A pitch deck is your way of really ‘selling yourself’ to a potential investor, introducing them to your big idea in the hope of securing the funding you need to make that dream a reality. When you’re penning your pitch, it’s important to identify your gap in the market through the problem which your product or service is aiming to solve. 

Pitch decks today are quite different to how they were even a handful of years ago, with investors now expecting shorter presentations which cut to the chase as quickly as possible. We all have shorter attention spans, and that includes in the boardroom. If you’re about to sit down to write your ultimate pitch, here are a few pointers to see you craft the very best presentation possible.

A few words of general advice

The most important thing you should remember when writing your pitch is that no pitch is perfect. The person sitting before you is not going to invest based on your pitch alone, because – clichéd as it may sound – people buy from people. You are your greatest selling point and your pitch deck is merely a distillation of you and your big idea.

Also bear in mind that your pitch deck should fall into two parts, the financial side of things and the narrative side. As we’ve said, pitch decks in former years were often lengthy proposals stretching to thirty pages or more, but today, busy people value brevity. The more succinct and eye-catching your proposal is, the more likely you are to secure the investment you’re after.

With that in mind, you may find it easier to write up a long-form version and gradually whittle it down to the bare essentials which make up only a handful of slides. This can be a valuable exercise, allowing you to get to grips with what really matters and see your proposal from an outsider’s perspective.

While a handful of slides may not seem like much, if the ideas are good and you can sell them on your enthusiasm, eight or ten slides is more than enough to pique a potential investor’s interest. Ideally you should keep things as simple as possible without being patronising – use plain language without acronyms and jargon, and try to use more images than words on the slides themselves. People need to absorb as much information as possible in a very short time, and most of us are visual learners.

Structuring your pitch deck

In an ideal world, your pitch deck will take up no more than ten slides. We suggest setting yours out as follows.

Use slide one to get across an executive summary. This describes what you want to do in a nutshell, and should also include your big ‘ask’. There’s a temptation to avoid the elephant in the room and leave your request for funding until the very end, but most investors will want the big question of ‘how much?’ out there in the open early on.

In your second slide, you should outline the issue or problem your business is setting out to address and make it sound meaningful to your customers’ lives. You need your investors to feel emotionally involved, to really care about the issues concerned and how you can resolve them. If an investor doesn’t agree that the problem exists or doesn’t believe you have the answer, then your pitch is dead in the water.

Thirdly, explore how big the problem is and how many people could potentially benefit from what you have to offer. If you can find concrete facts and statistics, that’s all to the good. If you can’t, don’t blag it.

Fourth, outline your underlying logic. This is where you set out why your company holds the answers, by delving into more detail about your background, including past successes and what you’ve managed to achieve. This is about showing why your business is special and has a proven track record.

Use your fifth slide to really explore your business model – this is crucial as it shows investors how your business will make money and repay their investment, and how it will scale up with those funds. It’s important that you are honest because any grandiose claims at this stage will almost inevitably fall flat and inflated figures will quickly be found out.

Sixth, look at your market and the gap you intend to fill. How will you go about finding customers? How quickly can you expand to meet demand? What is your vision for the long-term when it comes to growing your customer base? You have to be realistic about the numbers because not everybody has the problem you have the solution too. In order to impress investors, you need to really know your target audience and show that there will be demand. In order to do that, you should highlight your competitors, what they are doing and how much they are turning over, proving that there is a need for your business.

Seventh, introduce the people behind the business and what they bring to proceedings. Don’t waste time highlighting their glittering CVs, simply set out in plain language what their skills and expertise are and what they bring to the team.

Slide number eight is a big one, and should outline your financial model. Everyone likes to think investors want to see the classic hockey stick upward curve, when in reality they would rather hear the honest truth. Lay out some concrete, realistic figures, including cash flow statistics and a clear outline of what you will do with their money.

Finally, use your last slide to set out a timeline which covers past, present and future. Show how you have reached this point, what your achievements have been to date and a roadmap for the next two or three years. Flag the key milestones you have achieved and hope to achieve in the future but, as always, be realistic.

You also need to think about and mention one of the most important subjects in modern business: sustainability. Investors now have one eye on your green credentials and how the work you do will impact the planet, because nobody today wants to invest in a company which may, one way or another, cause environmental harm.

It’s worth remembering that investors will never be sold on your business plan alone. Your drive and enthusiasm play an equally important role, so if you can prove your positive attitude and determination to succeed then they’re more likely to buy in. Business plans can be changed and amended once the money is secure, but securing that money relies on the success of your pitch and how you come across to your audience.