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.
Gain access to 100+ shortcuts, formula auditing visualizations, easy Excel-to-PowerPoint linking and productivity tools to help you accelerate financial modeling and presentations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Your company doesn’t have key metrics like revenue or traction to include in your slide deck. Instead, consider focusing on:
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:
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:
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.
The pitch deck template needs standard formats on all the slides, including income statements and balance sheets.
Use visual aids like graphs and charts to emphasize key trends in your financial modeling.
Transparency builds trust with investors. Clearly defining the assumptions and inputs helps provide an understanding of financial projections.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Gain access to 100+ shortcuts, formula auditing visualizations, easy Excel-to-PowerPoint linking and productivity tools to help you accelerate financial modeling and presentations.