How To Create A Pitch Deck

To secure investors for your startup business, you need an effective pitch deck.

A pitch deck is your way to persuade investors that you and your business are worthy of investment. In this article, I’m going to outline exactly how to create a pitch deck that will succeed.

Build a Solid Pitch Deck Foundation

I’m a big believer that most aspects of business success rely upon a good foundation. Too many entrepreneurs create their pitch deck without first establishing the correct approach on which to build. To give yourself the best chance of creating a killer pitch deck, you need to have a foundation you know will give you the right platform to persuade investors.

What do I mean by a pitch deck foundation? A great pitch deck foundation is created by perfectly combining vision and practicality.

Some businesses succeed through blind luck, but most truly great business success stories have a vision at their heart. Before creating your pitch deck, write down the ultimate vision for your company. Then, write down the milestones required to make that vision a reality.

Now, look at those milestones and write down which ones apply to your immediate investment round. Once you have a clear idea of the milestone you are trying to reach when securing investment, you have a path to success.

Finally, bring in practicality into the mix. Are these milestones achievable? Is there a solid route to reaching them? When pitching, if potential investors believe your ideas are pie in the sky, they won’t invest.

If your vision is impractical, alter it with what’s achievable until you have a vision and practical path towards making that vision a reality that investors can believe in.

This is your foundation. Everything in your pitch deck should flow from this and facilitate your vision and path.

For example, if your current startup funding round of investment is to raise capital for marketing, then your pitch deck will be geared towards showing how that marketing capital will improve your business and provide a healthy profit to investors.

On the other hand, if your immediate fundraising milestone is to develop a product, then again, your pitch deck should reflect this.

The 9 Things You Need for a Great Pitch Deck

Once you have your pitch deck foundation, you’re ready to create your pitch deck. I wrote an article for Forbes which outlines the 9 stages when figuring out how to create a pitch deck to clearly differentiate the structure from the old traditional business plan

These stages have gone on to become a blueprint that many websites and business leaders have shared, as they are such an effective way to build the best pitch deck possible.

Let me go over these stages with you. 

They are Problem, Solution, Market, Product, Traction, Team, Competition, Financials, and Amount Being Raised. Each stage will guide you to create a slide presentation for your pitch deck that flows well and builds the best argument for investment in your business.

Stage 1: Problem

The first stage of your pitch deck needs to outline the problem your business, product, and/or services are trying to solve. You can use 1 – 2 slides to explain to investors the gap in the market you are trying to fill.

Stay concise with this. Only outline one major problem you are trying to solve for potential customers. This will give your pitch deck focus and will keep the most salient argument for your business idea clear in the minds of investors.

Stage 2: Solution

This slide should be as concise as your problem slides. I recommend no more than two slides on this segment if possible. For the solution stage, you are showing investors how you are going to solve the problem you outlined at the beginning of your pitch.

This should be a clear and compelling argument about why your solution will be a winner. Include a quick summary of the scalability of your solution so that investors can see how their investment will quickly propel your business to a place where it will provide a great return on investment.

Stage 3: Market

Stage 3 of your pitch deck should clearly describe the market where your business will be competing. If the overall market is less than $1billion, then investors might think your business will only grab a small amount from that. This could put them off from investing.

Most investors want to see how their return on investment will grow as much as 10 times in 5 – 7 years. You can’t, and shouldn’t, over-exaggerate the marketplace. However, I recommend including a graph showing the growth of the market you will be trying to access. 

Even if a marketplace is currently quite small, there may be data to show that it will grow markedly in the future.

Stage 4: Product

In this stage, you will be showing and describing your product/service so that potential investors understand how it will work and how it will resonate with customers.

Use your market research here. If you have quotes from people your marketing team has interviewed about what they think of your current or future products, include them. This is especially persuasive if those quotes show how easy the product is to use and how much they love it.

