The Essentials of A Killer Pitch Deck
The Essentials of A Killer Pitch Deck
The Essentials of A Killer Pitch Deck
CHAPTER THREE
The essentials of a
killer pitch deck
There’s a popular saying that ideas without execution are useless.
Well, I have a new twist to this quote.
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1. team
2. problem
3. solution
4. market
5. traction
Team
The most important thing Eric cares about in pre-seed companies is
the team. Since pre-seed startups often have no customers or
traction, there’s very little to judge them on, outside of the people
behind the idea. Because at the end of the day, investors are not just
investing in your idea; they are investing in you and your co-
founders.
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Let's say your business helps musicians build a bigger audience. You
should include a few sentences about your experience as a musician
in your pitch. This will show the investor that you deeply understand
your customers' pain points. and that you have connections within
the music industry, which will help with customer acquisition.
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The thing is, co-founders often come with drama. When co-founders
don't work well together, a lot of stuff goes wrong. They ght about
the product roadmap. They disagree on which candidate to hire.
They stop including each other in important meetings. And this
drama leads to even bigger problems.
Employees get tired of the in- ghting and leave for a company with
a better culture. When employees leave, responsibilities go
unful lled. Customers notice and stop renewing. Investors see all of
this and decline to participate in future fundraising rounds.
The book The Founder Dilemma cites that 6 out of 10 startups fail
because of co-founder con ict. That’s why it’s so important for
investors to feel con dent in the co-founder relationship. They want
to know that co-founders can make decisions together,
communicate openly, share the burden of work, and disagree
without tearing the company apart.
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Problem
Your pitch deck's problem slide is arguably the most important slide
in your deck after the team. Even if you've developed the most
innovative, cutting-edge technology the world has ever seen,
people won't buy it if it's not solving a real problem. And if no one is
buying your product, investors won’t have any incentive to write you
a check.
Now, it’s possible that you are solving a huge problem but you stink
at explaining what that problem is. This can cause investors to make
some assumptions about the business and think things like:
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● This is a huge problem, but people won’t pay for the solution
(either because it’s too expensive or too complicated)
● The founder hasn’t done enough customer research to
understand the problem
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OK let’s take the same points and tell a more effective story. Here’s
our new and improved problem slide:
1. We surveyed 300 Airbnb hosts and found that 55% don’t get
any bookings for 3 months
2. The average Airbnb host is leaving $2,000 a month on the
table because of vacancies
3. Existing tools don't offer incentives for hosts to continue using
the platform, so they have extremely low retention rates
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This quanti es the problem your customers are facing and makes
the problem tangible, speci c, and big.
“Existing tools don't offer incentives for hosts to continue using the
platform which leads to extremely low retention rates.”
See the differences? Investors want to see that you’ve done your
homework. Share how you arrived at your problem statement.
Include data that you’ve gathered from your customer research. Get
speci c by using real numbers that matter. This will better convince
investors that what you’re working on is a massive problem.
Solution
There are 3 important things to consider when putting together your
“solution” slide:
1. Differentiation
2. Framing your story
3. Product vision
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To stand out amongst the crowd, you must show investors what’s
different about your solution. Now, we’re not talking about the nitty-
gritty details here. Speci cs like “we’re more affordable!” or “we
have an app!” are not compelling. What is compelling to investors is
having a unique approach.
Here’s an example:
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3. Product vision
If you’re a rst-time founder in the early stages, your product or
service is likely terrible right now. That’s honestly OK. VCs are not
expecting perfection from anyone who has barely graduated from
the idea stage. When you explain your solution, don’t focus on what
you have right now. Instead, sell them on your product vision.
Investors want to know how you’re thinking about the future: Are
you clear about what needs to be accomplished next? Do you have
ambitious plans? How fast can you move? Reassure investors that
you know exactly where you’re going and the only thing missing is
some capital to help you get there.
Market
As we mentioned in our chapter “Should you raise from angel
investors or VCs?”, both groups have different investing strategies.
At Hustle Fund, we have a simple question that helps us with all our
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How do you actually nail down your market? Let’s use Hubspot as an
example. They did a great job targeting a niche audience before
later scaling to other areas. They started out targeting small business
owners speci cally around things like SEO. But fast forward to today,
their products are largely targeted at enterprises. They do email
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For early startups, you don’t have many resources. So it’s really
important to go after a speci c niche. The more targeted and
speci c the niche, the better it’ll be. At the same time, you need to
have some vision of expansion because investors want to
understand how this can become a big opportunity (like Hubspot).
The best way to display this in a pitch deck is through three circles
that describe your different markets. For Hubspot, it can look
something like
This shows investors the initial market you’re in now and what your
growth plan may look like in the future.
Traction
If you’re really early, you may not have much traction yet, and that’s
OK. But selling before you launch demonstrates that your team has
the capability to build an audience. Since customer acquisition can
be a business' biggest roadblock, it's compelling to see some
information about your go-to market (GTM) strategy.
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This is a decent start. Let’s see how we can make it even better.
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Why is the second example so much more compelling than the rst?
Because it shows investors that not only are you thinking creatively
about your go-to-market strategy, but you’ve already gained some
traction.
Even if the numbers aren’t great, demonstrating that you can move
quickly and experiment with different tactics gives investors a reason
to believe in your team. They want to see that you’re making
progress and if you’re capable of building the tech, especially if your
product is complicated software.
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Your most powerful elements will get lost in all the noise. Instead,
cut anything that isn’t absolutely necessary. For example:
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It’s free to download and it’s the perfect complement to this book.
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