Pitch decks are essential for businesses in the fundraising process, especially when introducing investors to your brand and products. They play a pivotal role in telling your brand story and building excitement. While having a remarkable business idea is crucial, articulating its potential to investors can make or break your fundraising efforts.

Airbnb’s founders didn’t enter the market with fundraising experience. Still, in 2009, they crafted an extraordinary pitch deck that helped them raise an impressive $600,000 during their seed round.

In this article, we’ll meticulously analyze every aspect of the Airbnb pitch deck and uncover the secrets behind its powerful impact. By learning from this outstanding example, you can optimize your own pitch deck and maximize investor engagements for your startup.

About the Airbnb Pitch Deck

Before evaluating Airbnb’s pitch deck slides, let’s put the company’s situation into perspective. Airbnb is now a massive business, with millions of hosts and renters worldwide. However, the company didn’t begin with immediate success. Instead, the company’s humble beginnings started with an unexpected minimum viable product (MVP).

The company officially hit the market in 2008 but launched three times before attracting property owners and travelers across the nation.

The first launch was its minimum viable product. Before building an app, the team tested the market by offering airbeds for rent in the founder’s apartment. To validate its hypotheses, the team targeted travelers flying into California for a local conference. The team put the offer online, and three conference attendees immediately accepted.

Through this experiment, the company validated the customer problem. For travelers, hotels are expensive and don’t provide unique experiences.

After proving the concept, the founders created the initial website. The second version of the technology-enabled travelers to book a room in a renter’s home. After this launch, the team hit the fundraising trail, intending to raise $150,000 at a $1.5 million valuation.

CEO Brian Chesky said:

“We were introduced to 15 angel investors. 7 investors never responded, 8 replied – of those, 4 said no ‘it didn’t fit within their thesis,’ 1 said they didn’t like the market, and 3 just passed.”

Airbnb launched a third time at South by Southwest (SXSW), a festival that draws over 100,000 attendees each year. This final launch established the foundation for what would eventually become a unicorn startup.

By the time Airbnb reached the seed round, it already had traction, a website, and a proven business model. As a result of Airbnb’s pitch deck and positioning, the team raised $600K from Sequoia Capital.

Slide 1: Title

The vast majority of pitch decks start with a title slide that includes the brand name, logo, and slogan. Airbnb used a minimal design in its title slide, using its brand colors and grey text over a white background. Unlike many brands, Airbnb’s team chose not to include many design elements, like a background or images.

By leveraging this minimal theme, Airbnb’s logo stands out against the backdrop. The reader’s focus immediately goes to the most important elements, including the brand name and slogan.

The brand name alone brings intrigue and sparks curiosity. Separately, we know what air beds are and we are familiar with the Bed & Breakfast concept. But no one at the time could describe the relationship between the two. Readers would have to hold on to their seats and wait for the presentation if they wanted to gain clarity.

The appeal of the slide is that it leaves the reader curious. In 2008, booking with locals instead of hotels was an unfamiliar concept. Yet, the idea of merging the short-term housing industry with the sharing economy was intriguing.

When the team pitched this slide, audience members wanted to hear more about it. Even those who didn’t want to invest wanted to satisfy their curiosity. With only a logo and seven words, Airbnb successfully captured investors’ attention.

Slide 2: Problem

The Airbnb team decided to present its Problem Slide immediately in its pitch deck. Likewise, you should also consider placing this slide as one of the first in your startup presentation.

Successful businesses are those that solve massive problems for a vast number of customers. Investors are fully aware that if the problem isn’t large enough, then the solution doesn’t matter.

The Airbnb pitch deck makes the reader or audience aware of three massive problems among travelers. First, they mention that online bookings are too expensive for travelers booking online. Furthermore, hotels lack unique experiences and travelers don’t have a way to book rooms with locals rather than hotels.

The founders didn’t waste multiple slides explaining the problem. All they needed was three bullet points to expose the market’s challenges. In 2008, prior to Airbnb’s launch, any occasional traveler could relate to these challenges. Even today, hotel prices peak when there is an event drawing thousands of travelers to a particular city.

Airbnb proved that even a few bullet points can have a massive impact. They didn’t write in full sentences but presented each problem as a short sentence fragment. The audience can scan the slide for a few seconds and understand exactly what problem the startup is hoping to solve.

When creating your Problem Slide, focus on connecting the audience to the problem in a way they can quickly relate to. The audience should understand the market challenges even if they don’t experience them firsthand.

Slide 3: Solution

The Airbnb founders immediately followed the Problem Slide with the Solution. Following the same theme throughout the deck, this slide does not leverage extensive design. By minimizing design features, each element on the slide becomes more profound. The slide uses bold and capital letters to make the most important text stand out.

Notice that this slide refrains from explaining the features of the Airbnb solution. Instead, they focused on showcasing the benefits of the platform. Ultimately, customers don’t care about your product or what features it provides. They only care about how it can benefit them, improve their situation, or better their lives.

The slide emphasizes the following words: a web platform, save money, make money, and share culture. Without reading it word-for-word, the audience quickly grasps that it is a web platform that provides three significant benefits.

Your pitch deck may or may not adopt Airbnb’s minimal design approach. However, you should also focus on the benefits of the solution as opposed to its features. Instead of explaining every feature offered, detail how your solution directly solves the issues from the Problem Slide.

Slide 4: Market Validation

Airbnb had some traction, but the founders only served three customers during its MVP launch. While that may seem impressive to some, it isn’t a strong enough metric to sway investors.

The founders refrained from showing Airbnb’s minimal traction. Instead, they showcased the market size by detailing the number of temporary housing listings on sites like CouchSurfing and Craigslist. This approach was risky but worth it. By showing statistics from other platforms, the pitch deck validates that real consumers are in the market seeking a suitable solution.

In this slide, Airbnb’s founders focused on simplicity and proof. There are no complex graphs, no distracting images, and very limited text. In this slide, the focus is on the elements that stand out the most, the market validation numbers.

Slide 5: Market Size

The Market Size slide utilizes a framework called the TAM, SAM, and SOM target market analysis. Many startups use this framework and investors are quite familiar with it. This analysis enables startups to showcase the total size of their markets compared to the percentage they can likely attract.

For the Total Available Market, the Airbnb pitch deck detailed the number of trips booked worldwide. Any traveler could potentially be a future Airbnb customer.

However, the company doesn’t attract every type of traveler with its solution. Instead, Airbnb focuses on individuals seeking to travel on a budget and those actively booking trips online. When the team created its pitch deck, 560 million individuals fit this description.

Finally, the team expressed the market share they believed the company could acquire – 84 million customers. The Serviceable Obtainable Market looks at competition and the startup’s ability to secure a meaningful position. Then, it analyzes what portion of the SAM the startup could potentially capture.

Slide 6: Product

Airbnb’s Product Slide successfully fulfills two objectives. First, it showcases the company’s web platform with three images, making investors fully aware of its features. It also proves how simple it is for users to book a property – search by city, review listings, and book it.

The team could have decided to explain its payment system and the intricate details of its browse/search engine. However, these additions would have muddied the slide and made the process seem complex. Instead, Airbnb wanted to showcase the simplicity of its platform – and the Product Slide achieves this goal.

Slide 7: Business Model

Investors want to know about market sizes and problems. But always remember that they are investors, not activists. Their primary goal is to make money, not save the world.

There is one question every investor will ask – how do you earn revenue? Investors want to earn a return on their investment, which is impossible if the business cannot turn a profit.

The Airbnb pitch deck defines its revenue model with a short statement, “We take a 10% commission on each transaction.” Furthermore, it showcases a single business model and defines the company’s expected revenue by its third year.

Don’t expect investors to do complex calculations to estimate the financial potential of your startup. Follow Airbnb’s lead and model it in a way that they can immediately understand.

Slide 8: Adoption Strategy

Airbnb’s Market Adoption Slide used imagery to explain its strategy for attracting new customers. The three channels include events, partnerships, and a Craigslist dual posting feature.

Customer acquisition is critical to a startup’s success. This slide shouldn’t just provide a long list of marketing strategies. Instead, consider how you will introduce your product to customers who have never heard of your company. Furthermore, consider your budget and how you can leverage it to attract early adopters.

Slide 9: Competition

The Competition Slide explains the startup’s market position as it relates to competitors offering a similar solution. Most startups add a Competitor Feature Table to this slide. In the table, they list each competitor and use checkmarks to compare each brand’s features, offerings, and qualities.

However, Airbnb designed its Competition slide differently. It used a matrix with Offline vs. Online Transactions on the X-axis and Affordable vs. Expensive on the Y-axis. This approach positions Airbnb as an affordable online provider and separates its offering from competitors placed in other rows and columns.

Slide 10: Competitive Advantage

In the previous slide, Airbnb showcased its closest competitors and mapped out its position in the competitive landscape. In the Competitive Advantages Slide, the deck showcases how Airbnb outperforms similar existing solutions.

The slide uses six frames to emphasize Airbnb’s advantages. Despite having more text than previous slides, the clean design makes it simple to understand.