Stage 5: Traction

No matter how good your pitch, investors want to see the numbers. In the traction stage of your pitch deck, show the growth of your business per month or quarter. Use a standard metric such as revenue or units sold.

Many startups are not at the stage yet where they can share this information. If you do not have this data yet, especially if you haven’t launched your product, I recommend either avoiding this section or including reliable growth indicators.

A good growth indicator could be how quickly a competitor has grown or how many people you believe will buy your products based on market research. Most investors want to see at least a 15% growth rate, month over month, in order to see a product or service as viable.

Stage 6: Team

If you want to know how to create a pitch deck, you need to look no further than stage 6. The team section of your pitch deck is one of the most important. A great business plan is essential, but if an investor doesn’t believe in those executing that plan, they will not invest.

This is your opportunity to show off the talents of those in your team. Use bullet points to show the top two or three achievements of your startup’s founders and managers. The team stage is all about convincing investors that you and your team are a safe bet. 

Stage 7: Competition

Most startup founders believe that their idea is completely original. Sadly, this usually is not the case. Most ideas are currently out there being worked on by competitors. 

The slide for this section should show information about your competitors. However, do so in a positive way. Show how much capital your investors have raised to show the value of your own business. 

Make sure to clearly differentiate yourself in these slides from your competitors. Show investors why the way you are solving a problem will be more successful.

Stage 8: Financials

This is where you summarize any projections for business performance. Angel investors ideally want to see projections for at least the next 3 years, though some will ask for a 5-year projection. 

Although projections are only estimates, they should be grounded in reality. Don’t make the mistake of providing wildly unattainable projections for your business. That’s a major red flag for investors.

Investors want to see that your business will do well, but they also want to know that the people handling their investment capital are responsible and accurate. It’s better to over-deliver than to fall markedly short of projections.

Try not to get bogged down in too many figures here. A concise couple of graphs is more than enough. 

I recommend that entrepreneurs have an Excel sheet on hand to give to potential investors after the presentation. This means they can take a more in-depth look at your financials if they want to, without cluttering your pitch deck.

Stage 9: Amount Being Raised

The final slide should be a summary of how much investment you are looking for to reach your targets. I advise entrepreneurs to use a range instead of the total amount.

A figure of $3million to $5million, for example, will not put investors on a budget off from investing. However, if you just state $5million outright, they might think that is too much.
. Moreover, I covered how to create a pitch deck on the video below which you may find interesting.

Develop Your Business Pitch

I hope this article helped you learn how to create a pitch deck. 

If you would like to learn more about the business world and creating the perfect investment pitch, check out The DealMakers Podcast. In each episode, I interview leading entrepreneurs who share their strategies for, among other things, creating the perfect pitch deck.

Remember that storytelling plays a key role in fundraising. This is being able to capture the essence of the business in 15 to 20 slides. For a winning deck, 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.

FULL TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO:

Hello, everyone. Today we’re going to be talking about how to create a pitch deck. Obviously, the pitch deck is a super important document. Right now, when you go out to fundraise, and you’re speaking with investors, they’re going to ask you for the pitch deck. That is the first impression, the way that you’re presenting the business, and how they’re going to be able to perceive it so that potentially, they may invite you to have another meeting with the investor, whether that’s a venture capital firm, an angel investor, a private equity firm. Whatever that is, they’re going to want the pitch deck. So let’s get to it.

The first slide that you’re going to have on the pitch deck is the cover slide. People are not paying any attention to the cover slide, but the cover slide is probably one of the most important slides, if not the most important slide, because right now, people think that just by putting a logo, that’s going to be it. That’s going to be the way to get people introduced and to move them in the flow of the presentation.

But let me tell you something. Really, a pitch deck, what you’re doing is, you’re telling a story. It’s like storytelling. It’s the same thing as what happens with movies. When you go to the movie theater, you don’t just show up and sit down on the seat, waiting to see what’s going to be projected. You first have seen a trailer. You got excited by the trailer, and for that reason, you said, “Hey, you know what? I want to go and watch this movie at the movie theater.” So, when you’re sitting down, you have an expectation of what you’re about to view.

