. “ Every day … Marlin warned Nemo about the dangers of the ocean, and begged him to stay close when swimming.” 3. “ One day … Nemo ignored his father’s warnings and swam out into the open water.” 4. “ Because of this …. he was captured by a diver, ending up in a Sydney dentist’s aquarium.” 5. “ That’s why … Marlin set in motion a plan to rescue Nemo, enlisting the help of other sea creatures.” 6 . “ Until at last … Marlin and Nemo found each other again, learning that love depends on trust.” Why is the Pixar pitch so effective? Telling a story like this really helps to focus on the key points of your topic, attracting your target audience’s interest by playing to their innate human reaction to storytelling. The vivid images you can create with this method allow you to present your audience with a short, dynamic pitch that will leave them wanting more! Perfection is achieved, not wehen there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. – Antoine De Saint-Exupéry How will the Pixar pitch work for me? The Pixar pitch is an effective way to s tructure short, relevant stories . Its framework makes it easy to set out ideas and develop them. Presenting a pitch in this way is really effective because it works with the way our brain pays attention to and processes information. Studies show that we can only remember a maximum of six items of information at a time – that’s why the Pixar pitch, with its six sentences, is so effective. Conclusion: Pitch successfully to your audience How about creating a Pixar pitch for your company, product, service or problem solving? It would be a great way to draw attention to your company and attract new customers! In just a few minutes, you can present the problem, introduce your solution and explain what makes it so special. Before creating any pitch presentation, make sure you’re clear exactly what your goals are, and which type of presentation is needed. Our tips for creating a great pitch presentation will ensure you’re well prepared and ready to face your audience with confidence. Got more questions about pitch presentations or PowerPoint in general? Get in touch with us [email protected] and we’ll be more than happy to help! You might also be interested in the following articles: Prepare PowerPoint Presentations: 11 Tips Define Your Presentation Goal Call-to-action for Your Presentations Storytelling in Presentations Share this post share   save   Design Thinking: Problem Solving with a Difference Why Corporate Mission Statements Are So Important 7 Tips & Learnings from the Apple Keynote We use essential cookies to make Venngage work. By clicking “Accept All Cookies”, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. Manage Cookies Cookies and similar technologies collect certain information about how you’re using our website. Some of them are essential, and without them you wouldn’t be able to use Venngage. But others are optional, and you get to choose whether we use them or not. Strictly Necessary Cookies These cookies are always on, as they’re essential for making Venngage work, and making it safe. 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Google Tag Manager Infographics Daily Infographics Popular Templates Accessibility Graphic Design Graphs and Charts Data Visualization Human Resources Beginner Guides Blog Graphic Design 30 Startup Investment Pitch Deck Examples (+Templates) 30 Startup Investment Pitch Deck Examples (+Templates) Written by: Ryan McCready Jul 04, 2023 A startup is, by definition, a fast-growing company. And to grow you need funding. Enter the pitch deck. In this post, we’ll look at the best startup pitch deck templates from heavy-hitters such as Guy Kawasaki, Airbnb, Uber and Facebook. We’ll also uncover the secrets of their successful startup pitch decks, and how you can leverage them to attract investor dollars, bring on new business partners and win new client contracts. Haven’t created a winning pitch deck before? Then, use Venngage’s Presentation Maker to easily edit the templates — no technical expertise required.  Table of contents: What is a pitch deck? Best pitch deck examples for startups investment, what makes a good pitch deck, how to create a pitch deck in 4 easy steps, pitch deck faq. A pitch deck is a presentation created to raise venture capital for your business. In order to gain buy-in and drum up financial support from potential investors, these presentations outline everything from why your business exists, to your business model, progress or milestones , your team, and a call-to-action. Buffer is a social media management platform that helps users schedule posts, analyze results, and engage with their customers. It can be used on the web and mobile, and is designed for small businesses. Stage : Seed Round Amount raised: $500,000, according to Buffer’s co-founder Leo Widrich . Industry: Social Media Management Business model: Subscription-based SaaS (Software as a Service) Headquarters: 2443 Fillmore St #380-7163, San Francisco, CA 94115 Website: Buffer.com Key takeaway : The traction slide was key for Buffer: it showed they had a great product/market fit. If you have great traction, it’s much easier to raise funding. What’s interesting about Buffer’s pitching process was the issue of competition, as that’s where many talks stalled. Investors became confused, since the social media landscape looked crowded and no one was sure how Buffer differed. Eventually, they created this slide to clear the air: To be frank, I’m still confused by this addition to the Buffer pitch deck, but perhaps their presentation would have cleared things up. In any case, we’ve recreated Buffer’s pitch deck with its own traction, timeline and competitor slides, plus a clean new layout and some easy-to-customize icons: Design tip : don’t forget to add a contact slide at the end of your pitch deck, like in the business pitch example below. Because sometimes you’re going to pitch to a small room of investors. Other times, it will be to an auditorium full of random people in your industry. And I can guarantee that not everyone is going to know your brand off the top of their head. You should make it extremely easy for people to find out more info or contact your team with any questions. I would recommend adding this to the last slide, as shown below. Alternatively, you could add it to the slide that will be seen the longest in your pitch deck, like the title slide. This will help anyone interested write down your information as event organizers get things ready. Related:  Creating a Pitch Deck? 5 Ways to Design a Winner Industry: Hospitality, Travel, and Technology Business model: Online marketplace (peer-to-peer) for lodging and travel experiences Amount raised: $20k at three months and $600k at eight months (seed), according to Vator . Location: San Francisco, California, USA Website: airbnb.com Key takeaway: A large marketplace, impressive rate of traction and a market ready for a new competitor are the factors which made Airbnb stand out early on, says Fast Company. The organization’s slide deck clearly demonstrates these points. Your pitch deck should explain the core information in your business plan in a simple and straightforward way. Few startups have done this as well as Airbnb. We’ve re-designed Airbnb’s famous deck as two light and airy sample pitch deck templates. The focus here is on engaging visuals, with minimal text used. Airbnb fundraising slide deck This type of deck is also called a demo day presentation. Since its going to be viewed from a distance by investors while you present, you don’t need lots of text to get your message across. The point is to complement your speech, not distract from it. Another great thing about Airbnb’s fundraising slide deck format is that every slide has a maximum of three sections of information: As one of the most popular presentation layouts , the rule of three design principle has been drilled into my head. And for good reason! Here’s one of the slides that demonstrates why this pitch deck design tip works: VIDEO TUTORIAL:  Learn how to customize this pitch deck template by watching this quick 8-minute video. Minimalist Airbnb pitch deck template This simple sample pitch deck template is clean and incredibly easy to customize, making it perfect for presentation newbies. Don’t forget to insert your own tagline instead of the famous “Book rooms with locals, rather than hotels” slogan. Hint: your tagline should similarly convey what your business offers. Airbnb’s pitch deck offers up tantalizing benefits: cost savings, an insider’s perspective on a location and new possibilities. Design tip : Click the text boxes in our online editor and add your own words to the pitch decks. Duplicate slides you like, or delete the ones you don’t. Related:  How to Create an Effective Pitch Deck Design [+Examples] Industry: Transportation, Technology, and Logistics Business model: On-demand transportation network and logistics platform Amount raised: $1.57M in seed funding in 2010, reports Business Insider . Website: uber.com Key takeaway : Successful pitch decks clearly highlight the key pain point (the inefficiency of cabs) and a tantalizing solution (fast, convenient 1-click ordering). Uber co-founder Garrett Camp shared the company’s very first pitch deck from 2008 via a  Medium post . While there’s a surprising amount of text, it still manages to hit on every major part of their business plan succinctly — including key differentiators, use cases and best/worst-case scenarios. Want something similar? We’ve updated the classic Uber pitch deck template with a sharp layout: Uber investor deck Many of the best pitch deck presentations out there are rather brief, only covering a few main points across a handful of slides. But sometimes your deck needs to provide more information. There’s nothing wrong with having a longer investor pitch deck, as long as you switch up the slide layouts throughout — no one wants to see basically the same slide (just with different metrics or points) 25 times over. This sample pitch deck template we created based on the infamous Uber deck has 20 or more slides and a diversity of layout options: Design tip : Replace the photos with your own or browse our in-editor library with thousands of free professional stock images. To do so, double click any image to open our “replace” feature. Then, search for photos by keyword. Blue Uber slide deck In this navy version of the Uber pitch deck template, we’ve added bright colors and creative layouts. Again, it’s easy to swap out the icons in our online editor. Choose from thousands of free icons in our in-editor library to make it your own. 4. Guy Kawasaki How much did they raise?  Guy Kawasaki’s Garage Capital raised more than $315 million dollars for its clients, according to one estimate . Key takeaway : Avoid in-depth technical discussions in your pitch deck. Focus on the pain point you’re solving, how you’ll solve it, how you’ll make money and how you’ll reach customers. Guy Kawasaki’s 10 slide outline is famous for its laser focus. He’s renowned for coining the 10/20/30 rule : 10 slides, 20 minutes and no fonts smaller than 30 point. While you may be tempted to include as much of your business plan as possible in your pitch deck, his outline forces you to tease out your most important content and engage investors or clients within a short time span. We’re recreated his famous outline in two winning templates you can adapt and make your own: Gradient Guy Kawasaki pitch deck This clean pitch deck template has all the sections you need and nothing you don’t. Kawasaki’s format steers you towards what venture capitalists really care about : problem/solution, technology, competition, marketing plan, your team, financial projections and timeline. Read our blog post on persuasive presentations for more design and speaking tips. Design tip : Quickly add in charts and graphs with our in-editor chart maker. You can even import data from Excel or Google sheets. Blue Guy Kawasaki pitch deck This more conservative pitch deck template design keeps all the focus on the core information. Remember: opt for a 30-point font or larger. This will force you to stick to your key points and explain them clearly. Anything smaller, and you’ll risk losing your audience — especially if they’re busy reading while tuning out what you’re actually saying. 5. Sequoia capital How much did they raise? Sequoia Capital is actually a Venture Capital firm. According to TechCrunch , they’ve raised almost $1B for later-stage U.S. investments. Key takeaway : “If you can’t tell the story of the company in five minutes, then you’re either overthinking it or you haven’t simplified it down enough.” – Mike Vernal, Sequoia Capital VC firm Sequoia Capital has its own  10-slide pitch deck format to rival Guy Kawasaki’s famous example that we’ll take a look at a little later on. Its highly-curated, clarified format shines a spotlight on innovative ideas. As the video above suggests, effectively communicating your mission, not just listing features, is key. Below is our take on the Sequoia Capital pitch deck example; you’ll find it clean, clear and easy to create. Design tip : Click the blue background and select a new color from our color wheel (or one of your own brand colors via My Brand Kit, available with Venngage for Business ) to create a pitch deck with your branding. Related:  How to Make Successful Financial Pitch Decks For Startups Blue and pink iconic pitch deck Ready to try it for yourself? Add a pop of color to your version of the Sequoia pitch deck template with this pink and blue slide deck. The contrasting colors will make your information stand out. 6. Facebook How much did they raise? $500K in angel funding from venture capitalist Peter Thiel (first round). Key takeaway : If you don’t have revenue traction yet, lean heavily on other metrics , like customer base, user engagement and growth.  Use a timeline to tell a story about your company. The best pitch decks tell the real story about your company or brand. You should not only want to sell the audience on your product but also on the hard work you’ve done building it from the ground up. Design tip: Try data visualizations to relay a company or product timeline . Since people are familiar with the format and know how to read them quickly, you can convey the information impactfully and save room while you’re at it. Here, Facebook’s classic pitch deck shows the incredible schools that’ve already signed on and describe when future launches will happen. The sample pitch deck template featured below shows another example of a company or product timeline . This would have been a great fit in the Facebook pitch deck, don’t you think? Plus you can summarize a ton of information about your brand on a single slide. Check out how well the timeline fits into this pitch deck template below: If the designer wouldn’t have used a timeline, the same information could have been spread over five or six extra slides! Luckily, Venngage’s timeline maker can help you visualize progress across a period of time without any design experience required. 