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Making the best deck. Art or science?
The best pitch decks have both, of course the strength of any deck should always be the business that sits behind it.
If we had a penny every time we’re asked about pitch decks. Well, suffice to say we thought it time to share our thoughts on making the best deck because crafting a great pitch deck is super high on the fundraising checklist.
It’s our opinion, just like some aspects of finance, that the best decks include both art and science. Well-crafted messages that have the reader wanting more, sensible numbers that stack up to scrutiny. So why do so many fall short?
Most of the successful decks contain some combination of the following:
- Overview/mission
- The problem being solved
- The solution
- How you make money
- Your traction to date
- The market
- How you’ll go to market
- Team
- Competition and your advantage
- Financials
- How much money you need
- A call to action
Not every deck has them all, some successful decks miss things you’d consider key. But as a rule of thumb, you can’t go far wrong with these in an order that flows and tells your story.
Rather than mirror every other blog about pitch decks the following describes a wider process, what to look out for and how to approach the challenge.
What do actual investors think?
Everyone’s got an opinion, the one that really matters is the investors receiving your pitch decks. We know quite a few so we asked them two questions.
1. What’s the one thing that has to be in a pitch deck for you to even consider it?
2. What’s the one thing you hate seeing in a pitch deck?
Hussein Kanji, Hoxton Ventures
1. Has to be a new category and why that category will get big or why the company in the category will get big. We just can’t do better mousetraps or nice to haves, because they won’t get big enough. We can tolerate almost everything else.
2. Valuation for the company. The market decides that.
Nick Telson, Angel Investor
1. What’s the actual problem being solved.
2. Taking more than 3 slides to actually find out/understand what the startup is/about.
Matthew Holding, Investment Analyst – Midven
1. The company needs to show me that they have found product-market fit and have a solution that solves a sizeable problem. This is essential at the stages I invest.
2. Aside from arrogance, I see so many companies use a competitor matrix with axes that aren’t to scale. Moreover, the company tends to make the obvious point that they are in the top right quadrant, but has no figures to back any of the claims.
Benn Latham, Angel Investor
1. Call me old fashioned but I still want to see numbers, both actuals and forecast with assumptions clear. This needs to be balanced with clear vision and strategy – something exciting to buy into (beyond the functional).
2. Too many pages! If the messaging can’t be made succinct, then it’s not for me….
The best decks start the conversation
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What is the purpose of an investment deck?
A simple question to ask but the answer is very often wrong. The deck is simply a vehicle to start a deeper conversation. To do that it needs to tick boxes, the boxes that an investor is looking for. Unfortunately, like the layout of a deck, investors all have different criteria. But they are all looking to make money so at least you have a place to start!
Our CMO suggests thinking of it like an ad campaign, you segment your audience and craft a message that’s right for each segment. To do this requires some research and understanding of who you’re pitching to. This research is vital and worth the effort. The deck can then serve its purpose of opening the door to a more meaningful interaction.
Get to the point quickly
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The number one piece of advice we here from investors is always “Get to the point”. In a noisy space be honest and upfront about what you do, why it’s great and why they should invest. So many times we hear investors moaning about pitch decks that don’t clearly and concisely explain the company mission, the problem and how it’s solved.
Save something to talk about
As we said at the start, the best decks start conversations. There’s a great temptation to overload a deck with all the amazing information you have at hand. Don’t. Keep slides short and summarise.
You wouldn’t present a written document in front of an audience, slides should caputre what you’re talking about succinctly. get this right and what you say will compliment what’s in the deck. Great decks leave investors wanting more, encouraging positive questions rather than scrutinising mistakes.
Think the trailer to your blockbuster, show them enough to start the process but not so much that they feel there is little left to see. If you think that a decision can be made purely on the back of the deck, you’re setting yourself up for failure, and if a decision is made on the deck alone? Let’s face it will usually be a no.
Feedback from our panel of start-up CFOs
Numbers, simple and accurate
Photo by Pierpaolo Riondato on Unsplash
The numbers play a key roll in your investment journey. Getting them wrong, not knowing them and having wildly debatable numbers is a sure fire way to not fund. At the very earliest stages investors know your five year projection is going to be more informed guesswork than fact. It is however a great way to show that you understand how your business will develop, that your metrics make sense and follow some accepted pattern. Hyper ambitious numbers especially in key areas such as customer growth and acquisition costs only serve to show investors that you don’t understand your market.
At later stages your numbers are more real, what’s come before is a great benchmark for what will happen in the future. It’s imperative they’re accurate, and that you know them like the back of your hand. If nothing else it demonstrates you’re in control of your business.
A bit of sizzle is great, just don't burn it
By now I think you can guess where we’re going with our pictures! Like most marketing exercises having a little sizzle is great. But woe betide anyone who stretches this too far. Absolutely the worst thing you can do is set expectations so high that what comes next fails to deliver, or worse still, you secure investment only for the reality of the business to fall way below the alternative reality created through the pitch process.
Key areas where this often happens are expectations around market sizing and what can realistically be acquired by the pitching business. This tends to go hand in hand with the “Go to market”, where a thin or generic approach builds little confidence that the market share can be achieved.
If you’re early stage we’d advise saving the sizzle for your mission, team and passion. You can go big here with far less consequence because lets face it you’d unlikely be doing this if you weren’t passionate about your company.
There is no one guaranteed deck that will have investors falling at your feet. A quick scour of the internet proves that any number of different decks, long, short, well designed or basic can, and do, result in investment. But, there are consistencies that all of the most succesful demonstrate. Concentrate on these and you are giving yourself the best possible chance of a meaningful investor conversation.
Good Luck!
