Reasons Why You Need A Pitch Deck

What are the reasons why you need a pitch deck? In order to get the funding you need to grow your business, you need to be able to convince investors that you’re capable of making their investment worth it.

This can be a daunting task, especially if you don’t have any experience with pitching and selling your business.

As you know, the investment world has become more and more saturated over time, meaning the fundraising process has become significantly more competitive.

Despite this, however, there are still many opportunities out there for those who are willing to go and grab them. If you’re already prepared with a high-quality pitch deck in hand, you’ll be able to take advantage of these opportunities too.

In this article, we will highlight the reasons why you need a pitch deck and exactly how a pitch deck can help your startup flourish and grow beyond expectations. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

What is a Pitch Deck?

A pitch deck is an essential component of launching a startup. It is a tool that assists you in efficiently communicating your business and its offerings to prospective investors, business partners, advisors, employees, and even customers.

It’s typically used during the fundraising process, but can also be used in other circumstances.

The structure of a pitch deck varies depending on who you’re pitching to, but most of them follow similar, commonly accepted patterns. They often start with an overview of who you are and what you do, followed by a discussion of your company model and market opportunity.

Then they move into specific product highlights, including any unique advantages. Finally, they wrap up with some details about how much money you need and why it’s necessary.

Now that you know what a pitch deck is, it’s important to understand that there are many reasons why you should have one in the first place. Before we get started, let’s take a quick look at the different types of pitch decks available.

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.

Scenarios In Which You’ll Need Pitch Decks

Pitch decks are an incredibly important part of any startup’s journey. They help you get your idea off the ground, and they can also be a crucial tool in helping you to raise money or find investors, and keep on growing it until you exit.

Crafting Your Business Plan

Creating a pitch deck is a quick way to get your business idea and vision fleshed out. It’s faster than a voluminous traditional business plan and much more actionable.

You can then use this document to get feedback from those around you and hone your plan before going all in and beginning to pitch to investors for real.

Cold Pitching

One of the most common uses for pitch decks is to blast it out there and get it in front of potential investors.

You may do this by email, over social media, by applying to startup accelerators, or by getting on TV shows.

Cold pitching is a brief presentation designed to grab their attention, make you stand out, and get them to respond for a meeting and more information.

Investor Meetings

After the previous step, you hope to get important investor meetings where you can pitch live verbally, along with presenting your pitch deck slides.
Today this may be in person at their offices, on stage at demo days or pitching events, or via online video meetings.

Hiring

Smart recruits are going to want to check your deck to make sure you really know what you are doing, and that it is a good fit for them. This includes heads of departments like marketing, as well as technical talent, and potential cofounders.

Enrolling Advisors

Great advisors are busy. They can be invaluable. Though are frequently hit up by many wannabe entrepreneurs wanting them on their board. Even if you are offering them equity, they want to be sure their time is invested in something that is capable of being successful.

Selling Your Company

Often a fundraising round doubles as a marketing pitch to get your company acquired. Using the right psychological flow and data can position you to receive inbound offers.

Reasons Why You Need a Pitch Deck

1. A great pitch deck is often what determines how successful your business will be

A pitch deck is a short presentation that you give to investors and other potential partners to help show that your business will be successful and profitable. It’s a way for you to show off all the great things about your company, including how much money it makes, how much growth it has seen over time, and your business plans for the future.

To help demonstrate this, your pitch deck should include:

• A summary of your company’s mission, vision, and values
• The problem that your company solves for customers
• The solution that your company provides for customers
• Who the ideal customer is for this product or service
• What you’ve achieved so far

2. It helps investors see if you’re worth their money

Investors are busy people. They’re looking at dozens, maybe even hundreds, of pitch decks every day.

So why would they spend time on yours?

Your pitch deck needs to make you stand out. It shows that you’ve spent time thinking about your business and what it will take to make it successful, and it gives investors a clear understanding of what they’ll get if they invest in your company.

They want to know what you’re capable of and how much they can expect from you if they invest their money. If you’re not prepared, it’s going to make them think twice about investing in your company. A pitch deck will help you show investors exactly why they should pour their money into your business, why it’s worth their time, and how you can return them what they need. Enticing your investors is one of the key reasons why you need a pitch deck.