7. TikTok How much did they raise? $150.4M in funding in 2014 (back when TikTok was called Musical.ly), says Crunchbase . Key takeaway : Use icons as visual anchors for written information. (The full slide deck is available to Digiday subscribers , though you can view some of the key slides in this Medium post . Keep in mind: this TikTok pitch deck was created for potential advertisers, not investors. No other TikTok pitch decks are publicly available.) What TikTok does really well in the above example is use icons as visual anchors for their stats. (I could write a whole article about using icons in your presentations correctly. There are so many ways you can use them to upgrade your slides.) If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, just look at the slide deck template below. Each of the main points has an icon that gives instant visual context about what the stat is about to the audience. These icons draw the eye immediately to these important facts and figures as well. Design tip: Remember to use icons that have a similar style and color palette. Otherwise, you run the risk of them becoming a distraction. 8. Y Combinator How much did they raise? This startup accelerator has invested in over 3,500 startups to date, according to the company website . They state their combined valuation nears $1 trillion. Key takeaway : Create clear, concise pitch deck slides that tell a story investors can understand in seconds. The classic Y Combinator pitch deck is incredibly simple, and for good reason. Seed stage companies can’t provide much detail, so they should focus on telling a story about their company. That means your slides should tell a story investors can immediately understand in a glance. Note that one of Y Combinator’s key components is the problem (above) and solution (below) slides. Explaining how your startup is going to solve a pain point is a vital part of any slide deck. According to Y Combinator , startups should use the problem slide to show the problem your business solves, and how this problem currently affects businesses and/or people. Additionally, if you’re starting a new startup, forming an LLC could be a great choice to launch your business in the right direction, especially if you are focused on asset protection. It’s also worth considering some of the best LLC states to form your LLC , which can make a significant difference in terms of taxes, fees, and regulations. Without that information, investors are going to be left with more questions than answers. The solution slide should show the real-world benefits of your product/service. I recommend using data visualization to show traction, like the chart above, with a couple of notes for context. To ensure your problem and solutions slides are easily understood, use a similar layout for both, as shown below. This will help the audience quickly recall the main problem you want to solve, and connect it to your solution (even if the slides are separated by a few other points or ideas). 9. Front How much did they raise ? $10M in Series A funding Key takeaway : Use a simple flowchart to visualize a problem your product/service solves. Not everyone is going to be able to explain their problem and solution as succinctly as the previous examples. Some will need to take a unique approach to get their point across. That’s why I want to highlight how Front masterfully communicated the problem to be solved. They likely realized it would be a lot easier (and cleaner) to create a flow chart that visualizes the problem instead of text. (Did I mention you can make your own flowcharts with Venngage?) Also, I really like how they distilled each down to a single phrase. That approach, combined with the visuals, will help it stick in investors’ minds as one of the best pitch decks. Here’s another example pitch deck that uses a chart to convey their problem/solution: It splits the competition slide right down the middle to illustrate the differences. It also shows exactly how the processes differ between the two entities using mini flowcharts. Helping the audience make the right conclusions about your company should be an important part of your pitch deck strategy. Without saying a word, the visual choices you make can greatly impact your message. 10. Crema How much did they raise? $175K in seed funding 403 . Key takeaway : Choose background images carefully — making sure they have a similar color palette. The best pitch decks keep things consistent, mainly because there are so many moving parts in any presentation. You want each of your slides to feel like they’re connected by a singular feeling or theme. An out-of-place presentation background 429 image can throw that off. Keeping things consistent when you use a solid background color or pattern isn’t hard. But things can get tricky if you want to use different photos for your backgrounds. However, if you pick presentation background images that have a similar color palette, you’ll be fine. Check out the images Crema used in their startup pitch deck below: If you’re struggling to find exactly the same colored photos, you can use a color filter to make things more uniform. 11. WeWork How much did they raise? $6.9M in seed funding in 2011, says Crunchbase 403 . Key takeaway : Put your metrics on display. The behemoths at WeWork still have one of the best software pitch decks, despite recent troubles (layoffs, and a valuation that dropped from $47 billion to $2.9 billion). In fact, this investor pitch deck actually helped them raise money at a $5 billion valuation. My favorite thing from this is how their key metrics are on the second slide. They waste no time getting down to business! A lot of the time brands hide these metrics at the end of their presentation, but WeWork made sure to put it front and center in their slide deck. This approach puts the audience in a positive state of mind, helping them be more receptive to the pitch. 12. Crew (Dribble) How much did they raise? $2M in seed funding Key takeaway : Start your presentation with a simple statement to set the tone. Sometimes you have to set the mood of the room before you jump into your slide deck. A simple way to do this is by adding a powerful statement or famous quote at the beginning of your slides. This may sound cliche, but the creatives over at Crew (now Dribbble ) used this approach well in their pitch presentation. By claiming that every business is an online business, they instantly change the way that people think about the business sector. Additionally, the designers used this straightforward statement to set up the rest of the presentation. In the next few slides, the potential market is explained. Without the statement, I don’t think these numbers would be as impactful. Let’s take a look at the graphs and charts the Dribble team used in their slide deck. In the below business pitch example, you can see that the line charts use the same color palette, size, and typography. One of my favorite tips from my presentation ideas roundup article states you should never make the audience do the math. You can also use this mantra when you’re adding data visualizations to your slides. Make each slide extra easy to consume, as well as, easy to compare to other visualizations. Below the pie charts use the exact same color palette, size, and typography as well: If the designers would have used a different example, the audience would be distracted trying to decipher the information. But consistent design across multiple visualizations will ensure your audience can make comparisons that lead to the right conclusions. Pro Tip: You can use a comparison infographic to summarize key points you’re comparing. 13. Aspire Food Group How much did they raise? $1M from the Hult Prize in 2013 to scale their project. Key takeaway : Simple graphics clearly illustrate the problem (food security), the size of the market and Aspire’s unique farming project (spoiler alert: it’s insects). Nonprofits pitching donors or social enterprises pitching for funding have a slightly different challenge than other organizations. They need to present a unique solution and  make an emotional connection to their audience. Aspire’s simple pitch deck graphics allow investors to grasp their unique business idea at a glance. Plus, by introducing the audience to one of their customers and describing how insect farming has impacted her food budget, the concept is made relatable to many. Another simple design hack is to choose a unique background for your nonprofit or social enterprise pick deck. Take this sample pitch deck template: There are millions of stock photos out there for you to pick from, so finding one that will work shouldn’t be too hard. However, when you’re picking your presentation background images , it’s important to make sure it matches your message or brand. In the above example, the pitch deck’s slightly crumpled paper background fits an eco-friendly startup well.   Especially because eco-friendly living and minimalism share similar tenants. Another great example is this sponsorship pitch deck above. It elevates the message by opting for a simplistic background choice. With a beautiful yet minimalistic slide deck like this, who wouldn’t want to donate? Most of the time your pitch deck background images are supposed to be used in a supporting role. However, you can also design your presentation around the background images to create some of the best pitch decks out there. As you can see in this pitch deck template, we added written content to the white space in each of the stock photos: Plus no one can really copy your pitch deck layout, so you will instantly stand out from other companies. Be sure to pick photos that share the same color palette and theme. Otherwise, the benefits of using these presentation backgrounds will be lost. 14. Mattermark How much did they raise? A total of $17.2M so far, says Crunchbase . Key takeaway : Use screenshots in your pitch deck to show the problem you’re solving. Highlighting digital problems is tough when you have limited space and time…like when you’re pitching your new digital product to a room full of investors. That’s why some of the best pitch decks include screenshots of the problem being solved. As you can see above, the people from Mattermark used screenshots to show how unorganized SAAS reporting was. At that time it was spread over a ton of different sites, with different reporting standards and values. It would be difficult to sell an investor on their product just by talking about the market. Mainly because not a lot of people have experience in that specific niche. But with a handful of screenshots, they were able to highlight the product potential almost instantly. In terms of design, the team at Mattermark stuck to the rule of three (see slide below). This rule will help you keep your team from overwhelming the audience with a flood of stats or figures. They also decided to make these figures easier to consume by highlighting them in different colors Compared to a boring list of figures, it’s a lot easier to remember three distinct colored numbers. Plus because the background colors darken as they go, it naturally guides the reader’s eyes down the slide. 15. Dwolla How much did they raise? $12M in funding as of 2018. Key takeaway : Give the reason your company was founded in one quick sentence. In many of our own presentations, we talk about how Venngage started from humble beginnings before undergoing tremendous growth in just a few years. That’s because people love origin stories — they help your audience connect with your brand and appreciate all the work put into it. Take a look at the pitch deck slide from Dwolla above. In a single sentence, they outline their reason for doing business, and what they hope to solve. Just be sure to talk about your company founding in the first few slides of your pitch. Otherwise, it won’t have the same impact. On another note, as a design company, we always love to see people create great visualizations in their pitch decks — particularly when these visuals communicate key information well….like when it comes to your ideal users! I have seen a lot of brands just talk about their users, but I recommend creating visual user personas instead. Our persona guides can help you with this! As you can see above, Dwolla visualized their user personas for each use case. These visual user personas allow audiences to put a “real” face to your user base. And if you have many ideal users (like Dwolla), it helps keep each group organized. 16. Kickfolio (App.io)  How much did they raise? $1M in seed funding. Key takeaway : Go for huge graphs! The bigger, the better. Be proud of your brand’s growth and metrics in your slide deck. You worked hard to grow a company from nothing, and that’s a big achievement! So why would you want to make that growth hard to see? However, I’ve seen a lot of people inadvertently hide their key metrics by using small graphs or charts. The only solution to this problem is…get bigger with your graphs! And I mean huge, like the ones App.io deployed in the pitch deck above. Their graph is so large and imposing, every audience member could see it clearly. Venngage’s  graph maker can help you do this for your own pitch decks too. 17. Yalochat How much did they raise? $15M in Series B funding, says TechCrunch. Key takeaway : Use icons as illustrations to add instant context. Icons have been making a comeback in the design world over the past few years. According to recent reports on graphic design trends , they’ll continue to be popular. This presentation from Yalochat is one of the best examples of how to use illustrated icons correctly. Each icon perfectly illustrates the point being made on each slide, giving instant context. They will definitely catch the eyes of any audience member. Just remember to follow their lead and  use consistently designed icons ! 