Breaking Down The Pitch Deck

Getting ready to raise money for your startup? Here we will be breaking down the pitch deck as well as the digits you need to know about creating and presenting the presentation that will get you funded.

Optimal Number Of Slides In A Pitch Deck: 10-20

With more and more startups out there vying for capital, investors and VC partners have less time and attention to devote to looking at the slides you need in your pitch deck.

20 slides are definitely on the longer side of a pitch deck today. Certainly for early-stage startups. For Pre-Seed and Seed rounds, 10 slides are probably plenty. Remember that in these raises it is all about you as the founders and your idea. I cover also the slides and the length in how to create a pitch deck video below.

3 Most Important Slides In Your Pitch Deck

As we are thinking about breaking down the pitch deck, below are the most important slides. 

1. Cover slide

If your cover slide can’t close them, you don’t stand a chance of getting any of your other slides seen.

2. Financials Slide

As an early-stage startup, you may get away without any financial slides. If you have revenue and are at Series A or later, investors will probably want to see some numbers.

3. Team Slide

In early fundraising rounds, the team is the most important part of the deck. The decision to fund or not will fall mostly on this one slide. Ideas are plentiful, the difference-maker is whether you have the best team to execute on it or not.

The Most Important Number In Your Pitch Deck

Investors are looking for big returns and big wins. Being able to show a total market size in the billions in your pitch deck is important.

Also, show that you are realistic by showing the TAM (Total Addressable Market) and SOM (Serviceable & Obtainable Market) as a part of the industry.

23.2 Seconds: The Maximum Time Investors Will Spend Looking At A Slide

According to data, when you do include a financials slide in your pitch deck, investors will spend around 23 seconds viewing it, 2x more than your problems and solutions slides.

How Many Times You’ll Have To Send Your Pitch Deck: 1-300

There are amazing cases where founders have landed funding from notable angel investors with just a single cold email, or even a blog post.

However, it’s far more common to hit 50 or more investor rejections before getting a check. Some of the most successful founders have had to wade through 200 to 300 rejections before getting funded.

The Cost Of Creating A Great Pitch Deck

If you are counting on raising millions of dollars from this pitch deck, then each slide has tremendous potential value. It’s worth investing in it. If you don’t, why would an investor think they should invest in you?

There are 2-4 parts to creating a pitch deck:

1. Market research
2. Copywriting
3. Graphic design
4. A platform or software for hosting and sharing your deck

According to WebFX, you can pay $25 to $25,000 per page for a professional copywriter to get your pitch deck done. A graphic designer may run $20 to $350 per hour according to CostHelper.com. 

You can also grab my free pitch deck template to get you started which has been used by entrepreneurs to raise millions around the world. 

Storytelling is everything which is something that you will need to master. Being able to capture the essence of what you are doing in 15 to 20 slides is the key. For a winning deck, also take a look at the pitch deck template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel (see it here) where the most critical slides are highlighted. Moreover, I also provided a commentary on a pitch deck from an Uber competitor that has raised over $400M (see it here).

Remember to unlock the pitch deck template that is being used by founders around the world to raise millions below.

Amount Of Time To Allow For Fundraising & Pitching

Once you start, you will always be raising. Rounds seem to be getting closer and closer together. It can take several weeks to really polish a deck.

When thinking about breaking down the pitch deck you also need to think about timings. It can take a good 6 months to build strong relationships with potential investors.

It works even better if you begin building your network a couple of years in advance of your needs. Plan to be closing a round every 12 months. Give yourself at least 6 months to go from launching an active campaign to closing the deal.

Top 10 Accelerators To Pitch & Apply To

1. Y Combinator
2. 500 Startups 
3. Techstars
4. Plug and Play
5. MassChallenge
6. SOSV 
7. Startup Bootcamp
8. Startup Chile
9. AngelPad
10. NYC SeedStart

10 Most Active Angels To Pitch

1. Fabrice Grinda
2. Paul Buchheit
3. Wei Guo
4. Alexis Ohanian
5. Scott Banister
6. Naval Ravikant
7. Daniel Curran
8. Marc Benioff
9. Mark Cuban
10. Ron Conway

Big Late-Stage Funding Rounds In 2019

1. Infor $1.5B
2. OneWeb $1.25B
3. Opendoor $300M
4. Rent The Runway $125M
5. Glossier $100M
6. Newsela $50M
7. Lola $37M
8. Guesty $35M
9. Applicaster $20M
10. Nykaa $14.4M

[Source: Crunchbase]

10 Largest Funds

1. Accel $1.5B
2. Flagship Pioneering $824M
3. Kleiner Perkins $600M
4. Accel $525M
5. Accel $500M
6. Decibel $500M
7. Mubadala Ventures $382M
8. Maverick Ventures $382M
9. Lightspeed China $360M
10. 5AM Ventures $350M

Summary

Whether out to raise your pre-seed money or a late-stage round for hundreds of millions of dollars, or even a billion, your pitch deck is going to play a big role. These are some of the key stats and data points you’ll want to know when creating your deck, and preparing to pitch. It’s a science and an art, that can pay off big when you get it right.

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