Slide 11: Team

There is nothing especially unique about Airbnb’s team slide, but it includes all the information an investor requires. The slide provides a short bio of each founder, comprising an image, their positions, and a detailed but short description.

Furthermore, the slide mentions the company’s advisors. Investors look for solid teams with the experiences needed to build and scale a successful startup. Investors feel more comfortable when teams have advisors to provide advice in areas where founders lack experience.

Slide 12: Press

By adding a Press Slide, Airbnb added credibility to its pitch deck and business concept. Since media sources seek out interesting stories, a new concept like Airbnb received massive coverage. In exchange for providing journalists with a great story, the media provided Airbnb with significant brand awareness across its markets.

In this slide, the founders showcased logos from different sources and added relevant quotes from the articles.

Slide 13: User Testimonials

User testimonials serve as a form of validation, giving investors confidence that the solution fulfills customers’ needs. Furthermore, they validate the company’s claims by providing evidence that the product meets its claims.

The Airbnb pitch deck uses personalization to make its user testimonials more impactful. They added real pictures, not headshots, so the audience knows it’s a real person. In addition to photos, they included a bubble with the user’s actual feedback.

Slide 14: Financials

In many pitch decks, startups showcase a separate Financials Slide and Capital Ask Slide. The pitch deck for Airbnb combines these slides. It showcases the investment opportunity on the left and financial projections on the right.

Too often, startups load the financials slide with complex graphs and tables. Yet, Airbnb’s design enabled the team to show how much they were raising and provide a 12-month projection. The Airbnb pitch deck makes it clear that less explanation can be more impactful than too much information.

Learn THIS About the Airbnb Pitch Deck

Startups seeking to approach investors to raise funds should study the Airbnb pitch deck template closely. The pitch deck was effective because it told a story using very few words. It utilized visuals and minimal design to hone in on the most important information. If you follow the pitch deck structures of successful startups like Airbnb, you may be able to replicate their success, too!

For more pitch deck examples, take a look at the following video. In this video, we evaluate slides from several of the world’s best pitch decks.

The post The Airbnb Pitch Deck: An Expert Breakdown appeared first on Startup Squared.

A pitch deck is a critical tool in a startup’s fundraising journey. However, not every pitch deck is equally effective. The best pitch decks strike multi-million deals, while the worst fail to capture investors’ interest.

Searching Google for a pitch deck template isn’t enough to create a successful design. When approaching investors, the goal is to be memorable and effective. Unfortunately, most pitch decks fail in the fundraising process. While they may contain the right slides and information, they don’t stand out.

By studying examples of successful startups that raised millions, you can learn what investors look for in the best pitch decks. In this article, we’ll introduce you to 30 of the best pitch decks we’ve seen over the last few years. Furthermore, we’ll explain why we believe they were successful and what you can learn from them.

1. Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud storage service that lets you save files online and sync them to your devices. The platform makes it simple for users to share files and folders with others without attaching large attachments to an email.

The team introduced the product at Y Combinator’s Demo Day in 2007. Since then, Dropbox has acquired hundreds of millions of customers. The company has also become an example of how to build a startup from the ground up.

The pitch deck showcases Dropbox’s innovative product, explains its traction, and validates its business model. Investors quickly displayed interest, and Dropbox struck its first investor deal shortly after its Demo Day appearance. 

The Pros of Dropbox’s Pitch Deck

Dropbox’s presentation may seem outdated compared to many modern pitch decks. It could use more graphic design, but the information is clear and presented in an easily digestible manner.

The pitch deck explains the ideal situation by describing what things look like “in a perfect world.” In this slide, the deck connects readers to the problem. It helps them visualize what life would look like if they didn’t struggle with digital storage issues.

At the time, consumers weren’t aware that one could have “your files available wherever you are, on any device.” In 2024, this value proposition probably doesn’t seem so unique. However, in 2007, forgetting your USB drive at home led to significant anxiety. Users had no way to access their files without a physical drive.

Ultimately, Dropbox changed how the world stores and shares files, and its pitch deck validates this point.

The Dropbox pitch deck encourages engagement from the viewer by presenting questions like “Why Now?” and “Why Better?” The team identified which questions the audience was likely to ask. Then, the founders used the deck to take the viewer on a journey by answering their questions at the ideal moment.

Dropbox’s slides may seem outdated, but the “no-fluff” approach led them to success. The text is large enough to read, and each slide gets straight to the point. Every word has a purpose, and every sentence is intentional.

Dropbox’s Lifetime Funding

The Dropbox team leveraged its pitch deck to raise a $1.2 million seed round in 2007. The company raised over $1.7 billion in funding over 11 rounds.

2. WeWork

WeWork is an American commercial real estate company that provides flexible shared workspaces for technology startups and other businesses. The company designs and builds physical and virtual shared spaces and offices for companies of all sizes.

WeWork’s reputation has suffered over the years as a result of bad leadership and overfunding. However, its failures don’t take away from its ability to rank in our best pitch decks list. The team produced several pitch decks since its earliest stages. In our opinion, Dropbox’s Series D presentation is the best example of showcasing traction and describing plans.

Why It’s On Our Best Pitch Decks List

Unlike DropBox, WeWork’s pitch deck is design-heavy with a modern aesthetic. The slides follow a predictable theme with a bold title, a short text blurb, and a simple but informative graphic. The color scheme (black and yellow) is consistent across every slide, which makes it visually appealing to the audience.

But when creating our best pitch decks list, graphic design is only one component. It takes skill to present this amount of information without overloading the slide. Yet, WeWork figured out the perfect balance to provide information while peaking the audience’s curiosity.

Instead of “warming up” the audience, the team immediately gets to the meat of the presentation – traction. The Company Overview slide showcases their stats upfront, with impressive metrics that investors would find difficult to ignore. Few investors can look away when a company presents statistics like 109% CAGR and revenues of $121.4 million.

While visual aesthetic is less important than content, WeWork’s design stands out. Every slide draws viewers in with complex information simplified through charts and familiar logos. The team slide is simple and shows authentic images of its founding members. If a picture speaks 1,000 words, it speaks a million in a pitch deck.

A Validated Hypothesis

The pitch deck tells the story of how work is rapidly shifting away from the office. Even before the pandemic, the founders realized that remote working was the future. The deck explains how millennials approach work differently. Unlike past generations, they choose freelance and work-from-home options over the traditional office setting.

By the way, they were right – today, more people work from their homes and shared office spaces than ever before.

WeWork’s technology is a significant part of its offering. Still, the founders only dedicated one slide to its technology. Instead, they focused on showcasing the customer problem and their plans for capitalizing on the emerging market opportunity.

WeWork’s Total Funding

The founders raised $335 million in investor funding with its Series D pitch deck. In total, the company raised $4.45 billion over 11 rounds from 14 investors.

3. Copper Cow Coffee

It can be challenging to make coffee sound exciting when competing for capital against innovative tech startups. The Copper Cow Coffee pitch deck successfully explains how it innovates a stagnant market.

Copper Cow Coffee offers sustainably-sourced, all-natural coffee, sold in a kit that includes coffee and creamers. The company had humble beginnings but has expanded rapidly. Today, it’s products are available in major retail stores, including Whole Foods, Walmart, H-E-B, and Sprouts.

Despite the rapid success, Copper Cow Coffee’s journey began with a simple but impactful 11-slide pitch deck.

Why It’s An Awesome Pitch Deck

Entrepreneurs often overlook simplicity during investor pitches, but Copper Cow Coffee proved that less is more. For comparison’s sake, there are more words in this paragraph than in the company’s entire pitch deck. The team streamlined all the information into simple but powerful statements like “Craft coffee for anyone, anywhere.”

Unlike other decks on this list, the founders didn’t use complex graphs and charts to present information. Instead, they showcased the opportunity in a way that even a kindergarten student could understand. For example, the team used a few words to describe market size, not bar charts and line graphs. With the statement, “32 billion – American Coffee Industry,” anyone could quickly visualize how large the market is.

You could argue that Copper Cow’s pitch deck is too simple and minimal. However, when pitching an idea, you want the audience to pay attention to the presenter, not the slides. Copper Cow’s deck allows the audience to grasp each concept without requiring long text or an explanation.

Did Copper Cow Raise Funding?

Copper Cow Coffee participated in 500 Startups and raised over $1 million in seed funding. In total, the company has generated $11.5 million in investor funding.

4. Purple Go

(Click the image to view Purple Go’s pitch deck)

Purple Go is an iPad-based platform that allows eyewear retailers to streamline online operations. The all-in-one platform automates tasks throughout the sales process, freeing up staff members and maximizing operations efficiency. Although Purple Go serves a niche and uber-targeted audience, startups can learn a few lessons from their pitch deck.

Pitch Deck Highlights

Purple Go utilized a sleek design and approach, telling its story with simple statements and highly-focused slides. While most startup pitch deck templates suggest a Problem Slide, Purple Go decided to forego this recommendation.

Instead, the deck tells a story of how Purple Go’s clients feared the impact of tech-enabled competitors. But, by adopting Purple Go’s mobile-connected stores, they multiplied their revenue by up to 10x.