18. Brex How much did they raise? $1.5 billion to date. Key takeaway : Include a single slide about your team and highlight what makes them truly exceptional. Another important part of your story is the people who helped you build your company. These people are the lifeblood of your brand, and what helps it stand out from the competitors. Corporate card startup Brex does this well by using team member photos, and including their titles and company affiliations to build credibility. You can download the Brex slides for free, thanks to Business Insider . Let’s tale a look at a sample pitch deck that employs a similar philosophy. I’m guessing you already planned on adding something similar to your pitch deck. Again, I would recommend using only a single team slide like they did. You can use a team photo if you want to talk about the whole team, or add an organizational chart instead. Alternatively, like Brex, you can highlight the most important individuals, like this business pitch example: Whatever you choose to do, don’t forget to talk about your team on a team slide, and highlight the people who make your company truly great. Read More:  12+ Organizational Chart Examples and Templates 19. Purple Go How much did they raise? Undisclosed. Key takeaway : Use a contrasting hue to draw your audience’s attention to key information. Color isn’t just about making your designs look good — it can also draw your audience’s attention to important information. For example, take a look at this simple pitch deck from Purple Go . They contrast deep purple with white to help certain sentences pop. This is a simple way to make your slides have a lot of impact; pick colors that contrast boldly with each other. How much did they raise? $31M to date, according to Mint. Key takeaway : Add visual cues, such as illustrations and icons, to help explain your brand to investors. I’m guessing your pitch deck is already going to touch on how you stand out from the competition. But just listing a few things that set you apart may not be enough on your slide deck! You may need to add some visual cues to help the audience out. We decided to redesign Mint’s original deck for a contemporary take on this. In this minimalist pitch deck template, our designers used visuals to make the main company stand out even more. And best of all, it doesn’t distract from the minimalist theme. This simple addition to your slides will help your information jump off the page, providing a rewarding visual break from related companies. 21. Park Evergreen (Plot) How much did they raise? $400k in seed funding. Key takeaway : Give each metric its own slide. Generally, slide decks are full of important metrics that you’re supposed to remember. But not all of those numbers are presented in a way that would make them easy to. Some are hidden in long paragraphs, while others are smashed together with less important findings. That’s why I’m a huge fan of how Park Evergreen (now called Plot ) included important numbers in this slide deck. As you can see below, each metric is given its own slide: With this approach, the audience members place their full attention on that number. And they’ll be able to recall the information a lot quicker. It may look overly simple to some, but the best pitch decks use this tactic a lot. 22. Hampton Creek (Eat Just) How much did they raise? $1.5M in Series A. Key takeaway : Create a minimalist title slide to build anticipation for your presentation. You probably know that presentations don’t always run as smoothly as planned. With long breaks and technical problems, the time between presentations can end up running rather long. Translation: you might spend more time looking at the title slide than the actual presentation itself. So if you really want to build some anticipation for your pitch, create a minimalist (some might even say, mysterious) title slide. As you can see, the team at Eat Just (once known as Hampton Creek) did just that. The lack of information makes spectators want to learn more about your brand, effortlessly engaging them. The only negative is that no one is going to know the name of your company — yet. 23. Sickweather How much did they raise? $2.6M to date, according to Crunchbase. Key takeaway : Pull out the main metrics from your graphs and charts to make your slide a snap to understand. Remember when I said: “Don’t make your audience do the math”? Yeah. That’s because people hate doing math — so you never want to make investors try to calculate your data themselves. Especially when dealing with millions of dollars, tiny percent changes or other complicated numbers. Out of all the tips in this article, this one might be the most important. Mainly because forgetting this idea all but guarantees your failure. That’s why I recommend you “do the math” on every slide where you include a graph or chart — like how Sickweather did above. By pulling out the main growth metrics from the graph, they made this slide a lot more consumable, and showed the audience exactly what they should pay attention to. 24. Dutchie How much did they raise? $35M in 2020, according to TechCrunch . Key takeaway : Set the tone by putting your most impressive stat(s) in the introduction. Dutchie, an all-in-one technology platform for eCommerce, POS and payments, wastes no time coming out the gates with one impressive insight: “10% of all legal cannabis in the world” is purchased through their product. Now I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty tantalizing. So it makes perfect sense they would pull it out from their market share figures and feature it in their introduction. By doing so, investors get an idea how successful and established Dutchie is right off the bat. 25. Studysmarter How much did they raise?  $15M according to TechCrunch . Key takeaway : Illustrate your vision over several slides. Rather than dedicate one slide to their vision for the company, digital learning company Studysmarter continuously brings up how their product will be understood in the future — as “the world’s central hub” for “lifelong” learning, becoming the “largest learning platform in Europe” by 2021. While this visionary sentiment is not new to the pitch deck industry, it makes sense Studysmarter would want to focus much of their presentation slide deck on this idea: the idea of an unlimited target market and use cases. Design wise, their illustrations are consistent, using visuals to illustrate their message and various target demographics. These graphics build off the sleek, modern interface Studysmarter’s brand image invokes. It also illustrates what they want investors to envision for the future of the brand. 26. Clearbanc (Clearco) How much did they raise? $70M in series A funding, according to TechCrunch. Key takeaway : Use flow charts to communicate complicated processes. As a company that offers startups “growth capital for the new economy” through non-dilutive revenue-share agreements, Clearco (previously known as Clearbanc) wins big by communicating how the process works in less than a slide’s time. That’s right: the company uses a flowchart . For complicated business processes that would normally take several slides of text to communicate, a flowchart is a smart way to visualize a process while saving space and keeping your audience engaged. Particularly for a company like Clearco, this is key for getting investors up to speed. Then you can move on to the other facts and figures they’ll surely want to hear. 27. Foursquare Key takeaway : Show how the end-product looks in your presentation. Okay look, I get it. This slide deck from 2009 is certainly behind on times when it comes to design tips in this current day and age… BUT take it back to more than a decade ago, and you’ll see why Foursquare’s pitch deck won big with investors. As one of the first businesses to employ gamification, the company lets this selling proposition shine by using an iPhone graphic to show how the app’s points and badges look to the end-user. These visuals communicate the appeal by showcasing exactly how consumers will interact with, and understand, the product. In essence, it takes the guesswork out of their pitch. So while the text-heavy aspect of this sample pitch deck isn’t exactly ideal, their use of visuals can teach us a lesson. 28. TalentBase How much did they raise?   $330K to date. Key takeaway : Let the numbers do the talking. Rather than take up a ton of slide space in this pitch deck example, TalentBase, an affordable payroll solution , focused their real estate on the real deal-closers: the numbers. While this won’t work for every business, as you may need to add more slides to truly explain the environment your organization exists in and your processes, TalentBase uses their positioning to drive forward a captivating narrative. And this narrative utilizes only numbers to connect the dots in the mind of potential investors about the value TalentBase offers, in terms of market capture. 29. Peloton Key takeaway : Discuss both the tangible and intangible benefits your product offers. In 2018, back before the real pandemic hey-day of this tech unicorn, Peloton dazzled in a funding round and managed to capture in $550M funding. Part of this can be attributed to Peloton’s emphasis on the benefits it brings customers. Across multiple slides, the exercise equipment and media company highlights how customers’ lives are improved in various emotional and functional ways. Since this connection lays the groundwork for long-term B2C relationships, investors can immediately identify the value encompassed by this modern fitness tool. Looking to try something similar? Check out the below Peloton sample pitch deck, reimagined by our Venngage design team. How much did they raise? $ 10M in September 2021. Key takeaway : Cut down on space with text and graphics that follow a clear logical narrative. In just seven slides, the equity management and investor relations platform, Ledgy, was able to convince their audience that their product was worth investing in. By putting their mission first, and following it up with engaging visuals, the company tells a story despite using minimal text. Yoko Spirig, CEO and co-founder of Ledgy, echoed this sentiment in an interview : “Starting with the ‘why’ lets you build the business case for the product, and create a logical narrative that investors can follow.” That’s why, design-wise, this is one of the cleanest pitch deck examples in the bunch. It’s one of the shortest too. I also appreciate how their brand colors are used in conjunction with white to keep everything consistent (something that Venngage’s automated branding feature My Brand Kit can help you out with). To summarize, some of my favorite pitch deck design tips include: Adding icon headers to your most important insights Use similar charts and graphs for easy comparisons across slides For longer pitch decks, switch up the slide layouts Pick a consistent theme for your presentation background images Don’t just list your ideal users, create visual personas Use a timeline to show how your company has grown Always do the math for your audience Not a graphic designer? No sweat — creating your own pitch deck is a breeze using Venngage’s Presentation Maker . (We’ll go over the basics here; for a more in-depth look, check out this article .) Step 1: Sign up on Venngage for free using your email, Gmail or Facebook account. If you already have an account, log in to access the platform. Step 2: Browse through our selection of professionally designed pitch deck templates and select one that suits your needs and preferences. Step 3: Once you’ve selected a template, start customizing it to match your branding and content. Venngage’s drag-and-drop editor allows you to easily modify every aspect of the template, including colors, fonts, images and layout. Replace the placeholder text with your own content, such as your company information, product or service details, market analysis and financial projections. Note: there are hundreds of templates available that you can design and share for free. If you want to access certain designs, take advantage of in-editor features like My Brand Kit/Team collaboration . Step 4: Once you’re satisfied with your design, you can download it in various formats such as PDF or PNG. Alternatively, you can use also Venngage’s sharing options to present your pitch deck directly from the platform or share it with others via a generated link. To leave a lasting impression on your audience, consider transforming your slides into an interactive presentation. Here are 15  interactive presentation ideas  to enhance interactivity and engagement. Now that you know how to create the best pitch decks to communicate your ideas, present your startup or raise venture capital, take action and start designing your own pitch deck today! What should a pitch deck contain? A well-crafted pitch deck should contain key information that effectively communicates your business concept, value proposition, and growth potential. While the specific content may vary depending on your industry and target audience, here are the essential elements that a pitch deck should typically include: Problem statement Market opportunity Business model Competitive analysis Marketing and sales strategy Team members Financial projections Milestones and timeline Investment opportunity What is a pitch deck presentation? A pitch deck presentation is a slideshow that introduces a business idea, product, or service to investors. Typically consisting of 10–20 slides, a pitch deck is used to persuade potential investors to provide funding for a business. It serves as a comprehensive overview of your company, outlining your business model, the problem you solve, the market opportunity you address, your key team members, and your financial projections. And if you want to learn more, there are a ton of other presentation design resources you can take a look at next: 20+ Business Pitch Deck Templates and Design Best Practices 120+ Best Presentation Ideas, Design Tips & Examples 15 Presentation Design Statistics to Know For 2019 7 Tips for Designing a Persuasive Presentation [Presentation Design Guide + Templates] 20+ Consulting Proposal Templates Discover popular designs Infographic maker Brochure maker White paper online Newsletter creator Flyer maker Timeline maker Letterhead maker Mind map maker Ebook maker Presentations Most Recent Infographics Data Visualizations Forms and Surveys Video & Animation Case Studies Design for Business Digital Marketing Design Inspiration Visual Thinking Product Updates Visme Webinars Artificial Intelligence 35 Best