How To Show The Financials In A Pitch Deck

Are you wondering how to show the financials in a pitch deck? Your pitch deck needs to include important financial data including a breakdown of past and future performance. A standard metric of performance should be used for this data such as month on month growth for units sold and gross profit.

To create the perfect pitch deck, you will need more than just solid numbers; as opposed to a business plan you will need to present the numbers in a way that is persuasive and accessible. In this article, I’m going to show you exactly which financial numbers you need to include and how to show your financials in a pitch deck.

The Financial Section

A good pitch deck is broken down into concise sections. Each section covers part of your business plan including highlighting a gap in a market, your product/service solution, and information about your team.

However, no matter how good your market research and concept, if you don’t have a compelling financials section your pitch deck is likely to fail.

When showing financial information to potential angel investors, it’s best to leave these until later in your pitch deck. The reason for this is that numbers only mean something when they have context.

Through the beginning and middle of your pitch deck, you will establish the concept behind your product(s). You will then expand on this, showing why consumers will care about it. You will also show how talented your team is with a team history and what the competition is like.

Only once the above is done, can you say “and here are our financials”. Investors now understand what you are trying to build, the financials section effectively tells investors how you have performed so far in trying to achieve your goals, and where your business will be in the years to come with the investment.

Whenever you are thinking how to show the financials in a pitch deck remember that most important of all – your financials will show how investors will make a good return on investment.

A Quick Word About Growth

One thing to keep in mind, and that can be confusing, is that your growth numbers are not presented with your financials. It can be tempting to include them one after the other, but remember that you are trying to persuade your investors, not hit them over the head with numbers.

A great place to put your existing growth is just before you highlight your team history. This means you can put a graph showing month on month growth, then back this up with the top achievements of your team members.

After this, you can move into the financials section where you place estimates about future performance. Putting the team history in between existing growth and your full financial projections breaks things up a bit and makes your pitch deck flow better.

Financials Section and its Purpose

Keep in mind when thinking how to show the financials in a pitch deck that your financials section primarily deals with how you think your business will perform in the future. It is designed to show investors a solid case for how much money your business plan will generate. More than any other section in your pitch deck, the financials section is what should be most appealing to investors.

That being said, a fatal move is to over-promise. Some entrepreneurs think they can pull the wool over investors’ eyes and make their projections too good to be true. Do not do this.

Remember that, even if your pitch deck successful wins investment, there will be a due diligence process before your company receives the capital.

If you have fudged your figures or over-exaggerated, that’s when investors will find out and pull the plug on the deal.

The purpose of your financials section is to realistically convey how well your business should do, all things being equal.

Which Financials to Include in a Pitch Deck

You should try to include both stats and metrics in your pitch deck. A stat is a single figure and a metric is a stat that shows variation over time. A metric is usually plotted on a graph to convey this change over time, while a stat is conveyed as a single number.

Your financial projections should include well-recognized stats. These will vary depending on which stats you have available to you and the maturity of your business.  Standard stats include: profit per unit sold, price point, burn rate, net profit, and gross profit.

If your business model relies on a repeat business approach, then something like monthly churn rate (the percentage of customers who stop using your brand) and average customer lifetime (how long a customer continues to use your subscription or repeat business service) will work well.

Finally, your projections should extend a minimum of three years into the future, though some investors will expect to see five-year projections. Your projections are an estimate, but they should be based on market research and/or current business growth.

How to Show the Financials in a Pitch Deck

When considering how to show the financials in a pitch deck you need to know that your financials can be displayed as both text and graphs. As stated above, if you are wanting to show a trend, then a graph is the best way to do this via a metric.

For example, many investors are keen to see month on month growth of 15% at least, if a company is currently trading. Let’s say you have been selling units for 12 months. You could then chart each month’s sales numbers, converting them into a percentage, and then plotting them as either a line graph or bar graph.

Line graphs are usually better at quickly illustrating a trend, but bar graphs are excellent for comparing one financial, such as month on month sales, alongside another stat, like production cost.

If an investor sees a graph showing great growth alongside dwindling costs due to improved manufacturing infrastructure, then they will be tempted to invest.

If you want to have a better visual understanding take a look at the video below where I cover how to create a pitch deck.

What if I Don’t Have Financials?

If you don’t have sales yet, you can still offer hypothetical projections of performance based on competitors, market research, and niche growth. Either way, investors will want to see some form of projection so they can gauge how their investment will perform.

Get the Best Investment Possible

Negotiating investment and creating the best pitch deck is difficult. The DealMakers Podcast is here to help with insightful advice provided by successful entrepreneurs, free of charge, helping thousands of business people around the world reach their goals.

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.