Suggested time: 120 min.
The pitch deck is a fundraising tool for startup companies. It aims to persuade someone to invest in your idea, product or service. It consists of a small collection of presentation slides (think PowerPoint) that provide more depth than our elevator pitch and are more visual than our executive summary.
The best way to understand how to put a pitch deck together is to see some examples (as well as see it in action). Notice the best pitch decks are not cluttered, have few words and have large impactful images.
Find the Pitch Deck template in Resources.
Resources
Presentation software
(e.g. Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint)
Pitch deck template
Follow these steps
Step 1: Begin
Use a pitch deck template to begin. Start with a problem, your challenge question and how your product or service answers it. Make sure you make clear the pain that you’re alleviating or what new thing you’re making possible.
Step 2: Impact
Introduce your branding and make it easy to understand your impact. Make it easy to relate to and understand.
Step 3: Describe
Describe the technology behind your solution and show that it is technically viable. The less text, and the more diagrams, images or charts, the better. If you have a working prototype, transition to it now. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a prototype is worth a thousand slides.
Step 4: Sustainable
Show your business model in terms of how your product or service will be sustainable. Explain how it will make money and its impact on society and the environment.
Step 5: Reduce
For each slide, reduce the amount of text. You want your audience to be focused on you and what you have to say. Keep each slide to just one idea. Consider a 5/4/30 rule: approximately 5 slides, 4 minutes to speak and at least size 30 font so it’s readable.
And yes, you read that right. You have 4 minutes to deliver all of that! Reduce, reduce, reduce and keep only what gets the message across and has the greatest impact.