My pitch decks have raised more than £20,000,000 in 12 months. Here are a few tricks.
The overall thought from designing hundreds of decks and reading hundreds more is that the stars always shine through. That is not an accident. It is a smart and concise approach to document creation.
Yours is not the only deck they read today
Any investor worth your time will be reading at least 10 decks per week. Your document is not the only one they will read. I often think, wow, if this was the only deck I read today I would enjoy it. But ultimately it's not, so be mindful of that.
Also be mindful of gatekeepers. They have a warped way of evaluating projects. Your job here is to get past the first gate and create something that can be shared around and is generally "understood". We aren't writing a research paper for a top university.
Design, layout and length
Design. This is not a product document. Keep it light: lots of empty space, big words, no more than one picture per page. Ideally 12 pages. The most important thing is to get your brand across. If you can't design a simple deck, what chance do you stand selling a product in a busy market?
Layout. The running order:
- Title slide
- Elevator pitch
- Team
- Traction
- Problem
- Solution
- Why we will win
- Product
- Market size
- Unit economics
- Financials
- Competition
- Ask
Length. My most common feedback is "I was hoping this deck ended sooner than it did". You have 30 meetings and a long due diligence process to prove your detail and expertise. Keep it snappy, 10 to 12 pages. If you are going longer than this, you need to question why it's taking so many slides for the reader to get it.
The team slide matters most
The team is the most important slide in any deck, so don't put it at the back. Question one in any human interaction will always be "hello, who are you?". This is the biggest job interview of your life. You are asking someone to buy into your company, so frame it like that and show why you and the key people are important.
I personally hate advisors unless you can demonstrate their value in bringing either investment or revenue. For example, you send me a drinks brand deck, your advisor is the head of new product lines at a major supermarket, but you're not stocked in that supermarket... This is very common.
Jargon, honesty and how you share it
Assumed knowledge. The killer for any deck. I get it, you know how particle reactors work, or ESG, or payment rails. The reader does not. As one investor I know always says to me: ELI5, "explain like I'm 5". If you need to use big words or industry jargon, at least give me a table to reference the terms. The vast majority of investors are generalists.
Own your truth. A lot of people spend too long skirting round the facts. If you have £0 revenue, please write it down; it provides context to the business proposal. If you are forecasting for 2022, let the reader know what is year to date and what is assumption. If I can't find it, I won't look, and I'll move on.
Sharing. I don't like web links. I don't think they are great or helpful when it comes to sharing. Ideally you want an investor to be able to spray your deck round their stakeholders, and PDF is still the best way to do that.