11 Must-Have Slides For Your Next Pitch Deck

by Joshua Botello

An investor presentation drums up images of “Shark Tank”, where the founders create goofy, but memorable pitches with ridiculous propositions for investment into their businesses. 

But that’s TV. In reality, it’s very different. 

For starters, investors prefer a pitch deck. This is a slide presentation made in a program like Powerpoint or Keynote to set the scene and explain why they are needing the investment. The investors are serious and will grill you about all aspects of your business before they even consider hearing how much you are actually asking for.

The pitch deck is all the data and rationale about your business and why to deserve the investment you are asking for. That’s why we created this infographic. It distills all the information needed to make a concise and persuasive presentation to the 11 must-have slides to make the presentation work and win your investment. I will also use some notable examples to illustrate how these slides work.

The Cover

The first slide is your cover slide. This is your first impression. This slide needs to be clean and simple with your Name or Logo, brand colors, tagline if you have one. Pretty straightforward.

The Problem

This slide is where you state your case. This could be the status quo in a space you intend to disrupt or just a shortlist of about 3 major pain points to solve. These should concise and verifiable, with no jargon or questionable claims. This is a marketing pitch, so knowing your audience and how the problem affects them will get your investors on your side.

The solution

Now that you have set up the problem, it’s to introduce the hero of this story: you and your product. You need to list how your solution addresses each of the pain points you just laid out. Here you need to focus on the benefits, not jargon-laden features or techy specifications. Adding a compelling quotable to hook your audience and get them interested in learning more.

Product Demo

Here is where you strut your stuff, but we warned. A live demo of technology is extremely difficult to pull off. 

The technology could crash, lose signal or not have access to Wi-Fi, but whatever the case a video presentation in the best environment possible is preferable even it is recorded beforehand. You want to show it in the best light possible just be mindful that your product is up to snuff.

Market Size

You need to show the size of the market that you intend to go after and how profitable it could be. There are two ways to illustrate this: 

The top-down approach can be done like this one: if you take the Total Available market and estimating the market share you would believe you can capture.
Uber did this. They explained the total market

The bottom-up approach takes all the comparable products and then illustrates the slice of revenue you have already carved out for your company. 

In this example from Airbnb: They explain how big the market is 1.9 billion worldwide and if they can carve out a mere 10.9m of that available market.

Business Model

Here’s where you lay out how your business makes money. Airbnb lays out that they will take a commission for every transaction.

Even with a billion-dollar company like Square they offer a free reader and charge a simple flat rate of 2.75% fee per transaction. That’s it. No need to overcomplicate things. 

All the investor wants to know is how you are going to make money and they will get their money back. the clearer you are about that the better.

Competition

This where you layout your competition and how you are addressing the problem you are solving compared to the major players. It's best to lay it out on an X/Y graph to show you know this space very well as Square did. 

This is also where you layout your competitive advantage, also called the “Underlying magic,” that sets you apart. What makes your product unique? You can get a little technical here because an investor will need to see how the technology or method you use will compare to the competition.

Go-to-Market

This slide is how you are going to get customers. Plain and simple. Because you are just starting out, this may not work but having a large pool of ideas and the ability to test these and find the right mix is essential to your success. 

Airbnb does a good job at this. They essentially created an automated program to post on craigslist and other places to increase awareness of their listings without having to get more customers.

Team

Here’s where you lay out the A-team. Link the team’s skills/experience at former startups or corporate experience to the problem you are solving. 

Emphasize the successes and relationships you have obtained, that can be leveraged as potential customers, advisors, or future acquirers.

No need to go too deep except to answer your successes above points plus any name-brand affiliations that add credibility. Add Board Members and existing investors to add credibility and references.

Financials / Fundraising

Finally, the fundraising slide. This is basically your big ask. You have been building your case from problem to your unique solution and the right team.
For example, Square asks for a specific amount of money they are confident will allow them to reach their goals and how much they plan to grow.

Milestones

Here is where you lay it all on the table, how much have you raised and what you are using the money for. The social media tool Buffer does this well by showing an investor wants to know what milestones you will achieve. Increase sales? Growth? 

It will very difficult to raise money without any measurable sales, so you may want to reconsider pitching to investors at this point, but if you do, show how many active users have or how your revenue is growing. 

You also need to address how long will those funds last. 24 months? To profitability? The investor wants to see how scrappy you are, and you have skin in the game. 

Remember this infographic isn’t meant to be comprehensive. It’s simply a guide to make sure you are on the right track. If you need in-depth help, the University of La Verne SBDC offers free one on one consulting to help refine and present your pitch deck.

Funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.