3. Helps you stay on track during meetings

A pitch deck can help you stay on track during meetings with potential investors or clients so that they don’t feel like they’re wasting their time or yours by sitting through an unfocused presentation.

If you’ve ever been in a meeting and started rambling, or said too much, or not enough, or if you’ve ever gotten distracted by something that someone else said and lost track of your own thoughts, then you know how frustrating it can be.

A pitch deck helps you stay focused in those moments. It gives you a clear outline of what to say and how to say it.

4. It’s a quick way to present your company

A pitch deck is a quick way to communicate what your company does in a short period of time. It’s a great tool for anyone who’s trying to raise money or sell something because it gives you the chance to get your point across quickly without having to spend hours explaining everything you know about your company.

It can also give you a chance to quickly, and effectively share your vision for the future of your business and show off some of your best ideas and help illustrate what makes your company unique.

Investors typically only spend three or four minutes on a presentation.

5. A pitch deck helps you structure your ideas

It’s one thing to have a brilliant idea; it’s another thing to be able to communicate that idea in a way that helps others see why they should devote their effort and resources to bring the idea to life.

You can achieve just that with the help of a pitch deck, which gives you the chance to organize your thoughts in a manner that is clear and succinct.

By structuring your ideas in this way, investors have the opportunity to see what you’re thinking, which helps them get a better understanding of how their money will be used in the future.

6. A good pitch deck often determines how much funding you’ll get

If you’re looking for funding, your pitch deck is the most important thing you’ll ever make. Without one, you are just a person with an idea and no way to convince anyone else of its potential. With one, you’re a businessperson with a plan and the ability to convince others that your idea will be profitable and help you create more funding.

If you don’t have a great pitch deck ready when you’re looking for funding, then you might as well give up, because no investor will want to put any amount of money into something without knowing what they’re getting into first. A good pitch deck often determines how much funding you’ll get as it also shows the financial dynamics. How big the market is, how much people are paying for the product, and how much money it will take to grow it. Getting an estimate of the funding you can expect to gather is one of the reasons why you need a pitch deck.

7. It helps you figure out what you’re doing well and what you can improve

You need a pitch deck because it helps you figure out what you’re doing well and what you can improve.

You know when you have a great idea for a business, but then it’s time to start pitching, and the whole thing falls apart? It happens to a lot of people.

And the reason it happens is that many people don’t know their business well enough yet. They simply haven’t done enough research or experimentation to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

A pitch deck is a tool that helps you do that research and experimentation, so when it comes time to pitch your product or service, you’ll be able to tell your audience exactly how they can benefit from using it, and why they should care about using it.

You’ll refine your business plan through the process of creating your deck as well.

Even as you’re understanding why you absolutely need a great pitch deck, you’d also want to take the time to learn how to create a pitch deck. Check out this video I have created explaining all the essential elements you must include.

8. Use your pitch deck to recruit

Your pitch deck can also be an invaluable tool for recruiting great employees and advisors. Most will want to see this before considering helping you, or even dedicating time to a meeting or phone call.

It shows them if you are a good match, how you stand out, and why they should get involved. Putting together a great team of talent and advisors is one of the practical reasons why you need a pitch deck.

Top Pitch Deck Tips

Here are some top tips to help you create the perfect pitch deck.

1. Start with a great title page, which should include your name, email address, phone number, and website URL.
2. Nail the intro with your slogan or elevator pitch. This should be done in 1 or 2 sentences.
3. Include a short description of the company’s mission statement or value proposition. The text should be written in a clean yet conversational style but still includes important selling points.
4. Double check for typos or grammatical errors anywhere in the presentation.
5. Use original, high-quality images and charts as much as possible. They help break up long blocks of text and keep readers engaged with your story.

Conclusion

A pitch deck is a vital tool for all startups and entrepreneurs. Don’t try starting up without one.

While fundraising and selling your company are two of the most obvious use cases for a pitch deck, there are many other situations in which it will be of value.

In fact, just the process of putting it together can make a big difference in your business.

The great news is that you don’t have to be a design genius and try to invent this from scratch. Get your hands on a proven pitch deck template to get going fast.

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.