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Creating a startup pitch deck, if you've never done it before, is really tough to do.
Learn how to create a compelling startup pitch deck for investors with expert Brett J. Fox's 11-step guide to secure funding meetings.
Key Takeaways
- The pitch deck's primary purpose is to get a follow-up meeting, not immediate funding.
- Investors decide quickly, so the executive summary must be compelling and concise.
- Showcase the right executive team, not advisory boards, to build credibility.
- Balance detail in your slides to avoid overwhelming or under-informing investors.
- Providing a clear go-to-market strategy and competitive analysis is critical for investor trust.
What the video covers
- Creating a startup pitch deck is challenging but essential to convince investors quickly.
- You have about seven seconds to connect and two minutes to tell your company's story.
- The pitch deck follows an 11-step sequence designed to present information investors expect.
- The goal of the pitch deck is to secure the next meeting, not immediate funding.
- Key slides include the cover, executive summary, team, market, how it works, product roadmap, competitive analysis, go-to-market strategy, and financials.
- Avoid common mistakes like including version numbers or advisory boards on team slides.
- Use clear, concise slides that balance detail, especially on the 'how it works' slide.
- Include market size with TAM and SAM but avoid showing detailed math in the main slides.
- A well-crafted competitive analysis and go-to-market strategy build investor confidence.
- A simple income statement with cash, headcount, and investment info is recommended for financials.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction to Startup Pitch Decks
- 00:29Time Constraints and Storytelling
- 00:59Experience and Fundraising Insights
- 01:24Purpose of the Investor Pitch Deck
- 01:47Cover Slide Guidelines
- 02:50Executive Summary Importance
- 03:54Team Slide and Market Slide
- 05:18How It Works and Product Roadmap
- 06:18Competitive Analysis and Go-To-Market Strategy
- 07:14Financial Slide and Wrap-Up
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
You have to somehow, in a very short period of time, convince investors who may know very little about your company why your company is going to make them a ton of money.
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How short a timeframe do you have? Well, let's start with you, the startup CEO. You maybe have seven seconds to make a connection with your audience.
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And then you'll have maybe two minutes to tell the whole story of your company, but even if you've never done it before, trust me, it can be done today.
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I'm gonna teach you the slide structure to follow to give your company the best chance of raising your startup funding.
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I've raised over a hundred million in venture capital and private equity funding, and I've helped startup CEOs
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like you raise rounds of between $50,000 and 150 million. I've been around a lot of fundraisings, and I know what works and I know what doesn't work.
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So let's get started. We're going to use my startup pitch deck template as our guide.
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It's an 11-step sequence that gives investors the exact information they want in the sequence they're used to seeing it in. Click the link below today's video to get my startup pitch deck template for free.
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Before we go any further, let me explain that the purpose of an investor pitch deck is not to get you funding.
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The real purpose of your end investor pitch deck is to get you that next meeting with an investor.
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And that eventually is going to lead you to your funding. It's very rare you will raise funding in one meeting. However, a well-crafted pitch and pitch deck will set you on the way to get your funding.
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If you're not already a subscriber, then hit that subscribe button right now and you'll get notified
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every time I release a new video. Let's start with the cover slide. It's the simplest slide in the deck.
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All you want to do here is simply follow the directions on my pitch deck guide, put your name, your title, hopefully CEO, the company's name, and the date that the deck was created.
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That's all you need to do. Now, do not put a version number of your pitch deck on your cover slide or anywhere in your pitch deck for that matter.
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Because when you get to version number 10 of your pitch deck, and it's labeled as version number 10, your deck looks shopped.
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And when it looks like you've been shopping your pitch deck to a lot of different investors, it's a major turnoff for investors.
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So don't do it. Now, let's move on to the executive summary. This is the most important part of your pitch deck because you have everybody's attention at this point, but you'll start losing that attention in maybe just eight seconds.
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According to a study that Microsoft commissioned, a great executive summary tells the whole story of your company in a two-slide problem-solution format.
