The nicest Pitch deck template investors will love

And within those 3 threads you need to discuss the following topics:

• Problem / opportunity,
• Solution / value proposition,
• Product,
• Underlying magic / secret sauce: how you are going to do it,
• Press / user testimonials,
• Market size,
• Market Validation / why now,
• Competition,
• Marketing plan / go-to market strategy,
• Business model,
• Traction / milestones,
• Team,
• Investment.‍

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Do I have to present all of the above?

We’d say the best idea is to create them all nevertheless. Then it’ll be your assessment whether you’ll have to include them all or not - you can follow this rule of thumb:

Does it bring something new to the story/idea? If yes - keep it.

Although some slides are considered to be necessary. We’ve bolded those items on the list for you.

What about slide order?

We’ve also prepared it for you: this list creates a story, although feel free to swap slides within chapter. But have a good explanation ready why you’re doing so.

It’s possible to showcase your product in a creative way, the doors are open. Possibly you could surprise your audience with a remarkably quaint speech or a performance. It’s great that you’re trying to get creative… but you should leave the pitch deck order as it is. It’s constructed like this for a reason - investors expect a specific standard.

And honestly - that works in your favour. Because someone before you has taught investors how to understand new products.

So while it’s time consuming, we wouldn’t call it boring. Actually, you might learn a lot about your product while building your deck!

Thread no. 1: The Product

Problem

Probably one of the most important slides. The total must-have in the presentation.

• It’s an origin of your idea.
• It gives your product meaning.
• It brings attention.
• It sets the stage for a presentation.

It proves investors that you have indeed found something that may bring value to the market.

After this one, your audience will start figuring out the rest of the presentation (they all know the drill), question your solution, imagine the market and the opportunities… And the other slides will actually follow that trail. Let them question it and tell what they want to hear.

This slides, plants the seed in the audience's head.

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Diving into specifics:

Start with the statement. A true situation that is hard to argue about. Make it big and serious.

Nobody cares about petty problem. There is no market for petty problems.

Make it a relatable story, but don't put it in the slide. Ideally - trigger storytelling in the audience, as this would make the audience feel like it’s a universal problem.

If you can personalize it - do it. Even a simple question like: “Have you ever had this problem” could validate your idea. If most of your audience murmurs in agreement - then you’ve reached an important milestone.

Supposing your product solves a couple of problems: still, focus on only one (tops two). You can still make a couple of statements about this specific issue.

Although the market issue might be extremely specific, not related to audience in any chance. If that’s the case for you, don’t ask the audience if they encountered the problem, as it may kill your pitch. Focus on the hard, cold, data instead.

#makeitbig #personalize #storytelling #relevant

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Solution

Now you ought to respond to a previously defined problem. And this slide will do the trick.

The problem and solution should work together perfectly. Can be said in one breath. I want cake so I’ll buy flour.

Make it simple and easy to understand.
Solution brings value to your idea.

Describe the solution in one sentence, while indicating the obvious benefits. But don’t showcase your product yet! Now you’re showcasing your thorough analysis of the problem and came up with a solution. Don’t explain how it works. That’s what you’ll do later.

At this stage you might be also wondering what’s the difference between solution and product? It feels similar, so how to put a clear line between those two?

Search for analogies. Even simple ones! Imagine, that our problem is a loose screw. If I were you, I’d use a screwdriver to fix the issue. However, the screwdriver is not a solution, but a product. The solution is tightening the screw and using your product it’s possible.

On this slide you’ll showcase how to tighten the screw. The screwdriver will be next.

Another bit you could list here are the effects of your solution, and this slight is the right place for that. Keep it simple, yet meaningful. No more than 3.

#simple #value #effects

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Product

Let the screwdriver shine now.

Show how it looks like. Visualize the way it’s used. Good design and visuals are the key to make this slide real and believable:

• If you have a prototype, then show it
• Throw in a couple of eye-pleasing screens,
• GIFs / short videos showcasing the functionalities give bonus points,
• Use mockups if you aren’t that far with the product.

All in all, keep in mind the following principle:
Rather show than tell.

Important thing to note: don’t show HOW your product works. Because...

#gif #prototype #how #mockup

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Underlying magic

… you’ll explain the details on this slide.

If you have a patent or smart new way of doing something - show it.
Just like you can show how exactly, and using what mechanisms, your product is solving the problem.

Although we will admit here: it’s not always easy to dive deep into the magic behind your solution. But the rule of thumb will be to keep it as simple as possible. Worst case scenario, you’ll be asked questions about it afterwards: this is a green light to dive very deep into detail.

