At MKII, we have relationships with dozens of leading VCs. When we launch a new company in partnership with a founder, we help that founder develop a compelling pitch deck in preparation for the 20+ investor meetings we’ll schedule for them. This blog is an adaptation of our “Pitch Deck Playbook” that founders working with our studio use to develop pitch decks that result in millions of dollars worth of seed funding.
Despite the title, there are no perfect pitch decks, but there are certainly some rules for developing an effective pitch deck. I’ve personally had the opportunity to put together multiple decks and pitch hundreds of investors using them. Through those experiences, I’ve learned what resonates and what doesn’t.
A great pitch deck tells a compelling story. Humans like stories. And in early-stage companies, investors are betting primarily on the team and the idea. One of the best ways to communicate your capabilities and the merits of your idea is by delivering a compelling, exciting pitch.
Start with an Elevator Pitch
At MKII, we require our founders to, at a minimum, have completed all the following tasks (with our team’s help, of course) BEFORE putting together their seed deck:
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Conduct in-depth market research including extensive customer discovery interviews
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Develop, test, and refine a MVP hypothesis (including business model)
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Develop, test, and refine prototypes
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Book at least 10 pre-sales of customers based on prototype demos
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Form a Delaware C Corp and complete all regulatory filings
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Complete technical planning and project scoping with an estimated development budget
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Identify product dependencies and risks
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Draft an initial GTM strategy
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Identify key hires (and ideally secure contingent job offers)
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Identify key milestones to be achieved with this investment
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Develop a financial model that details the use of funds from the investment round
First, Do Your Homework
Developing a compelling pitch deck for a seed round isn’t a function of how good you are at creating slide presentations. It’s a byproduct of months of deep market research that informs a highly compelling product vision. As a founder, developing an investor pitch deck should not be your first action but rather the final step in a long customer discovery journey. A great deck is where you bring together, in a concise format, all those months of hard work and insight.
At MKII, we require our founders to, at a minimum, have completed all the following tasks (with our team’s help, of course) BEFORE putting together their seed deck:
-
Conduct in-depth market research including extensive customer discovery interviews
-
Develop, test, and refine a MVP hypothesis (including business model)
-
Develop, test, and refine prototypes
-
Book at least 10 pre-sales of customers based on prototype demos
-
Form a Delaware C Corp and complete all regulatory filings
-
Complete technical planning and project scoping with an estimated development budget
-
Identify product dependencies and risks
-
Draft an initial GTM strategy
-
Identify key hires (and ideally secure contingent job offers)
-
Identify key milestones to be achieved with this investment
-
Develop a financial model that details the use of funds from the investment round
Start with an Elevator Pitch
After months of being in the weeds of customer discovery, founders often get overly focused on the technical details or features of the product they aspire to build. This can make it easy to lose sight of the big-picture value you want to deliver to customers. Crafting a good elevator pitch requires you to step back and focus on the overall theme of your value proposition. A great elevator pitch makes the person who heard it want to learn more. This sets the right tone and mindset to develop a compelling investor pitch.
So before you start building presentations, we recommend developing multiple elevator pitches. These are one to three-sentence pitches that provide a high-level, punchy description of the problem you’re solving (or planning to solve). Test these with friends, family, alpha customers, etc. This will help you hone in on the right language and theme for your pitch.
Then Create an Outline
Don’t start with a blank presentation template. Instead, start with a blank document and create a bullet point outline of your pitch deck. This allows you to identify the key points you need to make in each section and ensure they flow well and tell a compelling story.
Try to keep the outline short by using bullet point statements instead of narrative-form sentences. Practice going through a pitch using the outline and iterate on it with your trusted advisors (probably dozens of times). You might decide to change the order of sections or split a section into two separate slides, etc. It’s easier to iterate on the key points you need to make in each section of your pitch in this format before you start putting anything into a slide deck.
Example Outline
Below is an example outline of a pitch deck. While there is no one-size-fits-all outline, this gives you a solid starting point.
You should aim to keep the deck’s core at 10-15 slides (not including title or appendix slides). If you can adequately explain the opportunity in 10, then great. If you need to add an extra slide in one or more sections to explain it adequately, then do so but try to keep the total slides at 15 or fewer.
We’ve included sub-bullets to give you some ideas of what the core content of each section should address. This differs from startup to startup, and you need to use your best judgment on what is most relevant or important to your specific business. Remember, the key to developing a great pitch deck is telling a cohesive, compelling story about the opportunity.
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Title Slide (1 slide)
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Problem (1-2 slides)
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Unserved need and why it’s a problem worth solving
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Solution (1-2 slides)
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How will you solve the problem? What’s your big insight?
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Market (1-2 slides)
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Who’s your customer and how big is the market (TAM)
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Competition (1-2 slides)
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Who’s in the market and how do you compare?
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Consider using a competitive positioning map
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Product Details (1-3 slides)
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What makes your solution special
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Explain how your product is going to solve the problem
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What unique insights do you have that others lack
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Maybe show off some prototype images to really impress investors
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Business Model (1-2 slides)
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How will you make money? What are the unit economics?
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How do you know customers will pay?
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Defensibility (1-2 slides)
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How will you defend against current or future competitors who want to steal your idea and replicate it?
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Go To Market (1-2 slides)
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How will you acquire your initial users / customers?
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What unique distribution channels do you have?
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Financials (1-2 slides)
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At seed stage, you likely don’t have historical financials, so focus on financial drivers such as anticipated growth of customers, transactions, etc
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Maybe include an anticipate runway / burndown chart
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Team (1 slide)
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Who is going to help you do this?
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Why are you all the right people?
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Investment (1-2 slides)
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Amount needed, use of capital, milestone/goal to be achieved, timeline
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Appendix (15-30+ slides)
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The appendix is what you refer to when answering specific questions investors might ask during or after your presentation. This can be as many slides as needed to ensure you have good data to answer questions and overcome potential objections.
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Building Deck
Now that you have an outline that you’ve practiced and refined, use that outline to create a compelling slide deck that will help you communicate your pitch to potential investors.
We prefer to keep our decks visually clean and simple. Unless design is a core component of the product or execution strategy, then you’re better off focusing on substance over design at the seed stage. This doesn’t mean your deck should look unprofessional. It simply means you should avoid “over-designing” the pitch deck and instead focus on the quality of the content.
You should practice your pitch with the deck as a visual backdrop as often as possible. You’ll likely go through multiple iterations as you practice telling your story. You might change the order of slides or change the language, images, charts, etc. You should continue to play with the order and content of the slides until you feel like you (and your pitch deck) are telling the most compelling story possible about your product and business.
Once you have a deck that you feel is a great accompaniment for you telling your story, you might want to create multiple versions of that deck for different use cases. For example, we typically create a “presentation version” that is designed to be delivered live (less text) and an email version that is designed to be sent to an investor to read through (more text).
Now you have a compelling pitch deck to share with investors. Happy fundraising!