The pitch deck includes several Solution slides, but they don’t display every feature. Each slide displays a short statement with a visual that explains how the product solves the customer’s problem. Phrases like “Cut Time to Sale in Half” explains the value proposition without using bullet points or paragraphs. The slides focus on the specific functions that heighten the value proposition without wasting space on less impactful features.

The team proves its Traction with a few hard-hitting statistics, such as “Pilot Store – $150k Annual Revenue.” Purple Go gives the audience the “what” of the solution but gives room so the presenter can fill in the blanks.

Did Purple Go Raise Funding?

With this pitch deck, The Purple Go team raised $150,000 in seed funding from 500 Startups.

5. Blue Wire

Blue Wire is an audio-based media company. It hosts more than 120 podcasts with athletes, influencers, and professional sports franchises. The founders recognized that millennials preferred digitized media (like podcasts) over traditional sports radio.

The Blue Wire founders designed a great pitch deck that easily made our best pitch decks list. With only nine slides the company proved a growing need for its solution in the market.

Why Do We Love This Investor Pitch Deck?

This pitch deck successfully displays how sports fans’ habits have shifted from one extreme to another. It explains how television loses 150,000 subscribers monthly, while podcasts have grown by more than 90 million listeners.

The team also proved its future potential by showing the combined follower numbers of its influencers. It also displayed logos from dozens of creators seeking to partner with the company. The deck validates a demand for the solution by showcasing notable statistics. For example, the brand received 2.5 million listens over 11 months and doubled its user base monthly.

The Company Raised HOW MUCH!?

Using this pitch deck, the company raised $150,000 in pre-seed funding. To date, Blue Wire has raised $9.9 million in funding from angel investors and venture capitalists.

6. SnapChat

It seems like Snapchat has been around forever, but it launched just over a decade ago. In 2010, it was just a new social media platform hoping to find its first capital partner. The company had a great concept, a cult-like following, and clear competitive advantages. The company had many positives, but the team still needed a stand-out pitch deck to capture investor attention.

About Snapchat’s Startup Pitch Deck

Founders often use pitch decks to communicate with investors, but they serve other purposes, too. For instance, Snapchat created a sales deck to reach brands with its advertising and marketing services.

The Snapchat pitch deck sacrifices a title slide to get right to the value proposition. It opens with a bold and confident statement, “Snapchat is the best way to reach 13 to 34-year-olds.” This statement immediately draws advertisers’ attention – especially those targeting young millennials. The risk of grabbing viewers’ attention with this approach is that after making the statement, the next slides must prove it.

Snapchat validates its opening statement on the following slide. The team added a message that explains its penetration level for its targeted audience. The slide explains that “More than 60% of 13 to 34-year-old smartphone users are Snapchatters.” Then, it follows up with another intense metric – “2+ billion video views every day on Snapchat.”

Snapchat’s pitch deck provides many lessons that startup founders can learn. First, eliminate the fluff and focus on meaningful statements. Then, use strong statements in your deck that captivate the audience and provide evidence using real data.

The Sales Deck Impact

The sales deck set the foundation for Snapchat’s advertising services. The company now earns more than $2.62 billion in advertising revenue each year.

Snapchat’s sales deck did not influence its fundraising activities. But in case you wondered, the company has raised more than $4.9 billion in investor capital since its inception.

7. Peloton

The home fitness equipment industry continues to reinvent itself with new equipment and products. From ab stimulators to workout video series, there’s always some new brand claiming to help you achieve your dream body.

However, in 2012, Peloton launched as an innovator in the fitness hardware and technology spaces. The company combined traditional fitness equipment with modern tech solutions. Its solution includes internet-connected stationary bikes that enable subscribers to participate in at-home classes through streaming media.

How Peloton Made Our Best Pitch Decks List

The Peloton team knew that its product wasn’t for every person interested in fitness. With a high price tag, Peloton’s customers meet a specific demographic, lifestyle, and income bracket.

The Customer slide outlines Peloton’s ideal customer. These consumers are high net worth, married, and already spending more than $150 per month on fitness. Peloton customers earn a high income and are willing to use their disposable income to achieve their fitness goals.

Peloton’s investor deck shows that the team has deep knowledge of competitors. The team used several slides to explain its competitive advantages over other brands. Statements such as “We are not a gimmicky fitness brand” make a huge impact. The simple sentence puts distance between the brand and those with laughable fitness products (yes, I mean you, Shake Weight).

The pitch deck refutes viewers’ objections immediately and removes the “bad product” stigma often associated with fitness products.

The Venture Capital Raise

Peloton raised $400,000 from investors in the seed round. In a later round, they used their Series A pitch deck to raise $3.5 million. Throughout its lifetime, the company raised $1.9 billion, participated in six acquisitions, and went public (2019).

8. Transferwise

Transferwise (now called Wise) launched in 2010 and emerged as a leader in global payments. Wise, a money transfer platform, allows individuals to send money overseas quickly. The founders realized that millions of people around the world faced high fees for remitting money. By solving this issue for millions of people worldwide, the company earned billions of dollars.

What Stands Out in Wise’s Pitch Deck?

We gave praise to some earlier examples for their minimal approach to text and design. However, we believe Wise has the perfect amount of text for each slide. The deck provides enough information to understand the concept without overloading each slide.

The How It Works slide clarifies how easily users can send money using the platform. In this slide, Wise simplified the remittance process into four steps.

Wise simplified its Competition slide by listing each competitor category and the companies within each group. This approach allows the founders to explain each competitor group during the pitch, instead of comparing each individual company.

How Much Did Wise Raise?

Wise has one of the best seed pitch decks among the unicorn startups of the last decade. With this deck, the company raised $1.3 million in seed funding from IA Ventures and Index Ventures. To date, the company has raised over $1.3 billion from investors.

9. Kickfolio

Kickfolio (now App.io) introduced an innovative tool that allowed iOS applications to run in the browser using HTML5 technology. The technology helps brands promote their applications, find new users, and engage their audience with an interactive application demo.

What Can You Learn From This Pitch Deck?

This pitch deck is an excellent example of how a brand can use visuals to engage viewers with its story. Instead of explaining the solution with bullet points, the team uses product images to demonstrate its functionality. For instance, Kickfolio showcased its traction with a simple but large graph. The team strengthened the slide by explaining user engagement, with a statement that says, “2000+ signups in 6 weeks.”

The company also added real reviews to the pitch deck so investors could see its value proposition in action. By doing so, Kickfolio made it clear how the solution impacts the lives of actual users.

How Much Capital Did They Raise?

With a world-class pitch deck, the founders raised $1.2 million in seed funding from investor partners.

10. Alan

Alan is a unique and innovative digital health insurance platform. The company improves the health insurance process by focusing on the user experience and providing cost-affordable plans. The team established the business in a saturated sector by providing top-level customer service and a competitive product.

Here’s Why We Love This Deck

To be clear, Alan’s pitch deck is more than double the length we’d recommend to our clients. Despite the length, several qualities stand out.

First, the visual presentation is masterful. The design is extensive, but it adds to the presentation instead of taking away from it. Alan’s branding is strong and consistent throughout the deck. It utilizes the brand’s colors and maintains a theme that draws viewers into the presentation.

Alan’s deck begins with an elevator pitch, allowing the audience to understand its product offering immediately. The team also added a slide that explained their purpose for raising Series A funding. With the funding, they plan to expand in Europe and transition into a healthcare platform.

We’ve seen the minimal approach used in several other presentations. Alan definitely did not take this approach. The deck is longer than we recommend, but it gives enough information to stand alone without a presenter. Still, the length of the deck would bore the audience during a live investor pitch.

Alan’s Series A Round

The company raised €23 million during its Series A round. In total, Alan raised over $558.2 million from angel investors and venture capital firms.

11. Castle

Castle is an innovative and process-shifting real estate solution for rental property owners. The company sums up its value proposition with the slogan, “Put your properties on autopilot!”

Ultimately, Castle exists to help owners manage properties without the common landlord headaches. Castle serves a highly specific target market, so the brand may be unfamiliar to you. However, its pitch deck has several shining qualities that any founder can learn from.

What Can You Learn From Castle?

Castle’s presentation is a great example for founders wondering what a great pitch deck looks like. The design is modern and exciting, utilizing a constant theme, graphics, product images, and icons. The icons highlight each point, bringing the viewers’ eyes directly to the most critical points of each slide.

Castle’s format is similar to most pitch deck templates. However, the pitch deck uses this familiar structure to its advantage. The startup immediately showcases the primary customer problem. They present a problem statement that reads, “Rental property owners want to make money without the work of being a landlord.”

Each subsequent slide enhances the overall story and gives the audience another layer of information. The flow leads to a concise elevator pitch – “Automate landlording through software and on-demand labor.”

Castle shows us that the best pitch decks aren’t the ones that present a massive amount of data. Instead, they present the right information at the right time to support the story and capture viewers’ attention.

Did Castle Raise Funding?

Since its inception, Castle has raised $3.3 million in seed funding from angel investors and venture capitalists.

12. Adpushup

Adpushup is a successful startup that streamlines the process of optimizing ad placements. The solution enables publishers to improve ad performance by testing different ad placements, sizes, and types. Adpushup’s pitch deck design is simple, but the information it comprises was critical to the company’s funding success.