With that being said, what you want to do is the same when it comes to pitch decks. You want to have a pitch deck where there is a cover slide, where you’re essentially telling, to that investor, what they’re about to review because it’s super-important for you to know that on average, data shows that investors only spend 2 minutes and 41 seconds per pitch deck. 

With that being said, the way that you want to really structure that cover slide is with a super-powerful image on the background, which is telling that investor what your company is doing. If I had to ask you, “What image am I going to use?” Let me ask you this: if you were not able to tell what your business does, speaking, and I was to tell you, “Just give me one image of what your company is about, what would that image be?” That is the image that you want to have on that cover slide. 

Don’t forget that you want to have your contact information, where people can reach out to you. Even if it’s 2:00 am, make sure there is a cellphone number that people can call and get a hold of you. The other thing that you want to have is, obviously, the email, the first name, last name, the title that you have in the business. Ideally, this would be the founder and CEO. 

Then, what you want to have is a nice tagline. What does your company do or represent? In one single one-liner, that it’s going to pop. To give you an example, Uber is everyone’s private driver. That is their tagline. Or, Nike, “Just do it.” You need to really think about something that is going to be powerful, that it’s going to come across with that background image and with that contact information to get people pumped about what they are about to review. That is essentially the cover slide.

The next slide is going to be the problem. The problem is not one problem; it’s not two problems; it’s not three, four, five. I see people trying to overwhelm the investor with the amount of problems that you’re tackling. Forget about your business front for one minute. If you had to describe the reason that got you to start this business in the first place, what is that reason? What was missing in the work for you to come up with this concept and execute? That is the exact problem that you want to use there.

It needs to be a problem that is relatable, where the investor connects with you and feels that background-relatedness going on. That’s the way you want to present the problem slide. I think throughout the presentation, it’s going to be very important that you’re using a very nice balance between images, on one end, and text on the other end, because remember that people are going to be skimming through quickly. They’re going to go quickly on the keyboard, slide by slide. Again, remember, it’s 2:41. For that reason, you want to make sure that you have a very nice flow that people can skim through very quickly.

The other thing about the problem is that basically, the way that you want to come across is in a way in which right away, the investor is able to envision or dream as to how big this could be because the bigger the problem, obviously, the bigger the market; and the bigger the market, the bigger the returns that they’re going to be able to be making.

The solution slide. Basically, the solution slide is your company coming into place. It’s coming into place. It’s a very nice continuation of the problem. You need to come out guns swinging or guns blazing, whatever you want to call it. But basically, the idea is that on the solution, they’re able to clearly see, perhaps with one paragraph or with one single statement what your company is doing and how your company is addressing.

If you want to get a little bit more into detail, what you could do is, you could break down the solution basically. That could really help them to understand and digest what you’re doing, but again, don’t try to overwhelm them too much. This is just a 30,000-foot view of the problem and the solution that you’re bringing. The mistake that I see founders making all the time is that they throw so much information that they end up overwhelming the investor, and they just turn off.

The next slide is the market size. Remember that the market size is super-important because you may have the best team in the world, you may have the most incredible product in the world, but if your market is very small, it doesn’t matter because that market is also going to determine the potential returns that they are able to generate from their investment.

Remember that those investments are super risky. Obviously, for the founder, what they want to do, or what they should be doing is represent a problem or a market size that is at least one billion or up. You’re going to see investors like venture capital firms that they don’t invest in markets that are under one billion. It’s just because the opportunities and the potential returns that they can generate are now going to justify the risk of putting an investment and betting on you.

For the market size, what you want to make sure of is that you are able to show growth, you are able to showcase how that is growing over time because, obviously, the investor doesn’t want to invest while it’s at its peak. You want to make sure that you’re here—that you’re not there. So you want to be able to walk them slowly to how that market is going to be growing and increasing over the course of time. That way, they can get excited about the potential opportunity and how they’re investing early so that they can ride the wave with you as the company matures.