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And you'll have maybe just two to three minutes to get your message across. The key here is to really lean into the pain your customers are facing because of the problems they're facing.
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Oh, and you need to do this without a huge amount of details, especially technical details—that comes later.
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Now that we're done with the executive summary, we're onto the body of your pitch deck. And in the body of your pitch deck,
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the idea here is to answer the questions that investors likely have about your company based on your executive summary.
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The first slide in this section is the team slide. This is a very simple slide that too many CEOs screw up.
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The purpose of this slide is to show investors that you have the right team assembled, especially the executive team assembled, to solve the problem that you're trying to solve.
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Do tell me who's on your executive team. Do not tell me who's on your advisory board.
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In this section, remember teams run companies, not advisory boards. Now we're onto the market slide.
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The purpose of the market slide is showing investors how big the total market is for your company
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and the served market is for your company. The total available market, or TAM, represents the whole market
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that products like your company makes serve. Whether you can serve that whole market? Not right now. The served market, or SAM, represents the market that you can attack today.
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Both the served market and total market are important to investors. Now here's a pro tip:
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Don't show me the math behind your served market or total market. You could put that in a backup slide if you want. If today's content is resonating with you, then you can hit that like button right now.
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Now we're onto the how it works slide. And in this slide, we're showing investors the secret sauce that allows your company to succeed.
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I call this slide the Goldilocks slide because we all know the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, and the how it works slide is no different. Let me explain: too much detail will overwhelm your investors, too little detail and your investors won't know enough about why you're different. You need to get the detail here just right. Next up is the product roadmap slide.
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The purpose of this slide is showing where your company's been and where your company is going in the future.
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Now here's the pro tip for making the slide really sing: make sure to put month and years for each one of the milestones you're showing on this slide.
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It makes it look so much more real to investors when you do that. Next up is the competitive analysis. A well-done competitive analysis will give your investors confidence in you because you're showing the market knowledge
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you have. A four-quadrant map, like the one that Steve Jobs did when he introduced the iPhone, is the norm
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and it's what investors expect. Now the pro tip for this one is do not, do not, do not cherry pick investors. It looks like you're hiding something. You don't want to do this.
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Instead, include all the investors. Believe me, it shows your confidence that you're going to win when you do that.
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The next slide is the go-to-market strategy. This is another critical slide because you're telling investors how you're gonna make customers aware that your company exists.
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Remember, savvy investors have seen it all, so you need a well-thought-out strategy here in order to earn investors' trust.
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Now we're onto the final slide in the deck, the financial slide. I prefer a simple income statement format with a few extras like cash, headcount, and investment.
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This makes it really easy for investors to see exactly what's going on with your company in numbers format.
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The best example of this is LinkedIn's Series B pitch deck. As you can see here, okay, we've gone through all the slides so you can build a great startup pitch deck.
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What did you learn from today's video? Put your answers in the comments column below today's video.
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And if you have any questions for me, put those in the comments column as well.
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I'll be able to answer them for you. Now, as I talked about earlier, I have one more free extra for you.
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I have a free startup pitch deck template. It has all the slides you need, everything that we went through today, and it's yours for free.
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All you need to do to get your free startup pitch deck template is click the link below today's video. Now to get more great content from me, all you need to do is just wait for about another 20 seconds or so.
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And some links are gonna pop up, and all you need to do is click them and you'll get more content. I've really enjoyed speaking with you today.
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My name is [email protected]. Thanks a lot. I'll see you again next week. Take care.
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Bye.
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All you need to do to get your free startup pitch deck template is click the link below today's video now to get more great content for me, all you need to do is just wait for about another 20 seconds or so.
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And some links are gonna pop up and all you need to just do is click 'em and you'll get more content I've really Enjoyed speaking with you today.
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My name is [email protected]. Thanks a lot. I'll see you again next week. Take care.
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Bye.
Topics:startup pitch deckinvestor pitchfundraisingventure capitalpitch deck templatestartup fundinginvestor presentationentrepreneurshipbusiness pitchfundraising tips