What We Like About Adpushup’s Slide Deck

Many entrepreneurs believe revenue is the only attractive metric, but Adpushup proved that other metrics are equally important. For example, the Traction slide validates its rapid growth, using impressions as a metric. This metric enabled them to prove a high demand within the market, even though the business hadn’t earned any revenue.

In addition to describing prospective customers, the deck displays the solution’s impact through existing customer experiences. It includes a case study showing its product’s effectiveness in a real-world scenario. Social proof isn’t just gold for attracting potential customers; it also helps to sell your pitch to investors.

Did Adpushup Raise Seed Money?

Since its inception, Adpushup has raised approximately $632,000 from partnered investors.

13. LinkedIn

(Click the image to view LinkedIn’s pitch deck)

The LinkedIn Series B pitch deck is ancient compared to others on our list. Still, it’s excellent study material for startups looking to develop a compelling investor pitch.

LinkedIn launched during the social media craze, when many new social network platforms entered the market, and competition peaked. However, it took a different approach and focused on a professional audience.

LinkedIn’s deck is overloaded with text and lacks a modern design. Still, it is a fantastic example of how a seed round pitch deck may differ from a later round deck.

LinkedIn’s pitch deck uses a massive amount of text and has an outdated design. However, it is a fantastic example of how a seed round pitch deck may differ from a later round deck.

The Takeaway for Social Media Startups

Seed-round startups should refrain from using as many slides as LinkedIn used in its pitch deck. Brevity is critical to success for early-stage pitch decks. However, in later rounds, more robust decks are often necessary.

By the time it held its Series B round, LinkedIn had grown into serious competitor. Now, the company had several members, proven user engagement, referral metrics, case studies, and a revenue plan. The company had the challenge of presenting this myriad of accomplishments within its deck.

Since LinkedIn already had investors’ attention, it didn’t face the same restraints as a new startup. New startups have to earn the audience’s attention. By the time they have a notable reputation, investors automatically give them their full attention.

LinkedIn’s deck clearly defines its primary focus – establishing its network. Furthermore, it explained why this task is critical to achieving its growth objectives. Successful pitch decks explain how the team will use investor funds to expand the business and scale its success. LinkedIn showed significant traction through the deck, proving that its actual growth outpaced its projected metrics.

How Much Capital Did LinkedIn Raise?

LinkedIn raised $10 million from Greylock Partners during its Series B round. Over its lifetime, LinkedIn raised over $154.8 million in investor funding. The company’s valuation grew to $352.8 million by the time it went public in 2011.

14. Canvas

Canvas provides a business solution that allows corporations and organizations to digitize their paper assets. The solution aims to eliminate paperwork by transitioning business processes through mobile applications.

We selected Canvas as one of the best startup decks because of how it used imagery to draw the audience’s attention.

What Caught Our Eye About This Investor Deck?

Canvas starts its deck with simple visuals explaining how the world has moved from analog to digital. For instance, books changed to eBooks, and CDs transitioned to MP3s. Now, according to Canvas, document storage will shift because of its solution.

In the subsequent slides, the Company describes five massive issues faced by companies with paper-based processes. With this approach, Canvas shows the audience’s specific challenges. Furthermore, it proves the time is right for a new solution to enter the market.

We also appreciate Canvas’s Competitive Landscape slide. Most startups use a table with checkmarks. In contrast, Canvas compares its solution’s approach against competitors. According to the deck, competitors focus on the what, while Canvas focuses on the why.

Canvas Raised How Much!?

Canvas’s pitch deck and investor pitch were successful, and the company raised $24.1 million in investor funding.

15. SickWeather

Sickweather is an app that analyzes data to predict and forecast population health. The app claims to accurately predict illness outbreaks 91% of the time and two weeks before the CDC on average. Sickweather’s sample pitch deck explains the importance of trust and credibility. These factors are especially critical when your clients are some of the most respected brands in the world.

Sidenote: Sickweather became even more relevant after the pandemic. In April 2020, the company launched a COVID-19 scoring feature. This feature made the company a leading predictor of which cities would experience COVID outbreaks.

Sickweather’s Pitch Deck Takeaway

The first thing that caught our attention was the addition of a video on one of the slides. Shorter videos work well during a live pitch, while long videos can help enhance the deck during the introduction stage.

Early in the deck, Sickweather lists previous and existing clients. The mentioned brands are well-known and credible, immediately giving the startup a high level of authority. Furthermore, the team used visual graphs to showcase impressive monthly recurring revenue growth.

Lifetime Capital Raise

Sickweather has raised $2.6 million in investor funding since its inception.

16. Match Box (Tinder)

Match Box is the original name for Tinder, a dating app used by millions of people worldwide. Even with many competitors, Tinder overtook the market by implementing a gaming aspect to its platform. Instead of just adding friends, individuals could swipe left or right to express interest in another user. Match Box’s startup deck is an excellent example of balancing creativity and simplicity to generate investor interest.

What We Like About Match Box’s Pitch Deck

Match Box eventually rebranded to Tinder. Now, Tinder is the most successful dating app in the world. The company’s ability to take over the world started with a well-designed pitch deck.

Match Box’s slides are rather minimal compared to most startup pitch decks. However, it introduces a real-world scenario to explain the problems daters face (fear of rejection). The pitch deck uses each slide to tell a story, and half of the deck simply includes screenshots of the application.

In the pitch deck, Match Box introduces the customer, showcases their challenges, and proves their problem-solution fit.

Finally, the last slide shows a transparent revenue model. Many dating apps struggle to generate revenue. However, in its deck, Match Box showed its process for leveraging its customer base to create several income streams.

Match Box’s Lifetime Funding

In September 2016, Tinder received an investment of $1.4 million. Since then, the company has participated in three separate acquisitions.

17. Airbnb

Today, almost everyone in the nation has used or is familiar with Airbnb. Founded in 2008, Airbnb is a web service that allows people visiting other cities to book rooms from locals.

Airbnb provides a classic marketplace platform that enables renters and travelers to transact. It allows users book a private room or a property, often offering more amenities than a hotel. Property owners act as hosts on the platform, using Airbnb to find renters and earn income from their vacant properties.

With a compelling pitch deck, Airbnb conveyed its advantages against the competition and expressed its unique market position.

The Upside of Airbnb’s Deck

First-time founders often focus all their attention on the presentation’s design and visuals. Unfortunately, while the slides look great, they often lack the essential qualities of a good pitch deck. Over-designing can cause distraction and pull your audiences’ focus to the wrong elements. As Steve Jobs once said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Airbnb’s pitch deck is the perfect representation of effective simplicity. The presentation explains the customer problem, such as the price of hotels. Additionally, it uses real statistics to prove the market potential. It defines the challenge entirely before introducing the company’s product, service, and feature offering.

Airbnb relies on technology to provide its services, but the deck only vaguely mentions the platform itself. One slide explains the technology, but the rest focus on the market and the go-to-market strategy.

The founders represented the solution with only seven words – “Search By City. Review Listings. Book It!” Our team fell in love with this approach.

Entrepreneurs typically spend the entire pitch explaining the product itself. Yet, they don’t spend enough time on the things important to investors, such as the strategy and ROI potential.

Airbnb – A Fundraising Success Story

Before this pitch deck, founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia had no fundraising experience. However, even without expertise, they closed a $600,000 seed round led by Sequoia Capital. In total, Airbnb raised $4.4 billion over several financing rounds.

For more information on what makes this presentation special, see our full breakdown of Airbnb’s pitch deck.

18. TeaLet

Tea is one of the world’s most popular commodities. However, obstacles exist in the supply chain process, slowing down the transfer of goods from farms to individuals. Furthermore, the market relies on middlemen to distribute products, which drives up prices for the final consumer. As a result, tea farmers have to deal with low-profit margins, and consumers can’t access high-quality tea options.

TeaLet exists to streamline the supply chain. The company directly connects tea growers with wholesale buyers and retailers using blockchain technology and a web-based application. As a result, TeaLet has tripled the profits for tea farmers while reducing consumers’ prices for top-quality tea.

TeaLet’s pitch deck enabled the team to achieve its objective of attracting and striking a deal with its first investors.

About TeaLet’s Killer Deck

TeaLet’s pitch deck immediately presents the most important information. The presentation starts by displaying its most vital metric – We’ve sold 100,000 cups of tea in 20+ countries. By quickly showcasing traction, TeaLet’s pitch deck gives the team massive credibility. Furthermore, it grasps the audience’s attention early on in the pitch.

One of our favorite qualities of this pitch deck is the use of hard numbers. The slides use hard numbers to prove the market opportunity. By showcasing market activities (such as acquisitions by similar companies), TeaLet creates FOMO among potential investors.

While content is more important than design, TeaLet’s design theme stands out against many other startup pitch decks. The deck is design-heavy, but the visual adds drama to the message instead of distracting from it.

How Much Funding Did TeaLet Raise?

With a great product and a well-thought pitch deck, TeaLet secured a $240k seed round from angel investors.

