Hi, everyone. This is Alejandro Cremades, and today we’re going to be talking about
what makes a killer pitch deck presentation. Before we get started, make sure that you
hit that subscribe button, and this way, you will never miss out on any of the videos that
we roll out every week. The pitch deck is essential if you want to
raise money. It’s literally the document that is going to tell the reason and the compelling
story of why that investor needs to take you seriously and why that investor needs to invest
in your business. In today’s video, we’re going to be breaking it down for you. We’re
going to give you a step-by-step guide on how to make that killer presentation. Without
further ado, let’s get into it. The pitch deck needs to be clear and simple.
Remember, you only have 2 minutes and 41 seconds, 2:41, to convince the investor because they
are literally skimming through the presentation. You can’t afford to have them reading or
to spend a significant amount of time per slide. Think about Apple. When you buy a product
from Apple, it doesn’t come with instructions. So, here with the pitch deck, it is exactly
the same way. It’s clear; it’s simple; it’s not text-heavy, and everything starts
with the cover slide. Do a good job on the cover slide.
The cover slide is like a trailer. The pitch deck is the movie. The cover slide is the
trailer. Before you go and watch a movie with your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend,
with whoever that is, you watch the trailer because if it’s a terrible movie, they’re
going to kill you. That’s why you are essentially creating a great cover slide that, just with
one image, you are able to set up the expectations of what they’re about to review.
On the cover slide, you’re going to be including a powerful image of your product in action,
your space, a logo, a tag line, and the contact information. That is going to set up the stage
for what the investor is about to review, rather than getting into it and then figuring
out what your business is about. Again, be clear and be simple.
Also, your pitch deck shouldn’t be longer than what it needs to be. Typically, the pitch
deck is between 15 to 25 slides. That’s it. Again, you do not want to go over that
because then the attention span is very small; it’s very short, so you’re going to be
losing people. You don’t have to create this from scratch,
by the way. You can use the pitch deck template below that founders are using all over the
world to raise millions. Again, use something that is not long, that is not lengthy, and
that right away tells the investor exactly why they need to give you that opportunity
for a meeting. The pitch deck needs to balance the facts
and the looks very well. In many instances, a visual, a good picture can have a million
words, so that’s why you want to be very good with the visuals, with the pictures that
you’re adding. You want to make sure that you’re putting a lot of thought into why
you’re putting that picture into each one of those slides.
Again, you want to balance that with facts. For example, if you’re putting historic,
market, trends, or whatever that is, make sure that you’re adding sources and that
you’re putting a little bit of design work into it so that the investor is able to digest
whatever information you’re trying to convey. In this case, I think that the design can
come a long way. If you don’t have a designer that is working with you, you can go on websites
like Upwork or anywhere you can find a freelancer. A little bit of those touches are going to
make a lot of difference for you. Your deck needs to have the right flow. If
you have a pitch deck where things are all over the place, you’re going to lose the
investor because investors are typically used to a specific structure or flow on a presentation.
In this case, to give you an idea so that you have something to follow, the typical
flow and structure are something like the following:
Problem Solution
Market Product
Traction Team
Competition Financials
Funding Ask Thank You slide
Obviously, on this presentation, you’re going to be adding the cover slide and an
executive summary at the beginning so that they know what this is about. But, again,
you always want to have a flow and a structure that are consistent with what the investor
is reviewing out there. The presentation needs to show how great your
team is because if you ask any investor, they’re going to tell you that the most important
thing to them is the team. It’s all about having the right people seated on the right
seats of the bus. You’re going to have one slide that is going to be allocated for the
team. Then, as a follow-up, you’re going to have the slide about the advisors or the
board members, or whoever is additional on top of the team.
On the team slide, you want to include just the executive leadership team, the management
team. You don’t want to include even the interns because you need to have only people
that you know for sure that are going to be sticking around for the next six months in
the business. Because if you start having people leaving the business that are not as
committed, which you would find that level of commitment at the executive leadership
team, you’re going to start to create concerns. The investor is going to think, “Maybe the
business is not working. That’s why maybe they’re leaving.” Fundraising is all about
removing concerns, not adding friction to it, so have people that are fully committed.