The next slide is the competition. The competition, there are many different ways in which you can showcase it. The best way that I like to showcase it, as you see on this slide, is how we’re able to create an axis, and on that axis, you are the differentiating yourself from all the rest. That’s what we call the blue-ocean strategy, where right away, you’re putting yourself apart from everyone else.

The way that you do this is with the axis format where you put yourself on the top-right. The reason for putting yourself on the top-right is because always from a psychology perspective, the eye tends to go that way. So, you want to put yourself there. Make sure that the logo is big enough where they can see it, and make sure that you’re labeling the axis the right way: the one that goes horizontal and the one that goes vertical so that right away, they can see how you’re differentiating yourself and what is your position of strength versus the position of weakness from everyone else towards you in the marketplace.

On the competitive slide, what you want to do is, make sure that you’re not missing any names because then, the investors are going to think like, “Oh, my gosh. Maybe they’re hiding something from me. Maybe they’re not telling me something that they should be telling me.” 

You want to make sure that you’re coming across as buttoned-up as possible and in a way that the investor is able to see that you have done your homework. Remember, you put everyone else that you can on all the different quadrants, and then you put yourself on the top-right, differentiating yourself by the axis and how you’re able to label them. That is super, supercritical.

The next slide is the product. When it comes to the product, I have to tell you that people make the mistake of trying to put too much stuff like everything and their mother about that application, that service, whatever your business is about. Just keep it simple—stupid simple, so that people see it, and to a certain degree, they can experience it.

I think that if you are doing something that is tangible, something that the investor can see, something that they can use. Something that they can feel. I think that when you’re doing that in-person meeting, you want to arrive to the meeting with the product, with a demo that they can see in person, rather than just having screenshots. Obviously, having screenshots on the screen or on the slide is a good way if you’re not in-person. 

Let me tell you that there are going to be two pitch decks as a separate node–the one that we’re discussing now with a lot of detail and then the one that you’re going to have with a lot of visuals where they are focusing on you rather than on the presentation. But for today’s purpose, basically, we are going through the pitch deck that has more detail on what you are doing and what the company is doing so that in case they forward it to someone else, they can follow, and they can get it.

Going back to the actual product, when you’re in the meeting, what you should do is maybe go with a couple of samples. Or if you’re doing a follow-up, just send some samples to the partners or to the secretaries, or to whoever could benefit from your product. That’s a very good way to come about with the product.

Again, you can show a slide like the one that you can see here. On that slide, you can see how we’re showcasing the product in a way in which you can see the features, and perhaps what the product is about.

The next slide is talking about the competitive advantages of your product. I think the best way to come across this is, for instance, if you were at a dinner, and you ask your customers, “How would you tell what we’re doing?” to the person next to you, what would they say? How would they describe your company, your business, your product, your service? How does it make you so unique and so ahead of the curve and ahead of everyone else? Why are they using you in the first place?

Those are the different things that you want to know so that essentially, you’re using that language to showcase what the different advantages are that your product, company, or business has and that the investor can see in a very clear way. I think this is something that you can get from quantitative data, like calls that you have with your customers. It could also be qualitative data. It’s either quantitative or qualitative. 

Quantitative, you can also use a ton of data that you’re using on your own website so you can see how they engage with your product, and then the qualitative data more like phone conversations, one-to-one interactions. Gather all that information that you can, and that is essentially how you’re coming up with the competitive advantages that you’re going to put on this slide. You’re going to put it in a way that is powerful, that is visually appealing, and that is coming across in a clear way so that the investor really sees, “Now I get why these guys are different. Now I get what makes them so unique. 

A very good follow-up to the competitive advantages is the features. When we’re talking about the features, what you’re doing is getting a little bit more into detail. If you think that your pitch deck is getting too long, you can always put this on the appendix as a follow-up or something that they can see if there is further interest. 