Pitch Decks From Real-Life Startups [With Templates] Written by: Orana Velarde Many companies in existence—even big-name startups—once had to create a pitch deck at the beginning of their journey. Thanks to the internet, we can access and study all those successful pitch decks for a healthy dose of inspiration. Some of these investor pitch deck examples have become quite famous, like the Airbnb pitch deck from when the company was still called AirBed&Breakfast. In this article, we’ve put together the 35 best pitch decks to learn from. We've also recreated some of those pitch decks into templates to help you attract investors and support for your own company. If you're ready to create your own pitch deck, use our presentation software to put together a professional investor presentation in minutes. Here's a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit pitch deck templates you can edit, share and download with Visme. View 23 more templates below: What Makes a Good Pitch Deck? Before we launch into 35 of the best pitch decks of all time, let’s talk about what makes a good pitch deck . What’s going to grab investor attention and help propel your business toward the same success that companies like Airbnb, WeWork, Uber and Facebook have all seen? Let’s dig into a few of the major components to keep in mind when designing a pitch deck. Use the right slides. There are 10 key slides every pitch deck should have, including an introduction, problem/solution, business model , statistics, etc. Flesh out a proper pitch deck outline before you get started pulling necessary information. Tell a story. One of the best ways to capture your audience is through a compelling story. Make sure you’re really selling your business idea by elaborating on why people are going to want or need it. Be passionate about your idea . No one wants to listen to someone half-heartedly pitch a business idea. You need to believe in it and make your audience believe in it, too. Proofread and practice. Nothing is going to make you seem less professional than typos and a million “ums” during your speech. Review your slides and rehearse them to make sure you’re ready to present. Pay attention to design . Old, boring, bulleted PowerPoints won’t get you anywhere anymore. With access to beautiful and simple templates and tools (*ahem* Visme *ahem*) it’s never been easier to create beautiful and creative pitch decks. For even more tips on your pitch deck design, watch this video: If you need help creating attention-grabbing pitch decks, you can use the versions recreated in Visme as a starting point. Better yet, allow Visme's AI presentation maker to do the heavy lifting for you—it handles everything from design to content, speeding up your pitch deck design process. With just a text prompt, this advanced tool helps you generate pitch deck presentations complete with images, icons, illustrations, text, and everything else—in just seconds. For example, you can draw inspiration from any of these pitch deck examples and instruct the AI presentation maker to generate a similar pitch deck design tailored to your business and topic of choice. Isn't that amazing? Click on a Pitch Deck to Jump Ahead Dropbox Pitch Deck Tinder Pitch Deck Airbnb Pitch Deck WeWork Pitch Deck Uber Pitch Deck BuzzFeed Pitch Deck Launchrock Pitch Deck Foursquare Pitch Deck Intercom Pitch Deck Mattermark Pitch Deck TouristEye Pitch Deck Buffer Pitch Deck Ooomf (Crew) Pitch Deck Moz Pitch Deck Biogrify Pitch Deck Front Pitch Deck Piccsy Pitch Deck LinkedIn Pitch Deck Fyre Festival Pitch Deck Manpacks Pitch Deck Coinbase Pitch Deck Snapchat Pitch Deck YouTube Pitch Deck Facebook Pitch Deck Crunchbase Pitch Deck Contently Pitch Deck Wise (TransferWise) Pitch Deck Bliss Pitch Deck Castle Pitch Deck Shift Pitch Deck Cubeit Pitch Deck Revolut Pitch Deck Alto Pitch Deck Wayfair Pitch Deck Walmart - Flipkart Pitch Deck 1. Dropbox Pitch Deck Dropbox is one of the pioneers of cloud storage as we know it today, and their pitch deck from 2007 was all about revolutionizing the way people stored and shared important data. The company has raised around $1.7 billion in funding and is backed by popular investors like JP Morgan and Sequoia Capital. Original pitch deck: What makes Dropbox's pitch deck stand out among others is how it addresses the “why” behind the entire idea of cloud storage. As you go through the slides, you’ll notice how each section focuses on how Dropbox’s solution will benefit users and the society as a whole by changing the way people work with files. This slide deck inspiration also dives into the details of why investing in the company is a good idea at that particular time, making a strong case for securing the funding they need. Key Takeaway: Draw a comparison with your competitors to show how your product is better. Focus on the features, but then follow up with benefits to explain why those features are worth investing in. It's also a good idea to explain why the timing is ideal for launching your product or company. Dropbox does this well by highlighting trends that are relevant to their target audience, such as the increased use of digital devices and more distributed/remote teams. Here's an investor pitch deck template that comes built-in with a comparison table , data widgets, charts and a benefits slide. Customize it to create a value-focused pitch deck like Dropbox. Recreated in Visme: Create your own Pitch Deck with this easy-to-edit template! Edit and Download 2. Tinder Pitch Deck Previously known as Matchbox, Tinder is one of the most popular dating apps in the world. While Tinder's pitch deck below is not officially connected to any funding round, the app managed to raise over $50 million in just three rounds. So, what is it about this that makes it such a great pitch deck inspiration? First, they do an excellent job of communicating the problem with a short (but relatable) story. Then, instead of talking about the solution, they show it within their app. The next few slides dive deeper into the app’s functionality — how it works and what value it provides. By using step-by-step screenshots, they let their app do the talking. Finally, the pitch deck summarizes additional features being developed and the revenue opportunity, or how they plan to make money, in two short slides. Key Takeaway: Using storytelling to explain a problem can make it relatable and easier to understand. A good pitch deck puts investors in the customers’ shoes, which naturally makes them more intrigued to learn about the solution. Another lesson to be learned here is to use your product’s functionality to explain the solution. Tinder does a great job of showing instead of telling with step-by-step screenshots of how users will navigate through the app to fulfill their needs. Customize this business pitch deck template below designed especially for apps and SaaS businesses, and apply your own storytelling principles: 3. Airbnb Pitch Deck Some of the best investor decks present information in a quickly-digestible, easily-understandable way. This is where an early pitch deck by Airbnb shines. Airbnb’s pitch deck is commonly cited as one of the best, and has helped raise over $112 million . Each slide is relatively basic, presenting the information quickly and efficiently. They also avoid the pitfalls of sticking simply to text, adding images and charts throughout that illustrate their points in a similar manner. Key Takeaway: You don’t want to bore your audience, but you also want them to know exactly what your product or service is trying to do. Airbnb's modern pitch deck design exemplifies simplicity at its finest. Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Airbnb to get you started. The Visme editor comes equipped with several AI features, like the AI Presentation Maker , which helps you craft a fully designed pitch deck from start to finish, including content and visual graphics. Additionally, the AI Writer can help you refine content in several ways, like summarizing longer text or refreshing older content. Use the prompt window to explain what you need and watch the tool unleash its magic. 4. WeWork Pitch Deck In the WeWork Pitch Deck Series D , they show projected growth in big numbers. They used the power of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) to really bring the message home to investors. By providing big-name services to their members through an affiliate scheme, they were able to add the logos of all these companies in their company deck and show who they were already working with. Not only did they get tons of funding with this pitch deck, they're now one of the biggest coworking space providers in the world. They knew the potential of WeWork and were definitely not afraid to show it. Key Takeaway: If you know your idea has the potential to be huge, show it. WeWork knew they had a sound business plan that was bound to grow with the right amount of support. They didn’t take any shortcuts and used visual charts to show huge projections and big plans. Here’s a business pitch template inspired by WeWork to get you started. 5. Uber Pitch Deck When Uber first started out, it was called UberCab. The idea behind the business seemed like something right out of a fairy tale; cabs that would pick you up in minutes, which you didn’t have to call or stand on the curb for. Even though their initial ideas did not exactly represent how Uber is today, their original pitch deck is a great example of believing in a product. This professional pitch deck goes into detail about how UberCab could ultimately change the way taxis work, forever. The actual slides from this business deck rely heavily on bullet points to get the message across, but they hit home because they are simple and short-winded. The bullet points are more like matter-of-fact statements instead of long explanations. You can tell that the founders knew they had a great idea and all they needed was the investors to see it the way they did. They had no charts because they were still a small enterprise and had no growth to show. They were relying on a simple fact: their idea was a game changer. Key Takeaway:  Even if all you have is a great idea, strongly believing in that idea can help you get the funding you need to turn it into a reality. Forget fancy charts and long explanations — the best pitch deck designs keep it simple and get to the point quickly. Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Uber to get you started. 6. BuzzFeed Pitch Deck When BuzzFeed was small, with only five people in a tiny office in Chinatown, they knew they had to stand out from the crowd to get ahead. So, instead of just being one amongst the pack, they created their own pack. They visualized this idea perfectly on slide 18 of their pitch deck. BuzzFeed pitched the idea of advertisement as content instead of having content and advertisement as two different entities, which was the norm. Their idea to use content generated by users, computer algorithms and advertisers is what made them different from other journalistic websites. They pitched their platform to investors so they could include their advertisement as content. In the pitch deck, BuzzFeed’s founders showed exactly how their idea worked and how it would look online. They also visualized exactly how the “advertisement as content” idea would benefit them, including screenshots of the actual website. In their second-last slide, they prompt “How big can this get?”, and they were not shy to show just how their take on viral media could take off. Key Takeaway: If you're in the SaaS business, visualize your idea using actual screenshots of your product. Showing can be much more effective than simply telling, as it helps investors gain a deeper understanding of your idea. Here’s a product pitch deck template inspired by BuzzFeed to get you started. 7. Launchrock Pitch Deck The usual presentation has a light background and dark-colored content, but the pitch deck for Launchrock went in the opposite direction. The slides have a black background, while the content is made of white text and red and blue gradient buttons. This visual quality is perfectly reminiscent of the Launchrock brand. The Launchrock brand is simple, bold and to the point, and so is their pitch deck. The information on each slide is minimal, but precise. The data flows from one slide to the next in a simple storytelling format . To top it off, they use social proof and a sense of community to get the message across. Key Takeaway:  Don't be afraid to experiment when it comes to pitch deck design . Just make sure the colors and fonts you choose are aligned with your brand and don't compromise on the readability of your presentation slides. Another lesson to be learned is that you don't always need to use text to explain your idea. The flowchart on slide 11 has no text, but it fully visualizes the idea behind their product. Here’s a professional pitch deck template inspired by Launchrock to get you started. 8. Foursquare Pitch Deck Foursquare was huge a while ago, but with so many location-based apps now it’s easy to wonder if it still exists. Yes, Foursquare still exists and it’s so much more than it used to be at the beginning. Back in the young days of Foursquare , it was just two guys with an idea and this pitch deck. This pitch deck has long sections of text, which isn’t usually considered a good idea. But on these slides with long bullet points, there are also mobile device mockups with real screenshots of the app doing its thing. This somehow makes it work, along with the fact that the text is inspiring, innovative and perfectly organized. The screenshots visualize every single functionality, yet keep things real. There are no excessive growth charts or high pitched dream ideas. Foursquare has done a great job of growing into a huge enterprise and it all began in the era of this pitch deck. Key Takeaway:  Instead of just focusing on one type of user, show how your idea, company or product will benefit all the stakeholders involved. A large part of this pitch deck’s success is that it shows how the Foursquare app benefits both companies and users. Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Foursquare to get you started. 