19. Moz (SEOmoz)

Moz, formally known as SEOmoz, is a SaaS company that provides a suite of inbound marketing and SEO tools. Gillian Muessig and SEO influencer Rand Fishkin launched Moz in 2004 and transitioned into SEO SaaS software in 2008.

By the end of 2017, Moz served more than 36,000 businesses worldwide. During this period, users crawled more than 168 million URLs and researched over 4.3 million keywords.

Building a leading software solution like Moz is no easy feat. Yet, Moz created an amazing pitch deck that impressed investors and allowed them to secure necessary startup capital.

Why is Moz On Our Best Pitch Decks List?

Rand Fishkin has become the Michael Jackson of SEO. He is well-known as a marketing legend now, but he had to build his legendary status over several years. Moz’s pitch deck explains where the business started and how Rand built the company from inception without outside funding.

Moz used its slides to explain how the founders leveraged free traffic through inbound marketing to build and expand the business. Describing these methods allowed Mox to validate the potential of its software.

This pitch deck is longer than a standard startup pitch deck. However, when the team designed it, Moz had already completed an initial seed funding round and had significant traction. Therefore, in later series rounds, additional slides are often necessary to effectively showcase the growth of the business.

Did Moz Reach Its Funding Objectives?

A strong pitch deck and a validated product allowed Moz to raise $29.1 million over five funding rounds.

20. Front

According to the company Front, it has produced the “first inbox meant for teams.” Using Front, organizations can organize emails, route them to team members, and maximize collaboration. The company launched in 2013 and quickly grew its dominance in the corporate email sector. Today, Front serves over 5,000 businesses and has more than 100 employees.

Explaining Front’s Pitch Deck

The overall aesthetic of startup pitch decks has evolved over the years. Front’s deck comprises elements that you wouldn’t find in older pitch deck examples, like Facebook or LinkedIn.

For example, Front uses a plot graph to showcase how each competitor fits into the landscape. This graphic element is easy on the eyes and makes a complex concept simple. The use of graphics continues with well-placed charts and graphs throughout the deck. Front showcased its traction and growth clearly while maintaining a minimal and clean appearance.

Front’s Fundraising Outcome

Front’s pitch deck enabled the company to reach its funding goals. To date, Front has raised over $79 million in venture funding.

21. Mixpanel

Mixpanel provides a solution that tracks and monitors web and mobile applications. With Mixpanel’s toolset, app owners compare new campaigns with A/B tests, execute user surveys, and build funnels.

The Pros of Mixpanel’s Pitch Deck

The simplicity of this presentation was the element that made us add it to our best pitch decks list. Compared to other pitch decks, it is relatively minimal with a focus on text. However, in a time when most pitch decks are over-designed, Mixpanel’s lack of graphic design stands out.

The founders created a great storyline within the deck that keeps viewers engaged. It begins by clearly stating the market’s problems in a single sentence. Then, it explains the solution with minimal text.

With a dark non-distracting background and white font, the message is clear. Furthermore, it contains singular and focused concepts instead of cluttering the slides with useless visuals.

Mixpanel’s Funding Rounds

The company achieved its financing goals and raised $77 million over five investment rounds.

22. Facebook

If you’re old enough to remember the launch of Facebook, you might recall that it first launched as “thefacebook.” Facebook is a social media platform that Mark Zuckerberg launched in 2004. Over the last 20 years, Facebook has grown to become one of the world’s top-earning companies. The platform has billions of users and an estimated $140 billion valuation.

Pitch Deck Lessons for Social Media Startups

Since Facebook launched in the early 2000s, its pitch deck is now ancient. The startup landscape has significantly changed since Facebook’s early days. Gone are the days when pitch deck slides included entire text paragraphs.

Still, Facebook’s pitch deck accomplished its objectives. It showcased the features, explained the launch strategy, and presented traction. Facebook also added media quotes to validate its impact and showcase its traction.

Facebook’s Fundraising Success

Facebook raised over $1.3 billion before going public in 2012.

23. Buzzfeed

BuzzFeed is an industry-leading internet media, news, and entertainment company that has brought new trends to digital journalism. John Peretti founded Buzzfeed in new York in 2006. It focused on showcasing viral content like articles, lists, videos, and quizzes.

BuzzFeed exploded over its first few years and now hosts several brands, including Nifty, Goodful, As/Is, and Tasty. By 2018, BuzzFeed Video’s YouTube channel had generated more than 13.8 billion views and 17.2 million subscribers.

The Best Aspects of BuzzFeed’s Pitch Deck

BuzzFeed utilized screenshots of the platform throughout the deck, visually engaging viewers and investor audiences. The design strategically visualized important information like revenue and the business model.

In addition, the pitch deck has a strong and attractive Competitor Landscape slide. It shows how the company combines the benefits of the advertising and media sectors.

BuzzFeed’s Lifetime Capital Raise

The BuzzFeed company raised over $496 million and has participated in five acquisitions since its inception.

24. Ooomf (Crew)

Ooomf launched in 2012 as an app discovery platform. After raising $500,000 in a seed round, Ooomf pivoted as a marketplace for digital freelancers.

Ooomf rebranded as Crew, the first marketplace where handpicked creators can work on the projects they love. Ooomf’s marketplace has many clients, including major brands like Apple, Google, Uber, and Dropbox.

Learning From Ooomf’s Pitch Deck

Ooomf made our best pitch decks list because we appreciated its ability to tell a story with minimal text. Each slide is well-designed and suggests a single point of focus. The company used graphics to show the simplicity of creating a project on the platform. It also offers social proof by presenting direct quotes from the platform’s freelancers.

Ooomf’s Fundraising Activity

Ooomf (Crew) raised $9.9 million from 14 investors before participating in an acquisition by Dribbble.

25. Task.ly

Task.ly is a task management tool that helps professionals organize and manage their work lives. The app allows users to track project progress, collaborate with team members, and manage deadlines. The software aims to replace unorganized sticky notes, emails, and tracking docs with one simple-to-use platform.

Task.ly Pitch Deck Lessons

In our opinion, Task.ly’s pitch deck is too long and includes too many slides. With 28 slides, it is more than double the recommended length for startup pitch decks. Fortunately, the team used only a few words on each slide. Therefore, viewers can still flick through the entire deck quickly without spending an excessive amount of time.

Every slide in the pitch deck contains a graphic of some type. Still, every screenshot, image, and icon supports the story and enhances the pitch. Furthermore, the designers condensed the text into short statements – most slide have less than six words.

Lifetime Capital Raise

Task.ly has not released any public funding information. Therefore, we are unsure whether the company raised capital, or how much funding it raised.

26. Pendo

Pendo is a no-code platform that enables businesses to track customer behavior on websites and mobile apps. By leveraging the solution, users can monitor page loads, clicks, focus points, and form submissions. Once the system collects enough data, it draws insights and makes suggestions to improve user engagement.

What Do We Love About Pendo’s Pitch Deck?

As we explained previously, Series B pitch decks are often significantly longer than early-stage ones. By this stage, the business has covered more ground and achieved more milestones. As a result, Series B businesses must represent more information on their slides.

Regarding design, Pendo’s presentation is one of the best pitch decks we’ve come across. Some of the most effective pitch decks lack visual appeal. Still, Pendo squeezed a tremendous amount of information into its slides without compromising the design.

Pendo also used visuals wisely by inserting graphs and charts to display concepts instead of solely relying on text.

Pendo’s Fundraising Success

The team created several decks to raise $108.3 million over seven funding rounds. Furthermore, the company participated in two acquisitions.

27. Coinbase

The Contently solution addresses the three critical elements of content marketing: strategy, platform, and storytellers. The platform streamlines content marketing by combining expert strategy, marketing services, and a global talent network.

Contently now serves over 200 enterprise clients. It also hosts over 140,000 creatives and has paid more than $40 million to its contractors.

Pros of Contently’s Pitch Deck

Contently’s Series B financing deck presents compelling statistics explaining its market product. According to the states, brands often fail to achieve their marketing objectives. The pitch deck uses platform screenshots to showcase its effectiveness and displays client logos to validate its recent traction.

Contently’s Fundraising Activities

With an excellent pitch deck, the founders raised $19.3 million in capital over seven funding rounds.

29. Yaydoo

Yaydoo is a procurement automation platform that allows companies to streamline their purchasing processes. With Yaydoo, businesses can negotiate with several vendors simultaneously and with one click. Furthermore, the platform enables these companies to save on recurring purchases and reduce their team efforts.

Why Do We Love Yaydoo’s Pitch Deck?

Yaydoo effectively got its point across and validated the potential of its solution using only nine slides. The first slide is the most impressive, providing the fine details of the company’s sales over two years. It also displays logos of previous clients to give the brand more credibility. With significant social proof, it is easy to understand the company’s potential and ability to exceed customer expectations.

How Much Did Yaydoo Raise?

Yaydoo succeeded in raising seed funding. However, no public information is available expressing the amount of capital secured.

30. Backstartup

Backstartup’s platform allows startups and SMEs to manage their legal, accounting, and payroll processes. The founders launched Backstartup in Columbia in 2014, and the business now employs over 50 team members.

