Developing a good business pitch for investors is a critical skill for entrepreneurs seeking funding and support for their businesses. A strong pitch deck needs to clearly define your company’s value proposition and inspire your audience to take the right action; which is to invest in your venture. Here’s how to develop a strong pitch deck for your start-up.
Elements of a Great Presentation
- Make it easy to understand. Avoid using complicated words and sentences.
- Make it legible. Use large text and make sure the text and background have good contrast.
- Keep it brief. You should have less than 10 slides in total.
- Do not use complicated illustrations.
The following elements are not meant to be recommended titles for each of your slides. Rather they are principles for building a good pitch deck
- Start with a strong hook
- Define the problem
- Outline the market opportunity
- Introduce your product
- Competitive landscape
- Financial projections
- Ask for a specific amount
- Impact or milestones
- Introduce your team
Start with a Strong Hook
Capture your audience’s attention from the first slide. A strong hook establishes the tone for the rest of the presentation and makes your pitch memorable.
There are so many ways to achieve this, and you can combine any of the elements listed below.
- Storytelling
- Share a fact
- Start with a thought-provoking question
- Start with a quote
- Start with your vision or mission
Use Storytelling:
Tell a story that highlights the problem your company is trying to solve and you can incorporate personal anecdotes or experiences to make your opening statement more relatable.
Share a Fact
Begin with a startling statistic that emphasizes the importance of the issue your company is addressing. For example,
“Did you know that [X%] of [your target audience] face [specific challenge],?” This is a huge issue, but we have a solution.”
Start With a Thought-Provoking Question
Pose a question to your audience. Here’s an example: “What if I told you there’s a way to [solve a common problem] that has caused X% of people to [negative impact] annually
Start with a Quote
You can also share a relevant quote that inspires your mission as a start-up.
Start With Your Vision or Mission.
Share your company’s vision or mission in the simplest way possible.
Ebi Atawodi, a Director of Product Management at YouTube, shared a simple template while discussing product vision with Lenny Rachitsky (Lenny’s Podcast):
“Imagine a world where [your vision]”
Around 1980, Bill Gates gave Microsoft a clear mission: “A computer on every desk and in every home.”
Define the Problem
It’s very important to help investors understand the landscape of your business and why the problem is significant in that context. While there might be multiple factors contributing to a large problem, it is essential to stick to one problem. I worked in a health tech company in Nigeria and we were focused on improving health access for underprivileged Nigerians. While there are several factors responsible for poor medicine access in many rural communities (for example, poverty), our main focus was improving health access. Having a simple and focused pitch deck makes it easier for your audience to understand (and remember) what you are trying to achieve.
- Provide data
- Highlight the negative impact of this problem
Provide Data
Provide relevant data and statistics to back up or quantify the problem.
Highlight the Negative Impact of this Problem
Outline the implications of not addressing the issue. This can include missed opportunities caused by the current problem.
You can also draw attention to the shortcomings of the current market solutions and why there is a genuine need for a different approach. You could also demonstrate that you are close to the problem.
Market Opportunity
Briefly highlight the market opportunity: the market size, growth rate, and the opportunity value.
Your Product
Once you have established a good foundation for your pitch, you need to introduce your product. Off the bat, You have to quickly provide clarity on what your product is and why it matters.
Competitive Landscape
Here, you want to provide investors with a clear picture of how your company compares with existing competitors and market alternatives. Most people would provide a visual representation of the analysis. The goal is usually to highlight your unique value proposition. For example, If your company competes on pricing, provide statistics that demonstrate your price competitiveness. This could be in the form of a cost comparison with competitors and how that catches a prouder market and pays off better.
- Unique value proposition and differentiation
- Business model
- scalability
Unique Value Proposition and Differentiation
Your product’s value proposition is a short description of the benefits that it offers to customers. It captures why customers should choose your product over others. If your product pools several unique ideas together, feel free to elaborate on each of those innovative ideas.
Business Model
Clearly define how your company will generate revenue. Highlight whether through product sales, subscription fees, licensing, advertising, or a combination of these revenue streams. You may add details of how much each revenue stream contributes to your overall income.
Scalability
Show how your business model is built for scalability and efficiency. Discuss how you intend to deal with growing demand, develop your customer base, and enter new markets without incurring a linear cost increase.
Financial Projections
- Path to profitability
- Unit economics
Path to Profitability
Clearly describe the steps and milestones that lead to profitability. Discuss how your company will progress from an investment-heavy early stage to long-term profitability. Resist the temptation to add a lot of information here. Think, we will use X + Y (which could be financial and capital requirements) to achieve Z (revenue) in 6 months, 2 years, and then 5 years.
Unit Economics
This information helps investors understand whether your proposal is reasonable or not. Break down your company’s unit economics. This can be the cost or revenue per customer (customer acquisition costs (CAC), customer lifetime value (CLV), and unit cost of sale).
Ask for a Specific Amount
Some Slides will present this information as part of financial projections. Financial projections are usually in a table with one of the column headers being “funding requirement”. So your subsequent slide should be your ask. Indicate how much financing you are seeking and how you intend to use it. Divide the investment request into several categories such as product development, marketing, and operations.
Impact or Milestones
Investors are interested in how much progress your company has made and the most important point here is that you need to focus on actionable metrics.
Examples of Actionable Metrics include:
- Conversion rate (which is the percentage of website visitors who make a purchase)
- The shopping cart abandonment rate
- Churn rate
- Retention rate
- Customer lifetime value
Be mindful of vanity metrics. These, on the other hand, are metrics that give a nice impression of your business without offering insights into its actual health. Some examples include total revenue, number of customer sign-ups, or website traffic.
You can also include key milestones in the development of your product or service. This could involve the release of new features, updates, or the completion of beta testing successfully.
Example: “In the last quarter, we successfully launched Version 2.0 of our platform, resulting in a [X%] increase in user engagement.”
Team:
This is the final part of your pitch deck. You want to convince potential investors that you guys are the right people to work with.
Introduce the key members of your team: the founders, executives, and other key team members. Provide their bios highlighting relevant experiences, qualifications, and roles within the company