9. Intercom Pitch Deck The Intercom logo has seen a lot of revamping since its first pitch deck, but it has always been full of personality. The slides in Intercom's pitch presentation example stick to a simple outline accompanied by the hand-drawn font of their logo on the headings and bullets. Not only does this keep the pitch deck cover page on brand, it also adds a good dose of personality to all the slides. It shows investors that the Intercom company is simple, but not unpolished. Adding the font shows off the fun, human side of the brand. Along with a light blue gradient background, the overall feel of this pitch deck is calm and reassuring. To hit the nail on the head, they used a simple font for the text, adding only some bold styling to reinforce the message. The headings are positioned just right so if you skim through the slides, you can read them easily and grasp the big idea. Key Takeaway: The design of your pitch decks is more important than you'd think. Make sure your slides are easy to read and skim through, the colors don't clash, and the fonts are legible, even if they're fun or handwritten-style. Hey marketers! Need to create scroll-stopping visual content fast? Transform your visual content with Visme’s easy-to-use content creation platform Produce beautiful, effective marketing content quickly even without an extensive design skillset Inspire your sales team to create their own content with branded templates for easy customization Sign up. It’s free. Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Intercom to get you started. 10. Mattermark Pitch Deck The main idea behind Mattermark was to solve an actual problem. They created a “Google for businesses;” a data-driven search engine that helps SaaS businesses stay informed about other companies, which leads to better business decisions and improved market research. The idea was a big one and they needed to show a lot of details in the pitch deck. Bordering on “too much information,” the Mattermark pitch deck uses multi-colored charts to compare important data. To present the problem they aimed to solve, they relied on a flowing arrow diagram to visualize the outcome. As the slides progress, information is added on to create a comprehensive message. They bring it home towards the end by showing how Mattermark can do it all faster and better. The charts are inspiring and resemble hockey sticks; the ultimate success chart example. Key Takeaway:  If you have a lot of data to present, make it interesting by using different types of graphs . If you're presenting a solution to a problem, you can visualize that too with the help of arrows. Here’s a good pitch deck template inspired by Mattermark to get you started. 11. TouristEye Pitch Deck Before TouristEye was acquired by Lonely Planet, it was one of the first mobile apps directed at travelers. With the strong premise of “Travel Guides Suck,” they used this pitch deck to share the hype of TouristEye. In this pitch deck, screenshots and travel-themed photography visualize a new, more personalized way of traveling where users could create their itineraries on the TouristEye app. It’s not surprising that Lonely Planet ended up acquiring TouristEye; it was a huge competition for them. Even if the hype behind TouristEye was that travel guides sucked, Lonely Planet saw the potential and had to have it for their platform. Key Takeaway:  The best pitch decks explain the big idea up front, even if it sounds a little harsh. If you have data to back your big idea up, especially related to conversions and growth, that's even better. Notice how TouristEye does it on slide 19 by highlighting that intent equals conversions. Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by TouristEye to get you started. 12. Buffer Pitch Deck Buffer’s pitch deck is a great example of transparency and believing in your product. The company is one of the first to release their pitch deck publicly, not only helping others with their decks, but illustrating goodwill. Key Takeaway: Transparency is something that both customers and investors appreciate. It reinforces your honesty and trustworthiness, and helps them better understand how your product works. Even better, it displays complete confidence in your product or service. Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Buffer to get you started. 13. Ooomf (Crew) Pitch Deck A common (and expected) thing you see in most pitch decks is how much growth a company has seen so far with their product. What’s less commonly seen are the people who’ve already taken an interest in your work. This is unsurprising, as many pitch decks are created for projects still looking for funding. However, for those lucky enough to already have some investors, this is a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of. One great example of this is Crew. Their pitch deck is incredibly sparse, using only the bare-minimum text and pictures. They also list other companies that have invested in theirs on slide 29, along with the amount they’ve already earned. If you don’t have any interested parties yet, no problem; simply add quotes from satisfied customers or workers. This deck does that, as well, with Milan C., a worker at Crew, claiming on their last slide, “Crew changed the way I work and with that how I live.” Key Takeaway:  If you already have a few investors, companies or individuals supporting your product, don't be afraid to highlight them in your pitch deck. Growth is not the only thing potential investors are intrigued by — proving that your product has earned respect from other groups is often enough to make people believe it's worth investing in. Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Crew to get you started. 14. Moz Pitch Deck Moz's pitch deck features an adorable mascot that appears on all of their slides, and colorful blocks and charts that illustrate their points. Their later slides are filled with fun images, such as cartoon character Calvin (from Calvin and Hobbes) rampaging through a city. The pitch deck never sacrifices the facts for fun either. They continue to describe their goals and statistics throughout, showing how useful they could be for investors and the business world in general. SEOmoz has a rather appealing tagline: “How a tiny Mom & Son consultancy became a leader in SEO Software, and our roadmap to being Seattle’s next $1 billion company.” The tagline opens with the promise of an appealing story (their journey to the big time), and ends with an ambitious goal, piquing curiosity and convincing potential investors to follow along. Key Takeaway: It’s no secret that describing statistics and information can be, well, boring. Many potential investors have already heard such things countless times, even through the course of the day. So, how do you make yours stand out? Simple: do something different and entertaining, while still offering the information you need to get your point across. SEOmoz does this admirably in their pitch deck. Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by SEOmoz to get you started. When creating a pitch deck with Visme, you have access to practical business features that help you create pitch decks more productively. Dynamic fields , for example, enable you to design one pitch deck template and input custom fields that can be easily adjusted with a few clicks. You can use this feature to tailor your message according to your audience. 15. Biogrify Pitch Deck Not everyone’s an artist, but you don't need to be one to create a great pitch deck. Sometimes just looking at design ideas and learning the in’s-and-out’s of your product can be enough. Biogrify's deck is a great example of this, as it’s filled with images and screenshots, most of which aren’t drawings. Their deck looks a little different than the slide deck examples above due to the focus on creativity. Notice how they’ve used photos with speech bubbles to explain their message and several shots of their product in action to advertise. The charts on slide 7 are of special note, as they are organized to not clutter the page and still maximize the amount of images that can fit. Key Takeaway: Use creativity, but not just for thef sake of it. In Biogrify's pitch deck, each image helps support their words, making the overall experience appealing and interesting, rather than either frustrating or confusing. Better yet, the message is reinforced through the use of visual presentation aids . Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Biogrify to get you started. 16. Front Pitch Deck Front's pitch deck offers a great example of using an attractive color scheme to your advantage. They’ve primarily used white, blue, and pink to fill the slides. For example, slide 9 has a white background and pink header, with a line graph that uses blue and pink to represent the specific values mentioned. Front establishes some of this color scheme early on, with the title page in deep blue with white font. Colorful confetti shapes litter the background, hinting at the “fun” feel the pink would later give. Key Takeaway: Using a specific color scheme can work wonders for your pitch deck. The colors, spread across the slides, can help unify a presentation and make it pop. Moreover, using specific colors that represent your company will help the pitch deck be more recognizable. Be careful when choosing colors for your pitch deck. Different colors can evoke different feelings. You can find out more about color psychology and color schemes in our comprehensive guide. Here’s a startup pitch template inspired by Front to get you started. 17. Piccsy Pitch Deck Piccsy's deck gives a bit more literal example of smooth transitions. The photo site has an online infographic format , rather than the traditional slide deck format. Each individual slide flows smoothly into one another as you scroll down the page, with similar themes (like the circles to hold information and the color scheme) tying the work together. This pitch deck also takes an innovative approach by providing information at the end to encourage contact, making it one of the best investor pitch decks. Key Takeaway:  Stand out to potential investors by turning your pitch deck into an interactive experience . Piccsy does this well by creating an infographic-style website, complete with their branding and even contact information at the end to encourage action. Think of ways to pitch your startup to investors other than going with a traditional presentation deck — videos, interactive web pages and online presentations are a few great alternatives. Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Piccsy to get you started. When you’re at the point of adding visuals, you can generate unique images, illustrations and graphics using the AI Image Generator . Likewise, if you have chosen stock or legacy images that need a little editing, take advantage of the AI Edit Tools to upscale, unblur and remove unwanted objects or entire backgrounds. 18. LinkedIn Pitch Deck The way you design your pitch deck depends on several things, like your target market and the people you hope will invest in your product. LinkedIn's Series B pitch deck is specifically aimed towards more serious, business-minded individuals, considering that is the intended audience to use the product. Their pitch deck is filled with straightforward facts and data that logically define the site’s worth, rather than more artistic and stylized elements. LinkedIn even goes a step further and shows the relations between the current most-used mediums for certain services and their older counterparts (e.g. using a bank in the past versus using PayPal in the present). This allows them to prove their point—that the internet has become the most-used base for services previously offered offline—and show their particular niche, again endearing themselves to their audience. Key Takeaway: Tailor your pitch deck content to your target audience. If your product or service is aimed at the younger generation, you’ll probably want to have more references to pop culture and familiar terms in your deck. If you’re pitching to a more mathematically-inclined group, your deck should be more organized and filled with data. Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by LinkedIn to get you started. 19. Fyre Festival Pitch Deck You might have already seen the Fyre Festival documentary on Netflix. If you haven’t, you should consider doing so, especially from a marketing point of view. Fyre Festival was the single most disastrous business event in the past years. But it also managed to round up millions of dollars from investors as it grew, all thanks to the social media hype and this over the top pitch deck . Savvy business owners with impeccable BS filters didn’t fall for the bright and shiny influencers being paraded on this pitch deck. But tons of other investors did, mostly due to the FOMO factor the slides presented. FOMO stands for “Fear of Missing Out,” and that is how Billy McFarland managed to get millions of dollars to fund a badly organized idea. Key Takeaway: This is the kind of pitch deck that will go down in history as the epitome of blinding investors with celebrities and expert social media schemes. The Fyre Festival pitch deck is not the best pitch deck, but it is a great example of how information can be manipulated. Here’s a pitch deck template inspired by Fyre Festival to get you started. 20. Manpacks Pitch Deck Manpacks was a subscription service that sold men’s underwear, socks, toiletries and other products. The service was discontinued in 2018, but was an absolute hit when it first launched in 2010. Manpacks' pitch deck managed to raise $500,000 in funding over one round. For starters, their business model was unique and solved an actual need — regularly shipping basic essentials to men who dislike shopping or are just lazy. But what really got to investors was the fact that Manpacks knew who they were. Their brand voice was reflected in every slide of their pitch deck. Better yet, they knew who their target audience was, which is also why the service had as many as 10,000 subscribers at one point. Key Takeaway: Understanding who you are as a brand and being able to express that clearly is just as important as knowing your product — and the best pitch decks are designed with that in mind. Manpacks’ pitch deck is short, but it does the job by communicating the problem, solution, value proposition and incentive for investors all in a fun tone that’s aligned with their brand voice . If you're looking to create a light-hearted but on-brand pitch deck similar to Manpacks', here's a fun, colorful and illustrative pitch deck template you can use for your own startup. 