Lessons From Backstartup’s Pitch Deck

Backstartup’s investor pitch deck is another example of great design. It utilizes pops of colors and strong visuals to engage the audience in the presentation. The founders started the pitch deck by showcasing the projected market size. Subsequently, it explains the product and details the company’s traction.

The Backstartup team only used 11 slides to impress potential investors. Yet, each slide captures the details of the business with a consistent and visually appealing design theme.

Backstartup’s Fundraising History

Backstartup held three funding rounds, raising a total of $905k throughout its lifetime.

Elements of a Fundable Pitch
Deck

Combined with an impressive pitch, a startup pitch deck is essential for successful fundraising. Great ideas with sloppy presentations that leave key questions unanswered usually fail in the fundraising process. To impress investors, brands need a proven idea, a business plan, and a memorable startup pitch deck.

Thousands of startups send their pitch decks to investors every day. In other words, if you seek investor capital, you’ll need to stand out among the competition. Many startups add every detail they can fit in the deck. They describe the number of users, monthly growth, revenue, feature concepts, and more.

However, the best pitch decks provide an organized presentation with a story-like flow. They present the right information, in the optimal order, with supporting visuals that maximize impact.

Pitch decks can help you raise serious capital if done right. Some entrepreneurs utilize pitch deck writers to create the best presentations. But if you’re creating your own deck or using a startup pitch deck template, there are some tips that will help. Check out the infographic below so you can create successful pitch decks worthy of investment.

The post 30 of the Best Pitch Decks That We’ve Ever Seen appeared first on Startup Squared.

Whether you’re raising funding for your startup business or presenting your business model to key stakeholders, you need a killer pitch deck to impress your audience and achieve your objectives. We’ve helped hundreds of startups create and design their pitch decks. And we want to help you also to get through this process successfully. Here is how to create a pitch deck that attracts investors to your business idea.

1) Start with a Hook or Elevator Pitch

Don’t wait too long to get your main point across, rather, start with it. Appetizers are great – but everyone really wants to know what’s coming on the main dish! Investors have rather short attention spans, and they often gauge their opinion of a pitch deck or startup from the first slide.

Your pitch deck should immediately communicate what you’re pitching, and why they should listen. Present your hook through the form of a question, a strong statement, or an elevator pitch.

Castle’s pitch deck, for example, begins with a strong statement, “Rental property owners want to make money without the work of being a landlord.” Immediately, the audience knows who the customer is, what problem is going to be solved, and what the customer hopes to achieve. While your pitch deck doesn’t necessarily have to start with a problem statement, the first slide should be powerful enough to get the reader’s or viewer’s attention.

2) Create an Engaging Flow

Make sure that your pitch deck is engaging across the entire presentation. A common problem for startups is hooking the audience in with the first slide, then losing their attention when they get to the meat of the presentation.

Create a layout and a flow of information that ensures that the audience easily follows the idea from beginning to end. Every slide should connect with the slide before and after it, building up the audience’s anticipation while ensuring that they grasp every piece of information.

For example, when presenting the Problem, keep it to only the most prevalent challenge customers face. Surround that slide with information that proves that a significant challenge exists for a large market. Presenting too many problems weakens the pitch deck and loses the audience’s attention.

Follow up the problem slide with the solution – don’t leave the audience hanging on to a problem statement without resolving it with a solution slide.

The flow of your pitch deck is just as important as the information you’re presenting. Think of your pitch deck as a story and be sure that you are telling the story in a way that makes sense, and most of all, connects with the audience.

3) Follow the 10/20/30 Rule

The 10/20/30 rule for startup pitch decks created by Guy Kawasaki is a great technique to follow. The rule states that a pitch deck should not be more than 10 slides, take more than 20 minutes to present, and should not be typed in less than 30-point font. Following this rule will help you to focus on key ideas and really hone your pitch.

This approach ensures that you’re not going overboard with too many pitch deck slides or too much information on each slide. At ThinkLions we work closely with every client to make sure their pitch deck is properly structured and well-focused on the key information.

Remember – more doesn’t always mean better. Keep your pitch brief, flowing, and remove any extra text that doesn’t support or add significant value to the presentation.

4) Express Your Value and Vision

Vision and value are the two most important ingredients in your pitch deck recipe. Investors want to know exactly what your startup offers to its customers that differs from other competitors, and they want to know where the business is going in the future.

When expressing your startup’s value, consider the elements presented in the Value Proposition Canvas. Express your value proposition as gain creators and pain relievers. Gain creators are the things your business provides that result in positive outcomes, emotions, and results. In contrast, pain relievers describe the negative emotions and outcomes that your business removes.

Your company’s vision clearly states where you intend to take your business in the future. With a strong vision statement, you can assure investors that your team has a clear focus and a defined plan of action to reach it. The most impactful vision statements are short, simple, well-defined, and passionate.

5) Customize Your Presentation for Your Audience

Before sending your pitch deck out or presenting it live, learn as much as you can about the recipient or audience. Ultimately, you don’t want to slap a Porterhouse steak of a pitch deck in front of an investor, only to find out that they are vegetarian.

Research your audience and learn about the types of businesses they have invested in in the past. Look up the businesses they’ve invested in and see if you can find their pitch decks online. Reach out to founders they’ve invested in and ask them about their experience.

Don’t be afraid to personalize your pitch deck to the audience. Focus your presentation on the elements that are most likely to get their attention and most aligned to their investment style.

Instead of only mentioning the value that your startup brings its customers, also express the value that it offers to investors, like a stronger portfolio, expected ROI, or the ability to serve a specific market they care about.

6) Avoid Overstating the Market Opportunity

This is a common mistake that people make when creating their pitch decks. Don’t overstate the market opportunity and fail to provide the method required for your business to succeed. Overstating the market opportunity can easily put off the investors and make you sound unfamiliar with the industry you’re venturing into. Focus on bottom-up forecasts where you detail your expectations and how you’re going to attract customers.

7) Avoid Boring and Outdated Pitch Deck Design

Avoid making the mistake of using boring and outdated design templates. When it comes to pitching, you want to immediately grab your audience’s attention. With an outdated design, you’ll surely grab their attention but for the wrong reasons. Thus, ensure your pitch deck design is very attractive and appealing.

You don’t have to struggle to create the designs when you can easily get in touch with professional pitch deck designers at ThinkLions. Working with us will make sure you get a high-quality pitch deck that speaks to your audience without necessarily uttering words.

Samples of Good Pitch Decks

Here are great samples of great pitch decks you should emulate.

Airbnb

Airbnb used their 2009 pitch deck to raise $600k from Sequoia Capital and Y Ventures. The company has since developed into a travel industry giant with a current market cap of about $90.31 bn. This deck is a great sample because it incredibly summarizes the company’s vision and the market opportunity they had before them.

Facebook

Facebook‘s 2004 pitch deck is another sample of a strategically and well-designed presentation. The pitch deck contained the company’s value proposition, key business metrics, and the marketing services that were used to sell advertisements to prospective clients. From the pitch, Mark Zuckerberg received $500,000 from Peter Thiel who was impressed by the pitch deck.

Uber

Uber‘s 2008 pitch deck was clear, simple, and direct to the point. The presentation focused on showing investors the solution that Uber intended to provide. The pitch deck also elaborated on numerous problems that surround the taxicab industry and how the problems could be solved via Uber. Investors were convinced that Uber could be a fast and efficient car service, and the idea of requesting drivers online was great.

Conclusion

At ThinkLions, we are a group of experienced startup consultants that work with innovative early-stage companies. We will help you to validate your ideas, raise capital, and build amazing products and services. Kindly contact us.

The post What is a Pitch Deck: A Definitive Guide to Winning Presentations appeared first on Startup Squared.

An investor pitch deck is not meant to be lengthy and exhausting, and sometimes, this can be a challenge. It’s not meant to explain every detail of your business or answer every question a potential investor may have. Instead, it’s meant to introduce your business and to drive interest; initiating relationships that can lead to investment.

Knowing what information not to introduce is just as important as knowing what information to add to your deck.

We’ve helped hundreds of startups create and design their pitch decks, and we want to help you too. In this post, we will introduce you to the nine most important pitch deck slides that you need to focus on and give you several examples that you can learn from!

Without further ado, here are the nine slides you must include in your deck to maximize your chances of fundraising success.

1) Title/Cover

The first pitch deck slide you should add to your presentation is a title slide. You’d be surprised at the impact that a simple title slide adds to your pitch. They say that you only get one chance to make a great first impression, and when you pitch your startup, your title slide is that immediate first impression opportunity.

Before you even open your mouth to deliver the first word of your pitch, this initial pitch deck slide will set the tone for investors. If your tagline is underwhelming, it may immediately turn off the investor. If your logo is boring, it may give investors the immediate perception that your business is boring as well. It is important to set the stage for a great pitch, and this begins with a strong pitch deck slide.

This title slide that was displayed in Mint.com’s pitch deck is over a decade old, but there’s a reason why it’s one of the best pitch decks out there. It’s designed well but minimally, using white space to draw the viewer’s eye directly to the logo. The tagline “Take Back Your Wallet” is presented in all caps, driving in Mint’s message the moment the slide is opened.

