PITCH DECK GUIDANCE
How to have a good deck?
• Own your story – Don’t be generic.
o Make sure it carries your unique voice
o What sets you apart from other teams? What is your momentum so far?
• Has to capture attention and keep it too. Investor will only be excited if you are!
• What are you trying to do? Be clear and understand the problem you’re solving
• You should be the expert of your product/market. Why is it better than the
alternatives?
• Evidence is key! Get data for the market, users and feedback on product
• Why are you the right team to solve this problem? What is your EDGE?
• Be clear on unit economics – How much money will you make on a single unit?
o Easiest business is selling Rs 100 for Rs 50!
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Fundraising truths
• Investors see multiple pitch decks in a day/week. Need to stand apart
• Fund-raising is a long process
o After presentation, there will be meetings and negotiations which take 1-2 months
o Even if you find the right investor, legals and all will take 2-4 months before money
reaches your bank account
• An investor provides more than money. Make sure you find one who cares and
give you time as well.
• The investor is betting on YOU. Your commitment + drive is the most important
thing you can control.
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Understand where you are
Friends &
Family
Pre-Seed
Seed
Series A
When should you
raise?
Idea
At launch
Early Product Market Fit
Demonstrated Product
Market Fit
Traction? (monthly
revenue)
Negligible
Negligible
$5k-$20k
$20k-$100k
From who?
Angels, Early HNW Individuals, Local VC
Friends & Family stage VC Funds, specialist international
Funds
VC funds
Local & International
VCs
To do what?
Build MVP &
early team
Launch
Reach early scale with
reasonable unit economics
Scale
Average Round
size?
<$50k
$100k-$400k
$0.5m-$2m
$2m-$5m
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Structure options – What does the deck include?
These are just options! There are no limitations
Classic Structure:
• Purpose
• Problem
• Solution
• Why now
• Market Size
• Competition
• Product
• Business Model
• Team
• Financials
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Story-telling Structure:
• Origin Story
• What you’ve learned
so far?
• Who are users and
customers?
• Traction so far?
• Key milestones so far?
• What happens in the
future?
• What you need to
make the future
happen?
• Summary
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Alternative Structure:
• Team
• Problem/Opportunity
• Market
• Solution
• Traction so far?
• Product overview
• Competition
• Business Model
• Unit Economics
• Marketing/Growth
• Fund Raising
Five key ingredients all good pitches must have!
This is the starting point to build on
• PROBLEM: Explain why a set of circumstances are painful for set of users
o In a world of vitamins, be a pain-killer
• SOLUTION: How do you alleviate the pain for the consumers?
o Need to solve the problem, not impose your vision on the problem
• MARKET: Is the market large enough and/or rapidly growing?
o Why is now the right time to invest in this market?
• BUSINESS: How do you make money?
o How are you different from the competitors?
• TEAM: Why are you the best placed to build this?
o By far the most important thing! Everything else is academic without execution.
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Think like an investor
Questions to answer in the deck
What an investor wants to know:
Things to include:
• Is the business going to grow fast
✓ What is the Value proposition
✓ Key Milestones so far
and become huge?
✓ What have you learned?
• What are the risks they are facing
✓ How have you improved?
that will stop them becoming huge?
✓ What does the product do?
• What have they done to address
✓ What are the costs?
these risks?
✓ Market Opportunity?
• Why will these guys win?
✓ Future Milestones?
• What happens after the business is
✓ Why is the team right?
funded? Have they done their market
✓ Forecasts and financials
research and have a strategy?
✓ How much money you need?
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Housekeeping: Structure Basics
Key rules for your deck
• Follow basic PowerPoint etiquette
o Add page numbers
o Limit text
o Cite sources
• Make sure the deck is how you want to tell your story
o PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE!
• Send deck to investors before presenting
• For early-stage start-ups:
o Focus on market, GTM strategy and product
• Later stage start-ups:
o Focus on solution, product, financials and traction
• Try to keep deck under 15 slides excluding appendices
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Other tips
• Don’t use generic slide titles
• Include only most useful information
• Infographics can be better than words, but they should be clear and simple to
follow
• Don’t put way too much information in the slide
• Don’t use fancy words, keep it concise and avoid jargon/buzzwords
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