A pitch deck is a presentation in which every detail about your startup is summarized into 14-15 slides, which is then mailed or presented in front of investors to raise funding.
Below is the list of headlines what most pitch decks contain:
To better understand the inner part of these headlines, I am going to analyze one of the best pitches in the world which raised about $600K. Let’s have a deep dive into Airbnb Pitch.
This slide contains a short intro about your startups like your startup logo, its name and a short description about what you do. Try to keep the short description as short as possible, maybe up upto 7 words.
This is the prime slide, if presented in a right way, you can grab the attention of investors.
There is a big misconception that every startup starts with an Idea. If it is true, then this slide wouldn’t be there in the pitch decks. So, Every startup starts with a Idea problem.
We are living in a world where it is very difficult to figure out a problem and if someone day we find it out then there is already a startup built from that problem. We here at Voxup also provide you with people 's problems that are unsolved and are looking for a solution. Check out problems on our platform here.
A solution for the problem. Here comes the Idea that you have built for the problem. It’s always better to test your solution before presenting in front of investors. There might be many reasons that your customers don't like your solution.
Let’s have an example when the Airbnb idea was born in 2008 and after some months they went live to take bookings many people thought it was a scam. People dropped reviews on their website like who will give their home to strangers, the homeowner might kill you, or the stranger might be a terrorist but, as some people booked and stayed. The reviews changed from negative to positive.
This slide will contain the solution for the problem the you have written in previous slide:
It tells investors, people who are in need of what you are building. It might be some website similar to yours may be your direct or indirect competitors, or may be your beta users if they are good in numbers.
This slide will tells what are the potential numbers of people that you think will use your website:
Market Size represents how big the market is. There are three points in which this can be defined:
To understand the above terms in a more better way. Let's have an example, assume you are starting a food chain.
This is the favourite slide of the investor, how does your product make money. Finally, if an investor is investing money in your startups because he wants money out of it.
This slide will help investors to evaluate how much money you will be able to generate in the coming future.
This will depend from company to company so no comments, but in a startup you have to try different business models to figure out which one is right for you.
It tells how are you going to advertise your product to acquire customers. Anything from events to partnership with other companies
Presenting the competitors in a quadrant graph is always a good idea. This way you not only show them your competitors but help them compare features of your business with them easily.
Many investors believe that having a competitor is good as everything is already tested and defined like the business model, how to acquire new customers.
Just have a look at the airbnb slide 9. It will take only a couple to seconds that to analyze that:
Every startup has something unique from their competitors and this will help them to gain customers. So, In this slide you have put out the points that How is your product better than your competitors? What you are providing that they are not?
Show all the qualities that will make your startup standout from your competitors.
Airbnb doesn’t have this slide but it’s always better to show your current traction and your current revenue.
Most investors out there only invest when they see your current revenue. It helps them to know how many people are willing to pay for your product.
I think airbnb had this slide, but it wasn’t added in slideshare. You may have heard that you should not raise more money than you want. You will end up losing most of your money in trash.
Having an Idea of how much you are trying to raise and then showing it how much you are going to spend in which services. This helps investors to understand that the founder knows what he is doing and what he has to do once he raises the money.