11 Key Elements to a Great Pitch Deck

We teamed up with Sparkup, the network focused crowdfunding platform, to analyse 100s of successfully funded companies to bring you the 11 key elements you need for a great pitch deck.

‍Pitch Deck Do’s

The average visitor will only spend 3m44sec reading your slides so make sure you communicate all of these in 20 slides or less to maximise your chance of success.

Spend time on your deck. Make sure your team slide looks awesome!
Know your metrics better than anyone. Traction speaks the loudest.
Share success stories and great testimonials
Be punchy, concise, clear and aim to engage

‍1. Company Purpose

Consider this your teaser slide that showcases your company’s mission and vision through a killer statement. This is your 15-second compelling elevator pitch.

Make it memorable.

2. Problem / Opportunity

• What is the problem or opportunity?
• Why is it important to solve it?
• Who are you solving the problem for?

3. Solution

Describe how your solution solves the problem you have just outlined and why it is better than other solutions in the market.

4. Market Size

• Convince your viewer that the market opportunity is large and attainable.
• Provide the dollar value of your Total Available Market (TAM), Serviceable Available Market (SAM) and Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM).

Key statistics work well here.

5. Product

What are the key features of the product and how does it work?Why do customers care about the product? What are the major product milestones so far? Include images of your product

If you don’t have a working product yet include visuals of what you are building.

6. Team

This is one of the most important slides to focus on in order to build credibility. This slide should include:

• Pictures of key team members
• Name and title of key team members
• Significant accomplishment for each person that identifies key strengths and experience

This slide can also include Board Members and Advisors in order to increase the credibility of your overall team.

7. Competition

Use a matrix to showcase how you are the best at what you do or at least how you differ from other players. Having direct competitors is OK and proves there is a market for your offering.

8. Business Model

Illustrate the ways you are going to make money by providing 1-3 different revenue sources.

• How do you make money?
• What is the pricing model?
• What is the long-term value of a customer?

9.  Market Plan

• What key marketing channels will you use?
• What early successes have you had and what channels have worked?
• What are your preliminary customer acquisition costs per customer?
• What PR will you be employing?
• What early press or buzz have you gotten?

10. Financials

This slide is more about what you have done so far and not what you plan on doing. Showing traction is important here.

• total revenue, ARR, MRR, profits
• CAC, LTV and Margin (unit economics)
• no. customers and partners signed up
• forecasting for 1-3 years to demonstrate your ambition and growth plans. Don’t be unrealistic.

11. The Ask and The Spend

• How much are you raising?
• What is the company valuation?
• What is the % equity offered?
• Never list these three things in the same sentence: amount raising, valuation, and % equity offered unless you’ve actually built your cap table and used a tool to model your actual equity dilution.
• Always talk about pre-money valuation rather than post-money valuation.
• What are you going to be spending the money on? Group what you are going to spend the money on into categories e.g Operations, Recruitment, Marketing
• What runway will that give you? i.e. how long before you are profitable or raising your next round

Final Words of Wisdom

Always prepare two versions of your slide deck – one with financials and fundraising details and one without so you can send out teasers to a wide set of people, and only give out your financials to a small set.