What Is The Best Font For A Pitch Deck?

What is the best font for a pitch deck?

So much rides on the power and effectiveness of your pitch deck as a startup that even factors like which font you use can make or break you.

Factors like font may not only directly determine whether your pitch deck is viewed, but how much investors think your startup is worth, how much capital they are willing to bet on you and on what terms, but if they are even able to follow through and send you the funds you really want and need.

If there are four main elements of your deck (content, delivery, images, and text), then the font may carry 25% of the value of your pitch deck. If you are pushing for an aggressive Series A round, your font choice could be worth $25M. You don’t want to get bogged down in tiny details instead of just executing and getting things done, but with so much on the line, even the entire future of your venture, it is worth getting this right.

What Is A Font?

A font is a style of the text.

There are probably far more styles of font that you knew existed. More are being created over time.

When wondering what is the best font for a pitch deck, keep in mind that PC World reports that there are almost 70 font choices in the home and student version of Microsoft Word.

Google Docs offers even more. According to Wikipedia, Google offers 1023 font choices.

Some of the most common fonts include:

• Arial
• Times New Roman
• Helvetica
• Verdana

Some have definitely stood the test of time and have been around for almost 100 years. Others are more modern and have become popular online. So, what is the best font for your startup’s pitch deck?

Fonts: Guiding Principles & Best Practices In A Font For A Pitch Deck

The best way to think about fonts for your pitch deck is with the same guiding principles governing your whole presentation.

A critical part to understand what is the best font for a pitch deck is to know the importance behind keeping it clean and simple.

This is the first rule and question to ask yourself and your team when you are considering any font for your deck. It is clean and simple?

These are some of the other considerations and questions to ask when evaluating fonts when fundraising. Outlining the amount you want to raise in the pitch deck is only one of them.

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.

Is It Easy To Understand?

Your font must pass this test. If it is not easy to read potential investors and customers are going to have a hard time making sense of it, or finding you. Some fonts may look smart as a logo, but the letters are too hard to make out for anyone outside of your company who doesn’t already know what it is supposed to say.

This is a complete fail. You may have everything else perfect, but if they can’t email you or find you online to send you a check or wire you money, that is a pretty expensive blunder.

Of course, if investors are struggling so will customers, and that’s already a nail in the coffin on your business. Keep that in mind when figuring out what is the best font for your startup’s pitch deck?

Is It Commonly Used By Your Team Members?

While there are over 1,000 fonts you can pick from or download and add to your favorite slide creation software, a few may be regularly used by your team members.

Do they have the font? Do they like working with it? Do they even have access to it if they are working remotely in another country?

Using a more common font will help streamline everything, including any iterations and updates to your deck as you go.

Branding Around The Font For A Pitch Deck

Does the font match your brand? What does your chosen font say about your brand?

Does it match your logo, stated customer base, and the type of investor who would be a part of a mission like the one you are on?

It should feel elegant or sophisticated if you are in the luxury market. It should be clean and serious if you are in enterprise technology, and so on.

Put yourself in the investors’ shoes. What do they see? What is it most like for them? Does it look like a highly successful startup’s font? One that they are used to and want to replicate the success of?

You may find interesting the video below where I cover how to create a pitch deck.

What To Avoid When Selecting A Font For Your Pitch Deck

When tackling what is the best font for a pitch deck, it is key to avoid ‘fantasy’ style fonts. They can cheapen your brand, look unprofessional, and are harder to read.

The same applies to the cursive, script, and italic style fonts and serif style fonts.

Avoid fad and trendy fonts. Hopefully, you are creating a business that can last at least 10 years. Not one that is going to go bust when Google changes its algorithms again next month. So, avoid these potential don’ts in your pitch deck.

Other Factors In What Is The Best Font For A Pitch Deck

How Many Fonts Should You Use?

Use no more than 1-3 fonts in your pitch deck. You can highlight different lines of text with different font sizes, colors, and shading, or bold text formatting instead. Yes, figuring out what is the best font for your startup’s pitch deck is a process that you want to work out carefully.

Font Size

Guy Kawasaki has recommended that all text should be at least 30 point font size in a pitch deck. Your headers and subheaders should be even larger.

Colors

Make sure your text color choices are strategic as well. Do they match your brand and the type of startup that investors will expect to perform well, and have the ability to deliver 100x returns?

The Amount of Text Used In Your Deck

Only use the bare minimum amount of text absolutely vital to getting the main points across and answering the most basic questions investors will have.

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.

Hopefully this post provided you with some perspective as you are looking into what is the best font for a pitch deck.