21. Coinbase Pitch Deck Coinbase is a cryptocurrency platform that lets people buy, sell and store digital currencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. To date, the company has raised nearly $550 million in funding over 14 rounds. What’s interesting is they still managed to raise a good amount even back in 2012 when only a handful of people knew about cryptocurrency. Coinbase's pitch deck above is a great example of how the company generated interest in the concept of digital currency by presenting data-driven arguments. Instead of talking about their own growth, they start by focusing on the growth of Bitcoin, and why it’s worth investing in a service made specifically for that digital currency. Key Takeaway: Using data to support your claims can help you build trust and credibility in the eyes of potential investors. The best pitch decks make this data easier to understand by visualizing it into charts and graphs, just like Coinbase did. Let’s also take a moment to appreciate how Coinbase used ratios and the example of iTunes to successfully capture the essence of its product in four words. Use the pitch deck template below inspired by Coinbase to put focus on your solution. 22. Snapchat Pitch Deck Back in 2011, Snapchat came up with the unique idea of sharing photos and videos that disappear after a short time. Their pitch deck below from 2014 is not exactly an investor pitch deck — Snapchat designed this presentation to introduce businesses to their product and its marketing value, and to convince them to sign up for a business account. The presentation above carries immense value if you’re looking for a sales pitch deck example that’s minimalistic and effective. The slides are clean and full of images, which makes it easier for businesses to quickly look through and get the point. We especially love the “What Do I Snap?” and “Get the Word Out” slides, which show businesses how they can use the app for marketing purposes with the help of visual examples. Key Takeaway: Stuffing text into your slides is not always the answer. Using images can be much more effective at familiarizing people with your product’s features and functionality. Also, think about whether your audience would find more value in real examples or fictional ones. Snapchat uses actual examples from existing brands using the platform to show businesses how others like them are taking advantage of new marketing opportunities. Here's a pitch deck template inspired by Snapchat that you can use to showcase your product visually. 23. YouTube Pitch Deck With over 2 billion users , YouTube is the largest video sharing platform in the world. The company has raised around $83.5 million in funding in just two rounds. This professional pitch deck below is from their first funding round in 2005, when they pitched to Sequoia Capital. At the time, the platform had less than 10,000 users. YouTube’s investor presentation is a solid example of what a traditional pitch deck outline looks like. Keep in mind that the pitch deck is quite old, which is probably why it lacks good design and visuals. Even so, it covers key details by highlighting the problem, presenting the exact solution, listing the competition, and outlining the sales and distribution plan. Key Takeaway: If your product is unique and better than the competition, it will sell itself. In the case of pitch decks, great products are likely to attract investors even if you don’t focus too much on the design. Also, even if you’re keeping it basic, make sure you incorporate all the important details like what you plan to achieve and how you plan to get there. Use the pitch deck template below inspired by YouTube to highlight your key strengths and what makes you better than your competitors. As you work on your pitch deck in Visme, you have the opportunity to work collaboratively and brainstorm using the online whiteboard . Additionally, you can also use the workflow feature to work on projects together. Assign specific slides to particular team members and leave each other comments and feedback to finish the pitch deck together. 24. Facebook Pitch Deck We all know about Facebook — our beloved social media platform that helps us stay connected with our friends, family, colleagues, pets and the world in general. Till now, Facebook has secured over $2.3 billion in funding, and this pitch deck from 2004 played a key role in helping Mark Zuckerberg build the largest social network in the world. Initially, Facebook was created for the students, alumni, faculty and staff at Harvard University. Later, it expanded to include other schools and universities, but it wasn’t long until it transcended academic institutions and took over the world. Because Facebook wasn’t really making any money at the time, it relied on social proof as well as usage and engagement statistics to sell its idea — and it worked! Key Takeaway: As a startup, you don’t always need to have financial information to back up your idea. If you don’t currently have any revenue data to show, you can still make a strong case with usage, engagement and audience metrics that show potential for growth. Also, adding social proof can go a long way in building trust and credibility in front of investors. This works especially well if those customer reviews and testimonials talk about your potential for going big. Visualize usage and engagement statistics using the Facebook-inspired pitch deck template below. 25. Crunchbase Pitch Deck Crunchbase is one the best platforms for researching innovative startups and companies. The website lists important information like funding data, mergers and acquisitions, leadership positions and more. Their pitch deck below was part of their Series C funding round, and helped secure around $30 million . All in all, there’s a lot to learn from this good pitch deck example coming from a company focused on investment. As you can see, starting with a story helped investors see the opportunity for Crunchbase’s solution and understand the challenges people face while searching for reliable information about companies. So, when Crunchbase presented the solution, the investors were ready for it. Another interesting thing to note is Crunchbase’s use of visual analogies to highlight the gravity of the problem and the size of the potential opportunity. Key Takeaway: Set the stage with a story rather than trying to impress investors with big numbers on traffic and usage data. This will grab their attention and help them understand the purpose of your product. Also, using images and graphics as visual metaphors can help you drive the point home more effectively than with plain text. Start your own presentation with a story using Crunchbase's recreated startup pitch deck template below. 26. Contently Pitch Deck Contently is a popular content marketing platform that helps businesses with content strategy and connects them with a global talent network of writers, designers, filmmakers and more. With the pitch deck below, Contently was able to secure $9 million in funding back in 2014. The design of this pitch deck example is clean and bold. We especially like the big fonts, which get the message across clearly. The highlight of Contently’s pitch deck is probably the way they present the problem (and where they fit in.) They set the stage by talking about the huge market size, and then throw in a stat to highlight the problem within that market. Another good thing about this pitch deck is the use of social proof to build trust with potential investors. They do this with a powerful quote from Forbes in support of their platform. Key Takeaway: The design of your pitch deck matters a lot more than you’d think. Using large and bold fonts that’s aligned with your brand identity can a) help you highlight key points, and b) make you look confident. Grab attention using this pitch deck template inspired by Contently. 27. Wise (TransferWise) Pitch Deck Formerly known as TransferWise, this London-based money transfer service gained popularity primarily because of its innovative pricing model that charges users a minimal fee for transfers while showing them what they have to pay upfront. Since its inception in 2011, the company has raised around $1.3 billion in funding over 13 rounds. The pitch deck below is from 2012, and it helped Wise raise $1.3 million in funding. TransferWise’s deck is simple and straightforward, which is also its best quality. Instead of beating around the bush or trying to be too creative, they get straight to the point. This shows they clearly know what they’re doing. There’s also a good balance of text and visuals in this pitch deck — you never feel overwhelmed with too much information. They’ve also laid out their short-term and long-term priorities, which shows they have a good roadmap for the next year and a half. Key Takeaway: Let your product and value proposition guide the design of your pitch deck. If you’re solving a solid problem that doesn’t require too many words to explain, don’t use too many words — use numbers instead. In TransferWise’s case, their USP was (and still is) the low cost of money transfers, and they wasted no time in making that clear. Explain your product and pricing using this Wise-inspired pitch deck template: 28. Bliss Pitch Deck Bliss.ai launched in 2015 as a code review management platform that helped engineering teams analyze code quality. The company shut down after only a couple of years, but managed to raise around $750,000 in funding when it started with the help of the pitch deck below. Bliss’s pitch deck has a clean and professional design, which is in line with their business idea and brand voice. The deck is pretty decent and covers all key points. We love the fact that they establish what they do up front — this is important if you’re presenting a technical idea. The team slide is also very well done as it includes both the founders and the investors. Bliss has also done a good job with using social proof, such as testimonials and logos, to increase their credibility. Key Takeaway: If your company or product is more on the technical side, it’s a good idea to explain what it is and how it works before anything else. Talking about traction and clients won’t do you much good if your investors are still trying to figure out what you do. Briefly explain the purpose of your SaaS company with this Bliss-inspired pitch deck template. Create a stunning presentation in less time Hundreds of premade slides available Add animation and interactivity to your slides Choose from various presentation options When your pitch deck presentation is ready, you can share it as a live Flipbook document, an interactive PDF or a printable document. Once sent to your prospects, you can track performance like opens, views, and demographics through the analytics dashboard . 29. Castle Pitch Deck Castle was a property management platform founded in 2014. The company closed its operations four years later, but their pitch deck below helped raise over $270,000 in funding in its early days. The great thing about this pitch deck is that you can see the team’s personality show through. The headers are non-traditional and sum up key ideas. The design is clean and bold. Also, they’ve used icons and illustrations to highlight key points, which is a nice touch. Castle’s pitch deck also does an excellent job at presenting the value proposition up front. We also like the “And we have some great ways to grow” slide, which shows that they’ve put a considerable amount of thought into making it big. Key Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to show some personality in your pitch deck template . If you’re friendly and approachable, incorporate design elements that exude the same feelings in your presentation slides. Also, if you have ideas that are not yet concrete, it might not be a bad idea to share them anyway. It shows investors that you’ve at least made the effort to think about your business. Show your personality and share ideas with this pitch deck template inspired by Castle: 30. Shift Pitch Deck Shift’s journey started in 2013 as an automotive marketplace. One of their major selling points was convenience — car sellers could get a price estimate and inspection for their car, while car buyers could get the car delivered to them for a test drive. The Series A pitch deck below helped the company raise around $24 million . Let’s see what we can learn from this investor presentation. Click here to view Shift's pitch deck. Shift’s pitch deck has a clean, minimalistic design with plenty of visuals. Along with images, and screenshots of their website and app, they also generously use icons to highlight key points. We also like how they visualize the process of how their service works, and also answer the who, why and how behind their business idea. One of the best things about this pitch deck is they also mention their own challenges, which is not something a lot of startups have the guts to do. This shows that the Shift team is realistic — they know it’s not going to be all sunshine and rainbows but they’re ready for the ride. Key Takeaway: It’s okay to acknowledge the challenges you’re potentially going to face down the road, as long as you have a plan to tackle these challenges, or even just the will to come up with a plan. It shows investors that you’re realistic, grounded and that you have a sense of responsibility. Be honest about your humble beginnings and tell your startup's success story in an engaging way with this Shift-inspired pitch deck template. 31. Cubeit Pitch Deck Cubeit was founded in 2012 as a collaborative OS — a place to share, save and organize content from different apps. The pitch deck below helped the startup raise $3 million in funding. Click here to view Cubeit's pitch deck. Right off the bat, we can tell that Cubeit’s pitch deck is more on the technical side. However, it still makes good use of visualizations and even includes a video demo. They start strong, and have also included a customer profile in one of their slides, which shows they’ve done their research and that they know who their product is for. Key Takeaway: If you’re in the SaaS business, adding a video demo of your product to your pitch deck is a great idea. It helps investors understand how your product works much better than with static screenshots. To make your video more effective, consider adding a voiceover and even text and animations. Use the pitch deck template below inspired by Cubeit to highlight key technical points about your product. 