#how #detail #patent #magic
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Press or user testimonials

Unfortunately it’s not always possible to implement this slide, as your solution may be untested by the users or be showcased in the media. But what you could do instead is to take a step back and push hard to deliver the solution to at least some users to have their testimonials. Not for the sake of having this slide in your pitched, but to validate your solution/product.

Because this slide is about product validation. It’s a hard fact that your product works in real life, and not just on paper.

Hint: If the above is not possible for any reason, this could be partially substituted with quotes from other people. It could be even online comments. Anything that has been said by someone other than you and your relatives but clearly shows that your product is needed.

#testimonials #facts #SocialProof

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Thread no. 2: The Market

Market size

How large this company can become. To do so it’s crucial to understand how big the market is, and what portion of it you can carve for you business.
You can use two strategies.

Search for a large market you’d like to conquer. Investors really like people who aim big and high, and targeting a large market will prove that your idea has big potential.

Think about electric scooters, on the rise since 2017. What’s the market they’re disrupting?

Duh, it’s obvious - scooters.

WRONG. There was almost no market for such back in 2017! The product was relatively new and yet to conquer the market. The good answer is: Transportation. Which covers bikes, cars, rollerblades… Quite a big market.

Show how large your company can become. For this, you can use two strategies:

Top down: Very Optimistic. It bases on the following data:

• TAM – Total Available Market
• SAM – Serviceable Available Market
• SOM – Serviceable Obtainable Market

PROTIP: if you lack the data about your domestic market, try to use data from other relevant market and extrapolate it to your market.

Bottom up – Realistic:

• Where and how similar products are sold,
• The number/value of sales,
• The slice you can carve out.

Bottom up strategy creates sobering and realistic and expectations towards the revenue stream.

#thinkbig #market #data #estimation

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Market Validation

This slide is a massive WHY NOW AND NOT TOMORROW for the investors.

If this is not a unique moment and anyone could have realized this idea much earlier, you may want to ask yourself why it did not happen? Investors will definitely ask themselves this question.

It may not have happened because of trends and recent changes that blocked it from happening. Those include...

• Changes in the regulatory landscape,
• New and buzzing technologies,
• Social changes,
• Market-related trends,

It’s always good idea to connect any of these with the problem!

#whynow #uniquemoment #trends #change

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Competition

Build this slide to make a point. You need a strong and relevant conclusion to make this slide.

Because it’s risky.

If the only thing you can say about your competition is that “they are” - there is no point to make this slide.

Two best case conclusions to make here are:

• There is no competition - perfect, yet in so many cases an unrealistic scenario,
• Competition is taking a different approach - good enough, as you can showcase your competitive advantages.

So check your competition first:

• Google your problem, ads for their services might pop-up.
• Check if they are really solving the problem you define. If not - they are not your competition.
• Segment competition on different approach they are taking to solve the problem.
• Take two major factors (metrics) in your industry (f.e. price, quality, safety, speed, service…)
• Rate both your competition and yourself in these two major factors
• Make a graph that will show distinction of your product from the competition
• Keep the metrics relevant from the business point of view.

#distinction #metrics #factors

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Marketing Plan

Extremely important slide! This is where the actual product meets the market. The goal is to showcase that ever bit of your product fits the market needs and characteristics.

Describe how you’ll enter the market. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but you don’t have to showcase growth hacking tips and tricks. Sometimes it’s enough to show a:

• Ready marketing strategy,
• Ongoing marketing operations,
• Small group who’s aware of your product and ready to adopt it.

Often a bizarre product on a bizarre market will require - you got that right - bizarre marketing practices. So don’t be generic in this slide! It is your product idea and with this slide you must prove that you know the target group like the palm of your hand. In particular, communication channels and messaging is clearly defined.

#strategy #targetgroup #channels

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Thread no. 3: Development

Business model

While a lot has changed since the good old pitching days, one thing is still the same: showing how you’ll earn money. So in the first slide of the section dedicated to dirty work you'll need to show:

• What’s the primary revenue stream,
• How you can differentiate your current revenue stream and what’s the general potential for it,
• If your product is subscription-based, what are the models,
• Revenue targets: market potential (expected no. sales) times price, to show business profitability.

#revenue #price #predictions
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Traction & milestones

Now your audience should know almost everything about your idea how to get the product up and running.

What remains is to convince them that you have a solid plan on how to conquer the world from this state.

This slide is to show that you have everything under control, goals are clearly achievable and what’s the timeframe for that. Think roadmaps.

#plan #goals #milestones
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Team

Finally - now it’s turn to showcase your beautiful face!