When it comes to showing that slide – when it comes to really showing it in a powerful
way, you want to put the headshots of the team, and then you want to break it into bullet
points. You want to add two bullet points to each one of the members of the executive
leadership team, where one could be the experience, and another one could be some big accomplishments
of that individual. Then, one thing that you could do for social
proof is, at the bottom, showcase all the logos of big companies, corporations that
each one of the team members has worked at. That way, it would pop that logo, that recognizable
brand when the investor is reviewing the presentation. Market size is critical. When it comes to
the market size, you need to make sure that it is over 1 billion. If it’s under 1 billion,
probably most investors are not even going to touch it because the market size also determines
the returns that they are able to generate from that investment. So, if it’s under
a billion, it doesn’t justify the risk of an investment into an early-stage company.
Again, it needs to be over a billion. Try to think big. Don’t try to niche too much
what you’re doing. Keep it global so that you allow the investor to dream, and you allow
the investor to think how big this could be, jumping from where you are today and graduating
and maturing into something much bigger that has much bigger numbers. Again, keep it global,
keep it broad, and keep it big. It needs to show, as well, that you’ve done
your homework. The financials are a critical aspect, a critical aspect because we don’t
know where we’re going to be tomorrow, but you being able to showcase to the investor
that you have done your homework on the numbers – money-in, money-out – and then how you’re
projecting those over the course of time is going to give that investor peace of mind
thinking that you have a clear grasp on what’s happening.
There are studies that have followed pitch decks and that have showcased that the financials
are the single, most important piece of information that investors like to digest. They want to
know that you’ve done your homework and that you have a clear idea of what you’re
doing. Typically, this should be anywhere between three to five years that you’re
showcasing. And don’t make the mistake, that most founders make, which is taking a
screenshot of your financial model and putting it on your pitch deck. Try to get some design
work in there so that you can break it down into multiple slides how you are onboarding
customers, how that is going to be modeled out, what’s happening with your revenues,
how those are increasing, how you’re making money, and what’s the breakdown on that.
Make it easy for the investors so they can review right away and they get a good understanding
of what’s going on with your business. Your pitch deck needs to be very easy to be
forwarded and delivered. The best way to do this is to grab your pitch deck, put it on
Google Drive or in a Dropbox folder, and then share the link. Avoid attaching it to an email
because the attachments that you do are going to increase the actual size of the email.
It’s going to increase your chances of landing on the spam folder of that investor, and you
want to make it easy and simple, so just share a link that they can either open themselves
or forward to someone else but very easy to get to your PowerPoint format.
Never send it on a PDF because investors like to put notes and to put in the comment section
that they forward to someone else. Allow them to have something that they can manipulate
and edit easily because that’s going to also increase their interest and the engagement
that they do with the document itself. The pitch deck needs to be emotional. It needs
to be compelling. Your story needs to move, touch, and inspire people. Everything starts
with them getting excited with the problem that you’re looking to resolve and how you’re
bringing that solution to market to really make it pop and cover that gap. It needs to
be a problem that they can relate to. Maybe they experienced it themselves. Maybe there
was someone in their family, but something that leaves them touched with what you’re
doing, with what you’re bringing to market. That’s why the visuals that you use and
the combination with text that you do are critical. You may need a copywriter, someone
that can help you with the language. But you want to be as buttoned-up as possible.
Lastly, make sure that you’re putting your contact information everywhere, from the cover
slide to the thank you slide. It needs to be prominent. What is your email? What is
your phone? If they’re excited about what they’re looking at, can they grab the phone
and give you a call, even if it’s 2:00 am? What is your cellphone? Just put it in there.
It is critical that they know where to find you because you need to be able to get that
money in the bank if they are interested. Hit a Like on this video and leave a comment
and let me know what you’re up to with your deck. Don’t forget to Subscribe to the channel
so that you don’t miss out on all the videos that we’re rolling out every week. If you’re
raising money, send me an email at alejandro@pantheraadvisors.com. I would love to help out. Thank you so much
for watching.