But, again, on the features what you want to do is a super high-level overview, especially if you have a hardware product or a software product where you think that detail may come across in a very powerful way to give the people the understanding of what you’re doing, and a way in which you may think, “Oh, my gosh. If I don’t tell them what those features are, maybe they’re not going to show that much interest because that’s something that felt like something unique for those customers that were using us and telling us about it.

This, I would give it to you whether you make the decision of adding that feature slide or not. In some cases, it could be a very nice value ad, and in other cases, it could just act as something that may overwhelm whoever is reviewing your pitch deck.

The next slide is the traction. The traction is probably one of the most important slides that you’re going to have on your presentation. The traction is showing and validating and verifying the fact that the market has a place for your business, for your service, for your product. That traction comes in many different flavors. 

Something funny is that you may ask certain investors, “Hey, this is what I’m doing.” Then they give you the typical answer, “Oh, I don’t think you have enough traction.” It’s funny because, in many instances, the investors don’t even know how to define the traction. Let me give it to you how you define the traction.

The traction, you can actually validate and verify that there is traction with the number of customers that you’re onboarding, how rapidly you’re able to onboard these customers. Perhaps if you have revenue, how that revenue is scaling over time, how much revenue you’ve done today. Those are different things that you can add from a traction perspective. 

You could also add in there the retention rates, especially if you’re doing an online marketplace or where you showcase how people are engaging with your platform and with each other on the platform. How people are coming to your site, and how repeatedly they’re buying products, and how much period of time.

You need to identify what is your key metric. That key metric that you find that investors, all the time, are getting excited about in your space, in your industry, and you need to make sure that you’re showcasing that metric. And if that’s not the case because maybe you’re lacking a little bit of traction on that metric, just showcase another one that may be a little bit closer. Again, this needs to go over time in a way that you’re showing growth to the investor. That, again, is traction, and that is what investors want to see before they invest in your business.

If you are, let’s say, building an online platform or even if you are doing something offline, retail, or whatever that is, you need to show the engagement levels. This could be the user engagement. This could be the customer engagement with your product, and that wall of love, perhaps what you can do is rather than having the engagement, another alternative to this is if you don’t have a ton of engagement or a ton of data is, using what I call the wall of love. 

This is where you’re showcasing different testimonials of people talking about your product, talking about how much they love your product and what you’re doing, and where you’re showcasing and verifying the value that you’re bringing to the market and how excited people are with engaging with what you’re doing.

The next slide is the business model. Obviously, on the business model, it is critical that you are able to showcase the fact that you’ve been able to design a wheel that is already turning on its own, a business model that is repeatable and scalable. That is what investors, at the end of the day, really want to look at when it comes to hypergrowth—to a potentially hypergrowth business. Those are the ones that they’re really excited about.

The way that you go about this is—the mistake that I see founders making is that they just grab whatever screenshot of snapshot from their Excel sheet, from their Google Sheet that they’ve done with a part-time CFO or their CFO, and they just grab a screenshot, and they put it on the pitch deck. This is a mistake. 

Based on data numbers, it must showcase how important it is to show your numbers, that you have a clear grasp and understanding on how your business works. For this reason, what I would encourage you to do is that you make sure in that slide of the business model, you’re showcasing to the investor exactly how you are making money.

Like, who are you servicing? How much are you charging them? Those are the exact things that you want to put on the business model slide so that people get an understanding how your business works, and then it starts to give them a sense of if they were to invest x, they may be taking out y because that’s exactly what the investor is going to look at is, how much money can they put into this thing, and how rapidly can it grow? 

For that reason, you’ve got to be very clear as to how you’re explaining the business model. Forget about doing screenshots. Make sure that you have a very nice slide here, where you’re breaking down the entire process of how you are intending, or how you are actually making money right now.