This slide is about team introduction, where the most important aspect is to show this unique blend of various skills, knowledge, experiences and there’s no other team like yours to get the product up and running.

But please remember to show the most relevant experience, which could fit within a few lines. The most sought after combination of skills are: Business & Sales, Technology, Marketing & Design.

Team slide will finish the product section and will nicely wrap who’s responsible for the previous slides - it can work like a credits section, where everyone gets their praise for creating such a masterpiece, because at this stage you should’ve got everyone inside really excited.

#people #skills #unique
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Investment

With this slide things might get a bit less comfortable, as you’ll be showing how much money you need.

What’s important: this slide is for your use only. You'll discuss it during the pitch, but don’t show it to the audience, unless asked. You'd rather treat this as a part for further negotiations. Focus on answering the key 3 questions:

• How much money do you need to raise and for what?
• How this investment will turn out for the business?
• How much equity do you want to give for that investment?

With this slide finished, we’re pretty confident about one thing: your content is good to go!

#money #equity #investment

There’s now one thing left…

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Chapter 3: Finishing touches

Design - why good-looking things sell

No matter how informative and clear your content is, it won’t be memorable if it’s written in Arial 11.

Design in the pitch deck serves multiple purposes:

• Shows the audience you’re familiar with branding concept and will have no trouble reaching the target audience with your messaging,
• Highlights the most relevant data or ideas and supports the audience in memorizing it,
• Adds character!

Whereas the above won’t be a winning-lottery ticker, you can be pretty sure that lack of it will definitely kill the pitch. So bluntly speaking - eye-pleasing design is a must.
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Here are some quick tips & tricks from Daniel, our Design Consultant:

Fonts

• Use 2 font families at maximum.
• Use fonts that are default for Google Slides.
• Don’t use all the possible sizes - stick to as few as possible.
• Having few paragraphs on the slide? Always align them the same way.

Imagery

• Use high quality images.
• If you can’t afford mockups or stocks, you may use sources like unsplash.com or pexels.com

Icons

• Don’t use icons that are created for different sets - stay consistent.
• There are plenty of icons available for free, from sources such as iconmonstr.com, flaticon.com, icons8.com

GIFs

• Gifs are cool, but if they weigh too big, it will take ages for them to load and this could make your presentation look unprofessional.
• If you want to paste longer video, consider adding a link to youtube.
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Chapter 4: Preparation

First of all, maintain your mental strength. You will stress a lot. You might get sweaty-nervous. You might think to yourself, that you won’t get any investment. Or your idea is basically worthless. The tense will rise the closer you are to the meeting.

And that’s not true. Your idea is as strong as your belief in it - so let’s work on confidence:

Step 1:‍

Establish what needs to be explained further on each slide. Don’t read the slides, dive into those sweet details. Remember the audience is craving for your words!

Step 2:‍

Remember you’re telling a story. Watch a fantastic movie the night before, or read some short stories. Those will help you get into mental state allowing to talk about the concept smoothly and with purpose. Good idea is to finish one slide with a question, answered by the next slide.
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Step 3:‍

Showcase the pitch deck to your friends and family. Of course, the vibe will be much different than on the actual meeting. Of course, they’ll be very kind and will motivate you to do well. And this is good. But the primary goal is to practice speaking about the idea. Challenge you should accept: family, who usually has no clue what you’re talking about, will understand every bit of the product.
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Step 4:‍

Accept this damn feedback. Seriously, if your friend tells you that you should work on specific bit because it’s unclear, doesn’t make sense or any other reason… look into it.
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Step 5:‍

Don’t be afraid to change the deck. The moment you’ll think it’s done - it’s done for the day. Overnight you might get a good idea how to improve a bit of it or hear some valuable feedback. On the other hand, 24hrs before the pitch don’t even think about touching it. Relax.

And probably the most important point:
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Step 6:

BE GODDAMN PROUD ABOUT IT. You’ve created an astonishing piece of work and are one step closer to achieving your goal.

We feel extremely proud about this deck guide. 50 different people have seen it, including Founders, Angels and VCs. A lot of feedback was implemented, to the point where we weren’t sure our baby will see the daylight.

But it has. And it’s The Nicest Pitch Deck Guide currently available on the internet. It probably won’t be in like a month or so, but then we’ll update it. And again it’ll be the best. Repeat.
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Now go get 'em.

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Got some deeply specific questions? Feel free to use our chat box on the right hand side and contact the experts who brought you this guide:
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• Krzysztof Baranowski - Product Strategy
• Michał Gutkowski - Creative Strategy
• Daniel Gutowski - Design
• Zbigniew Czarnecki - Investor Communication
• Tobiasz Jankowski - Engagement

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