The PITCH
Great entrepreneurs are obsessed with providing products or services that people want and would pay for. If you’re not working hard at adding value to customers, then customers will switch to another company… maybe not today, but certainly tomorrow.
The ONLY 9 Sildes Your Pitch Deck Needs
Tell a convincing story that follows a logical sequence
Corroborate a solid business model based on tests and researches
Raise a clear question that its justified by a thorough investigation
So let’s get to it. * Please note that your presentation does not have to follow this order. Each startup has its own unique competitive advantage and the format will be different depending on the stage you are in. Maybe you just have the idea or maybe you’re already more advanced in the process. This is just a reference.
Slide 1: THE PROBLEM
This is probably one of the most important slides in your deck. If your startup is not solving a real problem that many people have, then you don’t have a business.
You can change the solution to your problem, but if there’s no problem, then the best solution to this non-existent problem is worthless.
In this slide, you will need to address the following questions as simple and concise as you can be:
- What is the problem?
- How big is the problem for each customer? How many $$$ are people spending each year on getting this problem solved.
- How do you know if it’s a problem? Do you have primary or secondary research to back this up?
- Who are you solving this problem for? What does ideal customer profile (ICP) look like and who are your early adopters?
Slide 2: SOLUTION
Now that you’ve communicated that there is a big problem that needs to be solved and it has been validated by your research, you can describe how you are going to solve this problem.
Here are the questions you want to answer:
- How do people currently solve the problem today (make vs buy)… example competitors and substitutes? Why are they not working out for them?
- What is your solution?
- How is your solution better than the alternative solutions? Is it faster? More effective or efficient? More reliable? Provides less emotional pain? Tip: It’s better to be better on 1-2 dimensions, then to try to be better at many dimensions.
- Is there anything proprietary and unique?
Slide 3: TRACTION
Here’s your chance to proof you are on the right track to building a potential market leader.
You might want to answer:
- How many paying customers or users do you have?
- How much revenue are you generating (monthly/annually)?
- How much are you growing on a monthly basis? Users? Revenue?
- Are you profitable (Per customer? Per product? Per region?)?
- Do you have key partnerships in place?
- Do you have key testimonials from your customers or NPS score?
- Note: Depending on the type of business you are in, your traction metrics might vary.
Slide 4: PRODUCT
Remember back in Slide 2, you conveyed all the great benefits that your solution offers.
Well here, you want to give a quick demo of your product and explain how it works without giving away too many details.
Keep the explanation simple and concise with a few screen grabs of your product. Alternatively you can build a simple flow model which showcases how your product works.
- How does your product work?
- How does it bring value to your customers?
Slide 5: COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
One of the most frustrating questions that an entrepreneur can get is, “What if Google enters your market with more resources, how do you defend it?”
There’s no real answer to that question because until Google does that, no one would know what would happen — they could either fail miserably (e.g. Google+, Glass, Google Wave) or have tremendous success (Google Analytics, Gmail, Google Adwords).
What you could show is your confidence in adapting faster to the market and carving out your piece while demonstrating your current customer satisfaction, traction, and loyalty.
Consider these questions:
- How do you position yourself in the market?
- How do you defend your market against your competitors (aka how do you create a sustainable competitive advantage)?
- What is your secret sauce? How are you going to become better than your competitors?
Slide 6: BUSINESS MODEL
In this slide, you want to show how your business model works and how it has been validated with your early adopters.
The key questions to answer here are:
- How much money are you making with each customer—describe the unit economics including CLV?
- What you are actually selling (e.g. monthly subscription, one-offf, product, service)?
Slide 7: GO TO MARKET STRATEGY
Now it’s time to clarify how you are going to acquire more customers quickly.
Your go-to market strategy should have already been validated on a smaller scale and you should have already identified the most effective customer acquisition channels.
Here you want to answer:
- How are you going to get your product to the hands of your customers?
- Which channels are you going to focus on given your current resources (e.g. SEO, SEM, Facebook, direct marketing)? What have you done to validate that these are the most effective channels?
- How much are the customer acquisition costs (CAC)? How confident are you that it is going to stay under a certain range?
- What is your competitive distribution strategy?
- How long is the sales cycle in months?
Slide 8: ASK + FINANCIALS
In order to support these ambitious customer acquisition strategies (or strategies to improve your value proposition) that you have just laid out, you need to ask for investment.
You want to answer:
- How much capital do you need for further validation or scaling of your business model?
- What is your monthly burn rate?
- What are you going to spend the investment on (e.g. product, team, sales)?
Slide 9: THE TEAM
In this slide, you want to introduce your team, your roles and past experiences. Explain why you are the best team to execute this idea.
- Who is on your team and what are their relevant skills and experiences
- Where did you meet your co-founders and what have you done in the past together to show that you can work well together?
- Who are your advisors and why are their experience relevant to the problem you are solving?
Everything clear?