Which are the best books on pitch decks for entrepreneurs you absolutely must read?
Pitching your dream venture in front of the investors is an intriguing yet intimidating moment for entrepreneurs and startup founders.
More of an art than science, it requires lots of effort to come up with a strong and effective pitch deck to raise the much-needed funds for your business.
Mastering this is not easy. Many entrepreneurs have amazing ideas in their heads. But fail to present them in the best possible way to the investors. The results can be disappointing.
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The Ultimate Guide To Pitch Decks
Here is the content that we will cover in this post. Let’s get started.
- 1. The Pitch Deck Is Hard Work
- 2. Polish Your Pitch Deck Skills through Books
- 3. 12 Magic Slides by Paul Getty
- 4. The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki
- 5. Lean Startup By Eric Ries
- 6. Get Backed By Evan Loomis and Evan Baehr
- 7. They discuss the challenges and obstacles that they faced and how new founders can overcome these challenges effectively. And, that makes it one of the best books on pitch decks for entrepreneurs.
- 8. The Art of Startup Fundraising By Alejandro Cremades
- 9. In short, the book is a must-read for anyone planning or hoping to begin his own startup venture.
- 10. Traction By Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares
- 11. Final Thoughts
The Pitch Deck Is Hard Work
Not as simple as it may sound, you need to come up with a pitch deck that is attractive, compelling, and logical.
It is much more than putting together a bunch of slides and presenting a glittery slideshow. You need to work hard!
The pitch deck should be appropriately drafted for specific investors with the right amount of information. It should trigger their interest in the prospective venture.
Without a successful pitch deck, you cannot raise the funds you need to start your venture.
Along with ambition, determination, and motivation, you need to have the skills to ignite the curiosity and attentiveness of the potential investor. And that can only be done through an extraordinary pitch deck.
Polish Your Pitch Deck Skills through Books
Understand the importance of pitch decks for raising the funds for start-up companies. Aas a naïve entrepreneur, you need to seek advice and guidance from experts in the field.
And what better way to gain knowledge than by reading books.
Many successful entrepreneurs have jotted down their life experiences. They provide practical knowledge to help others polish their pitch deck development skills.
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But with so many books and resources, finding the best one can be a little difficult.
To make things simpler for you, we have brought together a list of the very best books on pitch decks for entrepreneurs. Renowned authors of the world have written them.
12 Magic Slides by Paul Getty
A simple and compact book, the 12 magic slides provide precise yet comprehensive insight into the building of a strong and effective startup pitch deck.
Captioned as “Insider Secrets for Raising Growth Capital”, this book elaborates ways and means of presenting your startup pitch to potential investors.
The content of the book has been penned down by a venture capitalist himself. With practical expertise in technology and property matters, the writer shares the knowledge gained by him during his work as a VC.
During his career, he has been presented with tons of different types of pitch decks. He has used them to improve his learning curve on the subject.
Focusing on preciseness, the author pins down the 12 basic slides that help create the perfect pitch deck for you.
With specific topics and areas of concern, you can use these guidelines to draft your own version of the pitch deck. And provide the investor the much-needed information about your startup.
The book also encompasses the dos and don’ts of the requirements.
Keep in mind that in fundraising storytelling is everything. In this regard for a winning pitch deck to help you here, take a look at the template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) that I recently covered. Thiel was the first angel investor in Facebook with a $500K check that turned into more than $1 billion in cash.
Remember to unlock the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below.
The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki
Best suited for first-time entrepreneurs, this book has been doing the rounds in the business world for quite some time.
At present, you will find an updated and improved version of this book in the market.
Having extensive knowledge and expertise in the field of pitch decks and fundraising, this book acts as a compulsory syllabus for startup founders and entrepreneurs.
With comprehensive and objective guidelines to draft the perfect pitch deck, it acts as an effective handbook for successful fundraising.
The book is dominated by the humorous and light-hearted tone of the versatile writer. Sharing his life experiences of failures, successes, and struggles in between, his stories act as a learning resource for all the readers.
Guy Kawasaki provides real-time and objective advice and suggestions for entrepreneurs. regarding a multitude of investment-seeking aspects including crowdfunding, social media handling, and much more.
This book can positively polish your pitch deck skills and help you come up with superior quality slides.
Getting insight and a clearer perspective of the needed content, the book also guides you on making your startup work smoothly through the right business strategies.
You’ll get information on launching the right products and services, and techniques and tricks to facing competition. it’s easily one of the best books on pitch decks for entrepreneurs.
Lean Startup By Eric Ries
This is a great book to read for anyone dreaming to start his or her own business. Using real-life and hypothetical examples, the author helps you identify and avoid the common mistakes that startup founders and entrepreneurs usually make in their quest for success.
Published almost 10 years ago, the book is captioned as “The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses”.
Unlike other authors who focus on tried and tested strategies and techniques, Ries believes in doing things innovatively and out of the box.
He advises the entrepreneurs to go against the waves and opt for unconventional strategies and techniques that can help them grasp the attention of the potential investor effectively.
Apart from providing simple and essential guidelines for drafting a good pitch deck, the author also targets other challenges faced by entrepreneurs.