32. Revolut Pitch Deck Revolut launched as a digital banking service in 2015. The company offered peer-to-peer payments, currency exchange and pre-paid debit card services. To date, they’ve raised around $1.7 billion in funding over 14 rounds — which is a huge amount. The pitch deck below is a good example of a fintech startup presentation. This pitch deck uses a lot of screenshots, and they’re displayed nicely on phone screens, which helps add some perspective. They’ve also included example use cases, comparisons with their competition and information on how they will use the funds. Key Takeaway: When using visuals for your pitch deck, go beyond images and screenshots. Think about creative ways to showcase your screenshots, such as with the help of phone mockups. Showcase your app or software using this Revolut-inspired pitch deck template: 33. Alto Pitch Deck Alto (previously ScriptDash) came to the scene in 2015 with the innovative idea of a digital pharmacy. Their services included coordinating with doctors and delivering prescriptions to patients on a recurring or on-demand basis. The pitch deck below was used by the company to raise funds during their seed round. Alto’s pitch deck is refreshingly short and sweet. The slides come with nice, descriptive headers (with most of them being questions) and the presentation aptly explains the big idea, how the product works and why the timing is just right. They’ve also done a fair bit of homework on potential scalability, which can be seen in their cost of acquisition and expansion slides. Key Takeaway: Sometimes, keeping it short and concise can be the best thing you can do for your investor presentation. The goal of a pitch deck is not to secure funding, it’s to make it to the next meeting. Even if your slides are short, they should be intriguing and full of value, so much so that they make investors want to know more. Present your solution and keep it short and sweet with this pitch deck template inspired by Alto: 34. Wayfair Pitch Deck Wayfair is a popular American e-commerce company offering millions of home and furniture products from thousands of global suppliers. Their pitch deck from 2015 offers a great example of what an established company that wants to grow bigger should have in their presentation slides. Wayfair’s investor presentation is comprehensive, data-driven and aligned with their brand’s visual style. The slides focus on the brand’s uniqueness and what makes it so special. They make a clear point about how they understand their customers’ shopping behavior and tailor their website experience to their needs, unlike search-based stores like Amazon. They also make full use of their impressive numbers and statistics to put together a compelling offer for investors. Key Takeaway: If you have data, flaunt it. Established brands have the powerful advantage of using their current success to back their expansion plans. Also, if you’ve already seen some success, you need to show that you earned it in your pitch deck not just with data, but also with good branding, marketing and design skills. Show off your idea using this Wayfair-inspired pitch deck template: 35. Walmart - Flipkart Pitch Deck Flipkart is one of the largest e-commerce companies in India, second only to Amazon. In 2018, Walmart acquired more than 70% of Flipkart’s shares in a $16 billion deal with the help of the pitch deck below. The presentation above focuses less on Walmart and more on how both companies can create value together, which is the selling point of the deal. The slides dive deep into the Indian e-commerce market and the opportunities it offers, and then go on to talk about how Walmart’s strategy is a good fit for Flipkart. Key Takeaway: When you talk about creating value, consider every single stakeholder you can create value for, instead of just focusing on the end customer. Talk about the value you can create for the community in general, the shareholders, the associates and even other businesses. Explain how your business will benefit the stakeholders and add value using the pitch deck template below inspired by Walmart and Flipkart. Bonus: Startup Pitch Deck Presentation Theme Looking for more than a simple slide template? We've got the ultimate pitch deck theme to help you pull together all of the perfect slides. It all starts with a story. Our pitch deck theme centers around 12 different startup archetypes or founder stories that can help you pull the best introduction slides and put together the best story that really sells your pitch. Check out the introduction category of this theme's slides to read all about the different archetypes and pinpoint how you should angle your pitch deck's intro and overall brand story. This theme offers over 60 different slide options for your startup to choose from when building the best pitch deck. Try out the investor pitch deck theme for your next pitch deck. Pitch Deck FAQ Q1. what is in a pitch deck. A pitch deck is a brief presentation that provides an overview of your company, business plan and vision. It typically includes critical information such as your business concept, the problem your company solves, your target market, competitive advantages, team members, and financial projections. The best startup pitch decks are not only engaging but share compelling stories about the business venture that pique investors' interest in your business. Q2. What Is the Purpose of a Pitch Deck? The primary purpose of a pitch deck is to capture the interest of potential investors or clients by presenting a business idea in a compelling and persuasive manner. It serves as a tool to facilitate discussion and encourage further engagement. A winning pitch deck should clearly convey your business's value proposition and illustrate why it's worth investing in. Q3. What Are the Types of Pitch Decks? There are several types of pitch decks, each serving a unique purpose and audience. Here are four notable types: Startup Pitch Deck: This type of pitch deck showcases your startup's vision, mission, and potential to investors and partners. Investor Pitch Deck : This deck focuses on the investment opportunity, detailing the financial potential and how the funds will be used. Elevator Pitch Deck: A brief pitch highlighting the most compelling points of a business or idea, designed to catch interest quickly. Sales Pitch Deck: Used for presenting a product or service to potential clients or customers, emphasizing benefits and competitive advantages. Q4. What Are the Key Elements of a Pitch Deck? The structure of a pitch deck can vary, but some essential slides include: Problem: Clearly define the problem you're solving. Solution: Explain how your product or service addresses the problem. Market: Describe your target audience and the size of the market opportunity. Team: Introduce the key people behind your business and highlight their expertise. Traction: Share any early successes or milestones you've achieved. Financials: Provide a brief overview of your revenue model and financial projections. Q5. How Long Is a Pitch Deck? The ideal length of a pitch deck is 10 to 20 slides. Investors and clients appreciate brevity and clarity. However, striking the right balance is key to delivering a good pitch. So you need to keep it concise while including all necessary information. Writing a pitch deck that's too long can lose your audience's attention, while one that's too short may omit essential information about your business. Get Started With Your Own Pitch Deck If you want to create an amazing pitch deck that highlights your business idea and appeals to the right investors, Visme's pitch deck templates can help you get started on the right foot. Our investor pitch deck templates are designed by professionals and contain realistic information to help guide your own pitch deck content creation process. You can download your finished pitch deck in various formats, like PPTX, PDF and even HTML5. You can also share your presentation online via a link or embed it within your website. Remember; the key is to stay true to your message, stay true to your brand, be honest and show results. Here's another great resource to help you learn how to create a pitch deck for your startup. Did you find these pitch deck examples helpful? Which one is your favorite? We’d love to know what you think! Let us know your comments and feedback below. Create beautiful pitch decks in minutes with Visme. Trusted by leading brands Recommended content for you: Create Stunning Content! Design visual brand experiences for your business whether you are a seasoned designer or a total novice. About the Author Orana is a multi-faceted creative. She is a content writer, artist, and designer. She travels the world with her family and is currently in Istanbul. Find out more about her work at oranavelarde.com The Only 10 Slides You Need in Your Pitch I am evangelizing the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. It’s quite simple: a pitch should have ten slides , last no more than twenty minutes , and contain no font smaller than thirty points . This rule is applicable for any presentation to reach an agreement: for example, raising capital, making a sale, forming a partnership, etc. Ten slides. Ten is the optimal number of slides in a PowerPoint presentation because a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting—and venture capitalists are very normal. (The only difference between you and venture capitalist is that he is getting paid to gamble with someone else’s money). If you must use more than ten slides to explain your business, you probably don’t have a business. Twenty minutes . You should give your ten slides in twenty minutes. Sure, you have an hour time slot, but you’re using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector. Even if the setup goes perfectly, people will arrive late and have to leave early. In a perfect world, you give your pitch in twenty minutes, and you have forty minutes left for discussion. Thirty-point font . The majority of the presentations that I see have text in a ten-point font. As much text as possible is jammed into the slide, and then the presenter reads it. However, as soon as the audience figures out that you’re reading the text, it reads ahead of you because it can read faster than you can speak. The result is that you and the audience are out of synch. I hope this helps you create a winning pitch deck for your startup. If you’re interested in this template, you’re probably an entrepreneur. Please check out my podcast, Remarkable People , to learn from remarkable entrepreneurs such as Steve Wozniak (Apple), Melanie Perkins (Canva), Suzy Batiz (Poo Pourri), Steve Wolfram (Mathematica), and Melissa Bernstein (Melissa and Doug). Share This Story, Choose Your Platform! About the author: guy kawasaki. Related Posts 46 Comments Very good points. Sometimes less is more, especially when you are trying to get important points across and increase your credibility. I fully subscribe to this logic…just find it interesting that were you to convert this excellent info-graphic to slides it would equal approximately 15 slides. Your presentation is meant to support the message you’re communicating, not obscure it. I can’t agree with the thought ” a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting “. Using more than ten slides to explain for my business may not break my standard level.thanks Very good simple and pragmatic tool useful in various domains. I see many applications for NGOs either with policy makers or donors. We need more of those to help them integrate private sector good practices, and hence gain in professionalism, impact and coherence. Why is this not the template used for Shark Tank? HA! This is the exact same template used for Shark Tank, minus the deck / linear format. Otherwise, all these topics are the key focal points of their discussions. Loved this article especially the part about “using a Windows laptop, so it will take forty minutes to make it work with the projector” .. hehehe! I love this article. However, this comment ( his comment ) is unnecessary and distracting – it could have been eliminated and the article would be even stronger. I’ve been burned enough times with projectors and Apple computers that I rigorously avoid them – a personal choice. Yet, I wouldn’t have injected my bias about Apple into this article if I was wrote it. In ‘ The Art of the Keynote Guy says ‘ Don’t denigrate the competition ‘ – good advice. Apparently Microsoft is the competition. He should follow his own counsel. And the reality is it’s true you wouldn’t spend 40 minutes trying to get it to work with an apple. You’d realize immediately you don’t have the right adapter that’d be that. I didn’t get past the first line because the phrase is “in a pinch” not “pitch”. Peggy is this a joke? The author is referring to a sales pitch. There’s no such thing as a “sales pinch.” He’s not referencing your phrase. Only one slide is missing… Defensibility & IP. Every good pitch has some sort of moat. Trade secrets, patents, exclusivity agreements, etc. Investors want to have some sort of competitive advantage and protections. Same goes for sales pitches. Brian – wouldn’t that would be in the Underlying Magic? Dave – Not really. The underlying magic is your “model”; what are you doing differently to address the need in the market? As an investor, you want exclusivity in the market to that magical way of addressing the need. That means you have a legal way to defend the IP (e.g. patents, copyrights, etc.). With those elements your execution in fulfilling the need becomes less important, and thereby reduces investor risk, because in the end we can then license the IP to someone who can. How would someone protect a big idea let’s say as example the idea of Facebook. A network idea. A big idea, but one that could be grabbed and replicated. How do you protect “the idea” even from those angel investors you are pitching to? Do you ask investors to sign anything before you pitch? I am stuck at this very fundamental starting point. I agree. This is where I am stuck. My business model and idea are based around a network sales concept and exclusive market niche (a huge niche). How do I protect that? Do I need to protect this idea, even from presenting to investors? How do you protect a network concept, for instance how would you have protected the idea of Facebook going in to present the concept to investors? Is stealth, speed of execution, launch and quick scaling the only ways? @Briand and Dave, What I recall from the book, Underlying Magic refers to differentiation; which can take the form of IP, unfair advantage or innovative resource/model. Great