The next slide is going to be the revenue forecast. Here’s the thing. Nobody knows where we’re going to be in three, five years, or whatever that is. I can tell you one thing. This is one of the most important parts, if not the most important part of the pitch deck because the numbers at the end of the day are going to tell that investor of how much of an effort or how much of homework you’ve done when it comes down to really understanding your business.

I think that over 23%, based on data, is going to be allocated from investors into this specific slide, so you want to make sure that you’re coming across someone that has been doing your own diligence on how to proceed and how to execute. It’s like giving a strategic overview or roadmap on how you’re planning on executing. 

I see people doing all types of stuff here. There’s nothing set in stone. What I can tell you is that the biggest mistake is grabbing a screenshot of your Excel or your Google Sheet, and literally copy/pasting it on your slides. What you want to do is to very nicely model it out. Maybe you can break it down into different slides. 

Perhaps like the net income, the number of customers and how that is growing over time, or other areas where they’re able to show, or you’re able to show them and explain in detail in a very summarized way, like the 30,000-foot view to remember how those numbers are growing over time. Again, you should do that with a very nice design. Avoid grabbing a screenshot of your model and dumping it into the pitch deck. Please do not do that.

The next slide is the raise to date or the amount that you are raising. Those are two things that you can add in that specific slide. You’ve got to be very careful, very strategic, and also use to a certain degree psychology here to come across in a powerful way. This slide, you have the amount that you’ve raised. Let’s say that’s a million or a $100,000 or whatever that is. Put it in there. 

Put in there, as well, the logos, or maybe some pictures of angels that have invested in your company if they’re known. That gives some type of social proof and gives them that guarantee that there are trustworthy individuals that have already invested in you.

The other area, which is the amount that you are raising, in some instances, you want to include it, and in some instances, you do not want to include it. You certainly want to include the amount that you’re raising if you have a lead investor that has already put a price tag on your round for everyone else to come under those same terms to invest. 

You do not want to include the fact that you’re raising money if you’re still looking for an investor to come in and lead because the problem is that if you return back in two to three months, and you still don’t have a lead investor, they’re going to be like, “What’s happening? Is he or she coming back to me because nobody actually invested in this business?”

So you need to be very careful and remember if you do not have a lead investor, as the saying goes. “You go for money. You get advice. You go for advice. You get money twice.” So continue going for that advice and that money and that lead investor will come in on its own.

On the case where you do actually have a lead investor that has come in putting a price tag on your round, the way that you’re showcasing is like a range from 1 million to 3 million. In the event that you’re raising 2 million, because if you are raising 2 million, as an example, and you showcase, “I’m raising 2 million,” then you’re missing out on everyone else that is investing over 2 million or everyone else that is investing under 1 million. 

Remember that those investors have an investment thesis. That investment thesis is very strict. That’s something that they have agreed to with their own limited partners, with their investors. So you want to make sure that you’re including those. How do you include those? You put a range. 

For example, if you’re raising 2 million, you say that you’re raising between 1 million to 3 million so that you are including as part of your raise and part of those people that you are targeting, the people that are investing over 2 million, and then also the people that are investing under 1 million. That’s the way that you would go about really getting a big group of individuals that you can target.

The next slide is the use of funds. You want to make sure that you’re doing a good job at breaking down how you’re intending to allocate that investment because here’s the thing. The last thing that you want to do is to say that you’re raising money for hiring engineers, and then all of a sudden, you’re saying that an engineer is going to cost you in New York, for example, $40,000 when it’s actually costing double that amount. Then you’re going to come across like, “This guy or gal has done zero homework on how much everything is going to cost them. If they can’t manage money, how are they going to manage my money when I invest in this business?” So, be very careful.

Some of the things that you’re going to allocate in that slide are going to be hiring, sales, marketing, advertising, sponsoring events, creating content. For whatever that channel has been for you that has been working out of all the testing that you’ve done, I think that it should be the way that you’re showcasing this as to what really makes a difference. Really make sure that you’re doing your homework and that you have a clear grasp as to how everything is going to cost you and how you’re going to allocate that investment.