The title slide for We Are Onyx is more involved, but equally effective. Like Mint, they added a strong tagline that allows the audience to immediately gain context of the business. Additionally, they added in strong imagery of their products to further draw in the attention of viewers.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:  

1. Don’t over design it. Use white space and minimalism to draw the eye to the most important part of the slide – the logo and the tagline. If you include product images, make sure that they are professional images that make the slide more impactful.
2. Include a strong and memorable tagline that quickly introduces viewers to your concept and allows them to immediately connect with your pitch.
3. If you will be introducing presenters during the pitch, we recommend including the names of all presenters on this slide. This allows the audience to connect with each team member as they introduce themselves.

2) Customer Problem

Start your pitch strong by showcasing the problem or problems that your solution will address. Your product or service should exist to solve a real market problem. Explaining the extent of the customer problem early on sets the stage for the rest of the pitch deck – especially when you begin describing why your startup is perfect for solving these challenges.

This Customer Problem slide from FlowTab’s pitch deck showcases all the necessary requirements of a great problem slide. It outlines who the users are in bold lettering – customers, bartenders, and owners. It also briefly explains the challenges faced by each of these user groups.Furthermore, the slide is clean and minimally designed with few words and a couple supporting images. Pitch deck slides don’t need to be overwhelming to stand out – they just need to present the right information in the right way.

Here are a few things you can learn from this pitch deck slide:

1. Identify your market immediately. Not everyone will face the same challenges, so be sure to identify which challenges are relevant to each customer group.
2. Be creative. You don’t have to add a title to every slide or stick to bullet points to organize information. Find creative ways to deliver your message, whether it’s by adding imagery, animation, or other creative methods.
3. Use lettering wisely. Bold fonts, font colors and even text positioning can add to or take away from the impact of your message. Use the proper text elements to keep your pitch and pitch deck interesting.

3) The Solution

At this point in your pitch, your audience should know what target market you serve and should be familiar with the challenges that they face. Now is a good time to introduce the solution – your product, service, or business. Of all the pitch deck slides, this slide may arguably be the most important. However, this slide on its own is ineffective. Without a challenge, a decent-sized market, and a plan to reach them, the solution itself is irrelevant.

Design the best Solution slide, but make sure that presenting an awesome product isn’t your only goal. Presenting an awesome product that effectively solves a challenge for a wide market of consumers who are ready to pay for it – that is the goal.  

Introduce your product and show how it solves the customer’s challenge. Showcase the features that make it stand out. This is a slide where graphics really matter – pictures speak a thousand words and showcasing an image, wireframe, or 3D model will make this slide exponentially more impactful.

Pitch deck slides should be simple but informative, and that’s exactly what Brand Boards achieved with their Solution slide. Using great imagery and little text, Brand Boards was able to show exactly how their solution allows venue owners and advertisers to connect and set up ad campaigns using digital signage. A simple-to-follow graphic allows the audience to easily understand what the product is and how it works, all in a single slide.

The best part of the graphic is that it separates each customer type into their own boxes on the outside and places the solution in the middle. This tactic makes it easy to understand where the solution fits into the equation between the two customer groups.

Yaydoo took an awesome and creative approach with their Solution slide. Instead of using boring bullet points, they added well-placed text and a simple image. The tagline, “Your office on autopilot” sums up the entire solution in four words while “e-Procurement and AI for your workplace needs” quickly describes the solution that is being offered.

Furthermore, the graphic is well done and shows how five different challenges faced by “Your Company” are solved simply by inserting the Yaydoo solution into the process. Again, placing your solution in the middle to showcase how a customer’s problem is solved is always an effective method.

This Solution slide from Daily Hundred uses several graphical elements to showcase its product. The split-screen makes it immediately known that two separate features are being displayed. Bolded header font allows the audience to understand what the feature is, before reading further into the detailed text. Usage of phone mockups provides a visual showcase of the solution and keeps the audience’s mind from guessing.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. Use strong graphics to show how your solution solves the problem. Ideally, showcase the problem on one side, the customer on the other, and the solution in the middle; explaining how each entity benefits from the other.
2. Use mockups and models to show exactly what your solution looks like – a picture can speak a thousand words if done correctly.
3. Show images or blueprints of your solution. Text is limited. If you don’t show the audience what it is and what it looks like, they will guess – and they will probably guess incorrectly!

4) Unique Selling Proposition

This is the pitch deck slide that shows why your startup is special. What do you provide that no one else can provide? Just because your business solves a problem, doesn’t mean that you are the only business solving that problem, or even that your solution is any different from any other solution that already exists. In other words, what’s your special sauce?

Backstartup uses graphics to showcase its unique selling proposition. The title, “We are not a traditional service” makes it known immediately that they are providing something different and something better. The graphics clarify it’s services – accountants, lawyers, and technology – and explains what unique features they provide to help their users reach a specific goal.

Lexyom uses their USP or “Our Edge” slide to show that they have the keys to unlocking their customer’s challenges. Their slide shows the exact formula of advantages that give them an edge over other competitors in the market.

Here are three things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:  

1. Knowing what makes you special also means knowing what makes your competitors special. Do a competitive analysis first and examine your solution’s position in the market.
2. Use creativity to display exactly how your advantages help your customers reach their specific goal.
3. Think about factors that create a barrier to entry for other businesses. Real advantages can’t be easily duplicated by another competitor.

5) Target Market & Market Size

Investors don’t just want to know that you are solving a problem, they also want to know that you are solving a problem for a large market of customers. In this slide, showcase the market research that you have found to display how large your market is either by the number of consumers or revenue.

Orchard does a good job projecting market size in its pitch deck slides. Using a TAM/SAM/SOM analysis, they are able to easily display how large the total market is, and what portion of that market they can realistically target. Furthermore, they strengthened the slide by providing a quote from a trusted market source that further validates their business approach.

Owlr used their Market Size slide to showcase how many consumers exist in their market and how much that market is worth. This helps investors identify the earning potential and confirms that the market is large enough for the business to earn a considerable share and a profitable position.

PinMyPet used awesome graphics elements for their pitch deck slides. By implementing large, colorful, and minimal text, they were able to showcase exactly how many users are in their market (in this case, dogs and cats) and how much the entire market is worth in terms of revenue. Furthermore, they added their target regions and aligned their market numbers to the specific regions where they will offer their products.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. Use a TAM, SAM, SOM analysis to showcase the size of your market. This helps investors understand both the total market, as well as the portion of that market that your business can realistically serve.
2. Use statistics that are extremely relevant to your business. If you’re serving a particular region, find the market size for that particular region. Global statistics are great, but only if you are serving a global audience!
3. Make sure you know where your numbers are coming from. Be able to cite them if necessary – it probably will be.

6) Business Model

It’s not always clear how a new startup earns money, and if it’s one thing investors care about, it’s how a startup earns money.

Use this slide to explain your business model and showcase how revenue is generated. This is especially important for marketplace solutions where the startup earns a fee from transactions between two parties.

Open Door showcases its income streams clearly in this Business Model slide. As shown, they charge 15% of rents, which is equal to around $200/month for each resident.

Reflect also clearly states how their revenue is earned. Each session grosses approximately $95. Of this, Reflect earns $15 per session as a transaction fee.

Tealet’s slide shows how revenue is made for both the Company and for the tea grower. Simply stated, for each sale, the grower retains 60% of the margin while 40% is retained by the platform as a transaction fee.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. If your startup mostly sells one product or service with a general price, showcase that price. If you offer several products or services, showcase pricing from a handful of your top products.
2. Show at what part of the process revenue is earned. For example, in a marketplace type scenario, revenue is typically earned after the product/service has been delivered.
3. For marketplace applications, show how revenue is shared between parties and what portion of sales will be retained by the startup.

7) Founder/Team

Simply put, the team slide introduces your team and proves why your founders and managers are the right people to introduce and run the Company.

In their pitch deck, Mapme introduced its three founders and one advisor in a single slide. Instead of crunching a ton of text to describe each person’s background, they simply added logos of companies that each member had been involved with in the past.

Manpacks had seven people to introduce, which is impossible to do in a single slide if you’re going to write a biography about each. Instead, they used bullet points to detail specific items about their founders and used logos to summarize the backgrounds of their advisors. Each person is shown with a headshot image, but the shapes of the headshots are different; providing a subtle hint to which individuals are team members and which are advisors.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. Minimize text by using logos to showcase each member’s experience and background.
2. Use headshots to introduce each member. They don’t have to necessarily be professional headshots, but they should be clear and high resolution – and it helps if everyone is smiling!
3. Focus on the most important attributes of your background. You don’t need to detail every accomplishment you’ve ever made, only the few that are most relevant to your position in the business.

8) Traction

Investors don’t just want to hear about what you’re going to do. What’s equally as important is what you’ve already done. Use this slide to describe the milestones you’ve already reached – user growth, survey results, known brands you’ve worked with, and etc. This pitch deck slide is a major selling point, and it is important to offer up the numbers and metrics that showcase the strength of your business, validate all assumptions, and prove that there is a market of individuals ready to use your solution.