Article. I completely agree with Guy, the attention span of most people is max 20 minutes after which the human mind has moved on. the slides may be more than 10 but really your message is only heard in the first 15 to 20 minutes. Lol so agree with the 40 minutes set up time :) that is something we see all the time.. Great article! nice to read. is there any example or presentation, if you have please share with us. I would add use of pictures and graphs along with text in the presentation. Pictures catch great deal attention and they communicate well. I would also add presenter’s voice pitch and connecting with audience while presenting. Guy’s 10 slides are clearly structured as a pitch presentation format for investors. Having now been on both sides of the table, I can confidently say they are an effective template / discipline for getting your story focused on the essential check list of questions that investors will have, for keeping their attention, and for whetting their appetites to want to learn more .. and potentially attracting a champion in the process. With a strong leader taking command of the presentation, these guidelines work well for improving your batting average attracting $. As Mark Twain said, “If I had more time I’d have made it shorter”. If that was ever more true, it’s with investors who are barraged daily with deals. Love the 10/20/30 philosophy and am rewriting an article => video to follow. Some of the comments make me a bit concerned though. some wat to relavent about internation affairs of nationality inthe antise social group….!!!! What is your take on the PechaKucha format of 20 x 20 – 20 slides , 20 seconds each? In a world of decreasing attention spans do you think this format has the ability to add a bit more Zing and Energy to a presentation? Allows more time for Q & A then too. This is very, very helpful to me in creating my pitch. This is realy helpful I using the same in my studies here in Kenya Thank you GK, I used it. I raised capital for my young company. Very good simple and pragmatic tool useful in various domains. well elaborated design and understandable. Funny thing is, I am using Canva for a project presentation in a Strategic Sales class and this was the first useful article I found to help me get a start on it. I can agree with this as someone who make many pitch decks. I like the idea of 10, but it is not feasible as there is no consumer insight, media quotes, simple marketing plan, etc. Yes. there should be 10 topics, but that does not mean 10 slides as some topics do take multiple slides, even if just a media coverage quote on a slide to introduce a topic. Guy Kawasaki pitch deck are very small but very helpful for startup, however have a look this one pitch deck, https://goo.gl/QaCrPT it have 450+ slides cover all the topics of every pitch. 6 categories template such as marketing, sales, investor, startup, I think it’s interesting that “Exit Strategy” is a stupid question. Perhaps what Guy is saying is the “Underlying Magic” is the exit strategy? I really like the book The art of start 2.0. He explains in simple words and its easy to understand. I recommend the book! I agree with Guy’s thoughts. In addition: Make up a deck. Show it to a friend. Then 2 days later ask them what it said. Tweak the deck so that the viewer is left with 3 or 4 most important bullets. These should be very much akin to the notions in the Elevator Pitch. Does anyone have any good examples of anyone using this format? It would be nice to see this applied. People invest in people so my pitch decks, based on Guy’s approach, have the team slide in position #2. The 3-4 key individuals are listed as follows: Joe Shmo Head of Engineering Cal Berkeley – MS Computer Science Previously VP Engineering @ Lightning Networks (acquired by Cisco) Driving product development I don’t make a big deal about the CFO and never use “R&D” in the pitch. VC’s early on dictate who the CFO is, and one VC told me years ago that “research is done in universities, not with my money” Limit of 10 slides enforces you to be concise, to see and display a core of the project. And it is critical to be understandable for audience. When you don’t spend additional time of investors, they see that you respect them. So they will respect you. I’m looking for a pitch deck for a veterans non-profit. Hello every body, I’m a senior counselor for entrepreneurship and business in knowledge-based as well as normal habitant civil services. In my opinion, the very pre-condition for any good presentation is good idea with tested de-coupled sub-phases of the business. The investor and his/her venture capitalist is plausibly expert to capture the subject. If you don’t have a great and sizable business idea don’t expect that you will win with any trick such 10/20/30. These rules are suitable for great-idea owners. One of my ask for pitch deck. Your advise on pitch deck relief me from the pressure.But when i started to do the pitch deck , it takes 3 hours to complete and i made only 8 slide. I realized that i am weak at PowerPoint presentation. Can you release a course on power-point? Thank You Valuable help for all our startups. The article is very well written; short but useful. Thanks for sharing such a useful piece of content. Guy, I love this format and I push it on all the entrepreneurs I coach. As I’m prepping to give a presentation and share it though, I see that the infographic form is actually impossible to present in PPT. Text is too small and formatting isn’t right. Seems like the infographic needs a little rework to be most useful! Very well written article. Thanks for sharing such a useful piece of content. Beautiful Article, Guy! Short and to the point and explained your points with proper justification. Rhyming concept 10/20/30 too. Minimalism at its finest. 10 slides felt a bit less at first but the infographic made things very clear. Leave a Reply Cancel reply 337 IMAGES 7 Incredible Ways to Structure Your Presentation Pitch Structure Ppt Powerpoint Presentation Outline Show Cpb CÓMO ESTRUCTURAR UN PITCH 7 Ways to Structure Your Presentation to Keep Your Audience Wanting Structure of a pitch deck Pitch Deck: Complete Guide to a Pitch Presentation VIDEO Pitch Presentation Social Innovation Solution Ganesh S Pitch Presentation (videopresentación) Pitch Deck Success: How to Tell Your Startup’s Story Effectively How to Deliver a Perfect Pitch Every Time Indefinite Pitch PREMIERES. Diagram Mr. Pitch Deck COMMENTS How to structure a winning presentation If you want your audience to stay engaged, you need to structure your ideas as a well-crafted story. Follow these three steps to clearly define your narrative before you start creating your slides ... How to structure your pitch deck to win over investors 6 essential components of a pitch deck. No matter what stage of funding your company is at, your pitch deck will need to cover each of these topics: Your mission or vision. The problem you're ... Guide to Pitch Decks: 10 Elements to Include in a Pitch Deck Guide to Pitch Decks: 10 Elements to Include in a Pitch Deck. A pitch deck can give businesses and entrepreneurs a detailed but concise snapshot of their company to attract investors. Understanding the necessary elements of a successful pitch deck can help bring you one step closer to the funding you need. A pitch deck can give businesses and ... How to create impactful pitch presentations Audience interaction. Question prompts: To make your pitch presentation more interactive, encourage audience participation and questions. Read the room: Always be aware of the audience's reactions and adjust accordingly. If they seem disinterested, you might need to change your approach or pace. As a pitch deck presenter, your role is to deliver your content in a way that makes an impact. A Complete Pitch Presentation Guide (with Examples) Comprising 10-20 slides, a pitch presentation highlights key aspects like the business model, traction, and roadmap. This guide outlines the essential structure of a pitch deck, including sections like introduction, status quo, product, market, why us, and the ask. It emphasizes the importance of narrating your company's story, persuading ... What is a Pitch Deck? Examples, Tips and Templates A pitch deck is a visual presentation that tells the story of a business to persuade and engage potential investors. The most common pitch deck slides are introduction, problem, solution, market size and opportunity, product, traction, team, competition, financials and use of funds. Learn from the eight real-life pitch deck examples to get ... What Makes a Great Pitch What Makes a Great Pitch. by. Michael Quinn. May 06, 2020. Eric Dreyer/Getty Images. Summary. A good pitch is a balancing act that can be adjusted to the currents in the room. A recent survey of ... What is a Pitch Deck? Meaning, Characteristics and Templates Pitch deck presentation vs investor deck . An investor deck is a more comprehensive version of the pitch deck (concise summary of a business plan) and includes information on financial details, market analysis, competitive landscape, and strategy. ... Tell a story: Structure your pitch deck to guide viewers through the problem, solution, and ... How to do a Pitch Deck Presentation (plus free templates!) Pitch Deck Presentation Templates. This template pack has 3 incredible slides that would fit perfectly into any Pitch Deck. First, its vision and mission slide will allow you to give your audience a more in-depth look at what your business is really about. It also has a great geometrical process diagram. How to Create a Pitch Deck? 10 Must Slides to Include The first slide of your pitch deck will set the tone for the rest of the presentation. The business overview (title slide) should briefly capture the core of your idea and stand out to investors. Include your logo. title slide. Name of your idea, business, or startup. Summarize your concept into a catchy headline. How to create the perfect Pitch Deck presentation Use only images: on the flip side, no text can result in a lack of understanding. Use small fonts: everything should be legible, clear and easy to read. By taking into consideration this list of do's and don'ts you should be capable of creating the perfect pitch deck. Pitch Deck Structuring Tips: Building Blocks & Key Outlines Pitch Deck Structure: Opportunity Slide to Showcase Your Startup's Potential. Infographic: Pitch Deck Opportunity Slide ... A pitch deck is a brief presentation, often created using software like PowerPoint or Keynote, that provides an overview of a startup's business model, product or service, target audience, and other key elements. ... Pitch Deck Guide: Templates and Examples for Pitching to Investors Elevator Pitch Template. One-Minute Pitch Template. Simple Pitch Deck Template (To edit and use, click "File" and then "Make a Copy") Long Template. Angel/VC Template. 1. Introduction. If you're like most founders, you probably think about your startup 24/7. You wake up in the morning brainstorming product features, and you fall ... How to Make Pitch Deck Presentations with Examples The first part of your pitch deck discusses the problem your company's target audience is facing. You want to make potential investors aware of a gap in the market and how your company is uniquely positioned to fill it. The problem slide provides context to the market, so your presentation may also want to include your customers and their ... What is a Pitch Deck? Meaning, Example, and Guide A pitch deck is a short and concise presentation, usually created using PowerPoint, Keynote, or similar software, used to provide your audience with a quick overview of your business plan. It typically covers key aspects such as your company's mission, business model, market opportunity, product or service, competitive landscape, financials ... 5 Steps to Create a Successful Pitch Presentation Create a Structure. Combine your answers from step 1 and the supporting information from step 2 into a cohesive, coherent presentation. For example, you could structure your presentation like this: Identify a problem. Offer a potential solution. Position yourself as the best person/company to offer that solution. Pitch Deck Structure: What Investors Want To See The structure of a pitch deck includes six main sections: the intro, the status quo section, the product section, the market section, the why us section and the ask. A pitch deck should strive to achieve three objectives: ‍. It needs to tell your company story. It needs to convince the investor that they can make money with this. Build a Winning Pitch Deck: A Slide-by-Slide Guide with Examples Most pitch decks will follow a similar flow, which you should not deviate too far from. (Differentiation should come from the content, not the structure of your presentation.) You should keep the presentation to 8-12 slides and include any other pertinent information in appendices. Pitch Presentations: Sell ideas to your audience in minutes! Persuade potential investors with a pitch presentation of your business idea! Tips on: Types of pitch ️ Preparation ️ Implementation ️ ... The following structure is great for covering all the important information in your pitch presentation in the short time available: Slide 1: Title slide (Short, snappy dsecription of your business idea) 30 Startup Investment Pitch Deck Examples (+Templates) A pitch deck presentation is a slideshow that introduces a business idea, product, or service to investors. Typically consisting of 10-20 slides, a pitch deck is used to persuade potential investors to provide funding for a business. It serves as a comprehensive overview of your company, outlining your business model, the problem you solve ... 35 Best Pitch Decks From Real-Life Startups [With Templates] Cubeit Pitch Deck. Revolut Pitch Deck. Alto Pitch Deck. Wayfair Pitch Deck. Walmart - Flipkart Pitch Deck. 1. Dropbox Pitch Deck. Dropbox is one of the pioneers of cloud storage as we know it today, and their pitch deck from 2007 was all about revolutionizing the way people stored and shared important data. The Only 10 Slides You Need in Your Pitch I am evangelizing the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint. It's quite simple: a pitch should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points. This rule is applicable for any presentation to reach an agreement: for example, raising capital, making a sale, forming a partnership, etc. Ten slides. assignment essay homework paper phd report resume review speech thesis