Hi, everyone. This is Alejandro Cremades, and today we’re going to be talking about
ideas on how to write a pitch deck. 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. A pitch deck is one of the most important
things that you have to put together in order to get money, in order to get out there and
pitch investors and to convince them to invest in you and to invest in your business. In
today’s video, we’re going to be breaking it down for you. We’re going to show you
some of the different things to get inspired and to nail it when it comes down to creating
your pitch deck. So, without further ado, let’s get into it.
One of the best things that you can do is research other pitch decks. There’s no need
to reinvent the wheel. You can actually go to the program like the Inner Circle that
I actually have with my members, where we show them all the different pitch decks from
some of the most successful companies. You can also go on websites like SlideShare. You
can even see on LinkedIn what people have shared. There are places like Business Insider
where you can see some of their breakdowns on pitch decks that they do where they comment.
That’s going to be super helpful so that you can see what has worked for other companies.
So you may want to take a look at some of the companies that have built pitch decks
in your specific market, or maybe indirect competitors, or direct competitors, and see
how they framed things because that’s going to help you and guide you when creating your
own pitch deck. Think about putting the pitch deck like a
story because storytelling is everything. Remember that investors are investing in the
future and in the possibility. They’re not so much investing in historicals in your present
or in your past. For this reason, the best way to think about this is like a movie. Every
single slide is a chapter. It’s a chapter of that book, or it’s a section of that
specific movie. That’s how you want to do it. You want to have the right type of flow
and the right type of flow on the information and the structure on how you’re putting
those 15 to 25 slides because that’s all you’ve got to really nail it.
By the way, if you want to really get inspired as well on the structure and the flow, you
can access via the link below on the pitch deck template that founders are using around
the world to raise millions. You may also want to use a professional copywriter
because, in your pitch deck, you obviously don’t want to add a lot of text. You want
to have the balance with the right visuals because the investor is skimming through the
presentation. The language that you use in that text needs to make complete sense. Avoid
having typos, grammar issues, and especially if you are a foreigner, like me, and you come
to a place like the U.S., and you want to pitch U.S. investors, you want to make sure
that the language is looking good and that there are no grammar issues. It’s like when
you send your CD or resume to a company, and there are typos and grammatical issues, it’s
just not a good look. So, get a copywriter or someone that can review the deck to make
sure that there’s nothing crazy from a grammar or typo perspective.
Follow the money. I’m not kidding you, but the #1 slide that investors spend the most
amount of time on is the Financials slide. They want to know that you have a clear understanding
of money-in and money-out and how you’re projecting that over the course of time. With
that in mind, you want to have someone that is financially savvy that can guide those
slides. It’s not about putting a screenshot of your financial model where those numbers
are essentially created and put it into your slides. You can’t do that because you need
to put it in a way in which investors can digest it very easily. What you can do is
break it down into three or four slides where you’re walking them through the numbers,
the revenues, the customers, all of that good stuff in a way that they can get it right
away. Also, you should work with an advisor, whether
it’s consultants, whether that is people from an accelerator or an incubator program
that you joined. You need to work with people that can advise you and guide you, and hopefully,
they’ve actually done this themselves so that they are able to help you in avoiding
making stupid mistakes that maybe they actually made themselves. This is going to help you
in optimizing for time, which is great. And also, in being able to understand what you
need to put into those slides. Start long and concise. What you’re going
to do is if you start long, maybe you create a pitch deck of 40 slides, then you can start
trimming down. You can cut down on the number of slides without cutting into the story.
You can then cut a little bit on the language and the amount of text that you’re using
and adding more images. If you start long, that’s going to allow
you to trim it down and get the essence – the best out of that presentation that is going
to come across in a very powerful way toward the investor. Maybe one thing you could do
is even grab your own business plan, which is more like the written version, which is
going to be a bunch of pages, and create with that a pitch deck. Then, you start reducing
the amount of text and add more visuals, and then reducing the number of slides that you
have in the presentation. Also, always start with the customer. I can’t
stress enough how many times I have seen an entrepreneur that goes with their pitch deck
to pitch an investor; maybe they’re in the conference room or in the boardroom. They
start talking. The investors have their feet up, checking their emails, whatever that is,
and then all of a sudden, when they start to talk about the customer, the data that
they collected from them, all of a sudden, everyone is paying attention. So you want
to always start with the customer. You want to know what kind of problem you’re solving;
what is the solution? Who are the people that you’re going to go after? The kind of validation
you already got. Those are some of the critical components that you’re going to be putting
in and including in your pitch deck and perhaps dividing that into different slides to really
make it pop. Access libraries of resources out there, whatever
that is, but inspiration is going to be everything to ride this pitch deck. Also, remember that
those investors always have concerns, and that is what separates you and the money.
So, you want to know what kind of concerns they have. Speak with people out there. Don’t
be afraid to ask questions because that’s going to help you to right away put on the
pitch deck what they are looking for. In many instances, when you give the pitch
deck, you’re not going to be able to see their body language, their reaction toward
it. Maybe they even forward it to a colleague or a friend of theirs. You’re not going
to be there, so for that reason, you want to make sure that you are at least trying
to capture as many solutions as possible to whatever concerns that they’re going to
have toward a business like yours. Hit a Like on this video. Also, leave a comment
and let me know what kind of ideas you have going on. And 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 capital, send me an email at alejandro@pantheraadvisors.com. I would love to help out. Thank you so much
for watching.