Sharing his expertise and knowledge in the field, he teaches about ways of measuring your progress and helps identify what the investors are looking for.
Using his extensive experience in the field, he believes that pitch deck slides should clearly highlight a business problem along with its solutions.
There should also be topics about company and market background information.
Get Backed By Evan Loomis and Evan Baehr
Published in 2015, this book is captioned “Get Backed: Craft Your Story, Build the Perfect Pitch Deck, and Launch the Venture of Your Dreams”. The name says it all.
Using their creative essence and professional expertise, the two writers came together to help and educate entrepreneurs and startup founders about creating the best pitch decks for their fundraising efforts.
Suitable for anyone with an attractive and innovative idea, the book helps to polish your skills for building productive relationships needed to get you off the ground.
Being successful entrepreneurs themselves, the authors share their experiences and practical knowledge on how they raised $43 million for their ventures.
They discuss the challenges and obstacles that they faced and how new founders can overcome these challenges effectively. And, that makes it one of the best books on pitch decks for entrepreneurs.
Highlighting the do’s and don’ts of fundraising, the likely mistakes to avoid, and sharing the secrets of their own success, the writers act as beacons of startup fundraising knowledge and information.
Starting from the friendship loop, the book describes a stepwise process that can be effectively used by entrepreneurs to raise the required amount of funds for their dream ventures.
Providing lucrative opportunities to investors, you can offer them better returns by promising cofounding options in the future.
Using 15 highly successful real-time examples, the writers educate you on ways and tips of creating the best pitch deck for your startup company.
By discussing the original pitch decks that helped raise companies over $150 million, the book showcases their actual email contents, meeting scripts, and question-answer sessions with potential investors and venture capitalists.
The book is also very useful because it breaks down the essential pitch deck content into 10 basic slides and elaborates ways on how to create them and make them stand out with the investor.
In short, this book is all about learning about how to get you the funds for your company and the tools and tips needed to make your dream a reality.
The Art of Startup Fundraising By Alejandro Cremades
Written by an experienced entrepreneur, The Art of Startup Fundraising is all about raising funds and creating a way forward for your business’s growth and success.
The writer pens down his experiences and explains what he has learned in his struggles of raising this essential money.
Looking at every aspect of startup capital seeking, the writer provides the most simple and easy-to-understand guidelines on how to structure your pitch deck and overcome the obstacles you face.
Highlighting the various aspects of gaining business success in your startup venture, the author brings forth information about crafting the best pitch deck and identifying sources of funds available to you.
In addition to this, he also educates the readers about the entire working of a venture capital company, the procedures of the investment rounds, and how he gets his hands on the much-needed money for his venture.
There is insight analysis on how the investor might evaluate your company and the potential red flags that may arise in your information and data.
The book is a valuable resource for effective and practical knowledge on deciding on the best investor and negotiating a deal with them in the best possible way.
Helping you identify and deal with your internal and external challenges and shortcomings, the writer acts as a guide in your quest for raising funds from angel investors.
In short, the book is a must-read for anyone planning or hoping to begin his own startup venture.
Incorporating the changing scenarios and dynamic global transformations, the author guides you in making the right moves at the right time and capitalizing on the new opportunities budding out in the market.
Before you start looking for a practical business idea, this one’s one of the best books on pitch decks for entrepreneurs you must read.
Even as you’re looking for information and materials helpful for entrepreneurs, check out this video I have put together on what makes a killer presentation.
Traction By Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares
The traction slide is all about displaying your metrics. These statistics can be about the market you are planning to enter, the existing industry scenario, and if you are already in business, your own progress meters.
This book is all about building up the confidence and trust of the potential investors in your business proposal.
The authors through practical examples and relevant research help you select the right system of metrics and statistics applicable to your startup business.
The book also helps the readers learn about capturing and monetizing the true value from your existing clients and using this to ensure long-term business success.
It empowers you to learn beyond the basic marketing strategies and enlightens the reader about a number of different traction aspects that you may face while drafting a pitch deck.
The authors, Mares, and Weinberg specifically highlight the major focal points every entrepreneur needs to consider while raising money from investors.
This book is best for those looking to build a compelling business plan on the basis of accurate traction and presenting it to investors and venture capitalists.
Final Thoughts
This is not the end but only the beginning. Going through these books and experiences of experts and professional entrepreneurs you can get a major influx of ideas and guidelines.
You’ll learn how to pitch your startup to potential investors and effectively get them to invest in your venture.
A successful pitch deck is the start of your fundraising marathon. It promises to get you the much-needed time and attention of the VC and angel investors.
The journey from there on can be quite bumpy and intriguing. But the ultimate success of the pitch deck is determined through a positive outcome of gaining access to the much-needed investment.
As a new entrepreneur and startup founder, you can effectively use these resources and gain valuable insight into the world of investment hunting.
The key is to tune yourself for using these expert guidelines and tips and create the right version of your own company’s pitch deck presentation.
Keep in mind that there is no right and wrong. What might work for one might not be so fruitful for the others.
So, make yourself ready for crafting the perfect pitch deck and make your idea a reality. take the time to read these best books on pitch decks for entrepreneurs.
You may find interesting as well our free library of business templates. There you will find every single template you will need when building and scaling your business completely for free. See it here.
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