The next slide is the Team or the Leadership Team. I think the big mistake that founders make here is that they add everyone and their mother. Even then, interns that are interning with the company, they include them, and that’s a big mistake, let me tell you because raising money is all about removing concerns, not about adding more concerns. 

The reason why I’m telling you this is because when you’re going out, and you’re going to be out for six months, you need to make sure that you have full control on all the people that are going to be sticking next to you for the next six months. If you’re not able to put the hand on the fire, just putting that hand on the fire knowing that individual for sure is going to stay in the business with you with the next six months, don’t include them.

Again, I find that the people that you want to include here is the leadership team. Those are the C-suite members of your company, like the CEO, COO, or the CTO. But avoid having everyone and their mother because if you go out, let me tell you, and one of those members leaves, then the investor is going to be like, “Hold on a second. This individual is leaving. Maybe there’s something wrong with the business. Maybe there’s something happening.” 

Remember, the investors are always going to be looking at reasons why they should not invest in your business. Do not give them more reasons. Keep it to the leadership team members, and avoid having anyone else that is not strictly necessary. As Jim Collins says in the book, Good to Great, a startup, an early-stage company is all about a company, or it’s all about a bus that doesn’t have a direction. 

Eventually, if you have the right people seated on the right seats of the bus, you’re going to find that direction towards success. For that reason, you want to be able to clearly explain whether it’s on the slide, or whether you’re doing it on the narrative, why you have the right people seated on those seats of the bus that are going to guide your business toward a successful outcome.

The next slide is the advisors. Let me tell you; the advisors are more important than what you actually think. The advisors serve as a way of social proof as a way to show to the investor that you’re surrounding yourself by the right people that can provide very good strategic guidance. These could be advisors that are advising on fundraising, advisors that are advising on processes, on execution, on business development deals, on marketing. Whatever that is, but essentially, they are people that are providing some type of light into that journey that you’re going in. 

I find that this also helps from a social-proof perspective because if you have advisors that they can recognize, that are maybe celebrities, then that’s going to act as a stamp of approval. In many instances, the potential prospective investor, they may know that advisor, and they may be like, “Hold on a second. I know this individual. Let me call this individual and see what she thinks, or see what he thinks.” 

Then, eventually, that advisor is going to be like, “Yeah, this company is doing great things, and this is why I’m involved in this business.” It creates that social proof, that assurance, that guarantee that the investors are really seeking in order to make an investment. So for that reason, make sure that you’re including some advisors. It could be two, three, or even four. I wouldn’t go beyond that.

The next slide is the thank you slide. The thank you slide is more important than what you guys think. This is what we actually discovered when we were talking about the cover slide earlier that people really over-see this. I find that people make the mistake of putting whatever picture, a thank you, and a goodbye-type of thing.

The way that you want to handle this is, this is your chance to give that personalized approach. What I mean by this is, you’re going to be putting a background image of your team, maybe posing with the nice shirts, with the logo of the business, whatever that is, but smiling. It gives that level of, “Hold on. There’s actually a team. There are actually humans that are behind this thing, and they’re happy.

I think that perhaps that nice culture that you have going on is going to come across that way, and you want to include that picture. You want to have the thank you, and remember, you want to have your name, contact information, and cellphone number so that they can call you, even if it’s 2:00 am, but that they can call you.

That’s basically for the thank you slide, and that’s what we have for today on how to create a pitch deck. If you like this video, make sure that you hit like. Make sure that you comment, and then also subscribe. Then underneath, I’ve also put some links that you will see for downloading this specific template that we showcase, and then also for downloading, as well, the pitch deck template that one of Silicon Valley’s titans actually put together.

Also, don’t forget that you can also signup on the link below on the fundraising training that we have where we help founders with everything related, with fundraising from A, all the way to Z, templates, Q&As, a community of hundreds of founders all around the world helping each other. You name it. That’s what the fundraising training is all about. Thank you so much for watching.