TraceAir used several visuals to display traction in their pitch deck slides. First, they provide a line graph showing the growth of revenue and also displaying how a price increase led to an exponential increase. Then, they provide several positive metrics including average Month-on-Month growth and annual revenue. Finally, they build credibility by showcasing the logos of several well-known clients that they have worked with.

Front led their slide with a strong milestone statement – “2300 companies use Front today.” This statement hammers down the fact that there is a validated market, that the Company knows how to acquire new customers, and that at least 2,300 corporate decision-makers thought they were worth giving a try. Like TraceAir, they showcased their well-known clients using logos; immediately qualifying them as a real contending solution. Finally, they showcase metrics of their client base by showing which portion of customers are from each target industry and the diversity of use-cases.  

Daily Hundred used their Traction slide to show how well they have been able to perform over a three-month launch period. While they did not mention revenues earned during this period, they were able to prove their case by showing large user growth, user engagements, and positive user experience.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. Make sure you have traction to show. A startup without traction is just an idea. If you don’t have any numbers to show yet, launch a minimal viable product and get some early adopters using it.
2. Revenue isn’t everything. Money talks, but it’s not the only metric that’s important. Metrics like user growth, engagement, and retention are also strong indicators that can validate your assumptions and prove your case to investors.
3. Use graphs to showcase growth. Graphs are strong visuals and when you can connect growth to certain events, it shows that you know how to effectively progress the business.

9) Financial Ask

You’re pitching because you want to raise money. The investors are listening to your pitch because they want to invest money. This slide gets to the meat of things – how much investment you’re seeking.

In this slide, explain the investment opportunity. You can include how much you’re intending to raise, how the investment will be spent, how much equity is being offered, and even information about funding that has already been raised (if applicable).

Daily Hundred used this slide to let investors know exactly how much money they were seeking to raise. Additionally, they added their preferred method of receiving that money – in exchange for preferred stock.

Kickfolio kept things simple by displaying how much money they are raising during this round, and how much has already been committed.

Swerve added an extra element into their Financial Ask slide. In addition to their target raise of $750k, they also detailed where the money would be spent and how it would be used to spur the next level of growth.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. Be realistic about what you’re asking for. Investors are usually analytical and if you’re asking for a certain amount, you better be ready to prove why you are worth it. Calculate your startup valuation and use that valuation to assess how much you should raise and what level of equity you should offer.
2. Don’t raise money just because it’s available, raise it to grow your business and know exactly why you are raising it. Even if you don’t show what the money is going to be used for in your pitch deck slides, the question will be raised at some point.
3. Mention previous funding raised and other investors who have invested. Risk doesn’t seem as risky when someone else is already on board. This creates FOMO, and you want investors to leave the pitch feeling that they’d be missing out on something major if they don’t invest!

Designing Your Pitch Deck Slides

Pitch decks weren’t meant to be extremely difficult to create, but there are elements that must go into your deck to maximize your chances of securing the seed money you need to build and launch your solution. As you send your pitch deck around and receive feedback from investors, continually adapt your presentation until it is perfect.

As always, our team at ThinkLions is here to help. If you need assistance creating your pitch deck, our pitch deck designers and consultants are ready to work with you. Check out one of our sample pitch decks and contact us today! 

The post 9 of the Most Important Slides For An Excellent Pitch Deck appeared first on Startup Squared.

Startup pitch failure is not uncommon. Most startup pitches fail, and most founders who walk into an investor meeting with high hopes will walk out without a deal. Any startup that has had success at raising money has likely also experienced many failed pitch presentations.

The bad news is, if you’re seeking funding for your startup, you’ll probably get turned down by the majority of investors that you pitch. The good news is, even if 100 investors turn you down – you only need to convince one to turn your luck around.

Startup teams that get funded are those that are determined and persevere even after a pitch failure – or many pitch failures. When successful startups pitch, there’s no such thing as a failure, because every investor meeting provides a learning opportunity that eventually results in successful fundraising.

The Truth About Startup Pitch Success

With all the rave about multi-million dollar funding rounds and billion-dollar startup acquisitions, it may feel as though everyone is getting funded but you. Don’t let the media fool you, angel and VC funding isn’t as commonplace as it seems.

David Rose, founder of New York Angels and Gust explained, “[Each year] roughly 1,500 startups get funded by venture capitalists in the US, and 50,000 by angel investors. VCs look at around 400 companies for every one in which they invest; angels look at 40.”

Everyone is inspired by the stories of startup founders who were able to generate a huge funding round, but we rarely hear about what it really took for them to get there. Finding the right investor and convincing them to invest can be an intensive, drawn-out experience. A successful startup investor pitch is usually backed by a series of unsuccessful pitches.

Studies by DocSend revealed that companies needed an average of 40 investor meetings over 12 weeks to close a funding round. Twelve weeks might seem like an eternity when your startup is relying on funding to move to the next level, but when it comes to fundraising, patience is a virtue. According to DocSend, companies that failed to successfully raise funds gave up after an average of 6.7 weeks – five weeks shy of being a potential success story.

Why Do Startup Pitches Fail?

There’s one main reason why pitches fail: investors aren’t convinced that the startup will provide a large enough return on investment.

But what’s more important is why they weren’t convinced. This question can be much more difficult to answer. Sometimes the reason won’t be obvious, and usually, it will be due to several factors. First, keep in mind that investors are looking for companies with strong growth and scaling potential that have a good exit strategy. They make money when you sell.

Here are some common reasons investors may decline to invest in a startup after a pitch.

1. Bad Delivery

It’s not always about what is being said; how it’s being said is equally as important. It doesn’t matter that you have a great business model with incredible traction and the ability to scale if you can’t properly convey those qualities in your elevator pitch.

A great business can miss its chance at funding because the founder couldn’t deliver the information properly. Likewise, a so-so business can walk out the door with a deal just because the pitch was executed so well. Practice your pitch. Make sure it’s well organized, and that you’ve done enough research to know who you’re pitching to.

2. Not Enough Traction

Many times, startups are turned down because they simply haven’t proven themselves enough. Ideas mean very little, and what really matters is the execution behind that idea. Almost no investor will fund a startup that hasn’t demonstrated some initial success—meaning sales or users.

You may believe in your startup, but investors believe in the numbers behind the startup. Although your funding resources may be small today, investors want to know that you were able to use those limited resources wisely to prove your concept and secure initial customers.  

3. Wrong Investor Fit

Not all investors are the same, and neither are their investment strategies. Some firms and angels prefer to invest in startups in the very early stages, while others invest in later funding rounds. One investor may only invest in tech startups, while another may only partner with innovative hardware startups. One firm may be only interested in solutions for the health industry, while another may be seeking to invest in solutions for the financial industry.

The point is, even if your business is awesome; if it isn’t a good fit for that investor and their portfolio, they simply won’t invest.

4. Inexperienced Team

The strength of the founding team plays a major role in how an investor will perceive your business. Even if the investor believes in the concept and growth strategy, they won’t invest if they believe your team isn’t capable of bringing it to fruition.

5. Underwhelming Pitch

Investors hear startup pitches constantly, and sometimes, one pitch is almost unrecognizable from the next. Your business may have some traction and there may be a market need, but that’s not enough to make it special.

There are many times when great startups get overlooked simply because they weren’t able to stand out and deliver a memorable pitch.

The majority of pitches fall into the “good pitch” category, but only a few are exceptional. Investors want to put their money into something exciting, and the best time to win their enthusiasm is during the initial pitch. An exceptional startup pitch is unforgettable. Even if an investor heard 25 pitches that day, it’s only the phenomenal few that will stand a chance for a deal.

Failing Your Way To Funding Success

In all likelihood, you will go through several failed pitches on your journey to securing an investment deal. Fortunately, whether you walk away with an investment or not, every opportunity to pitch your business to an investor has the potential to move you one step closer to your ultimate goal.

Each time you pitch your business, you should learn something new that improves your chances the next time around. If the only thing you took from your meeting was “no,” then you were listening for all the wrong things!

Here are 5 steps to bouncing back from a failed startup pitch.

1. Optimize Your Investor Fit

Pitching doesn’t only give investors the opportunity to learn more about startups, it also gives startups the opportunity to learn more about investors. View every investor meeting as a chance to identify what type of investors are most receptive to your pitch, and what type of investors quickly write you off.

You may find, for instance, that angel investors you speak with are eager to hear more, while the VC firms you’ve pitched showed no interest. Or, you may find out that general investors weren’t able to understand the scalability of your high-tech software, while tech investors caught on to the concept immediately. Identifying the best type of investor to approach can drastically increase your potential for funding success and minimize the chances of pitching your startup to the wrong audience.

Research investors before you pitch to them. Check out other startups they have invested in previously and find the commonalities between those businesses. If the qualities of your startup are considerably different, this may be a clear sign that your startup won’t be the best fit for their portfolio. Conversely, if your startup aligns with the qualities of their previous investments, you have a much greater chance of securing their interest.

2. Pay Attention To Q&A

Anyone who has pitched an investor knows that the pitch isn’t the hard part; the questions that come after the pitch are where the nerves really set in.

You’ve practiced your pitch 1,000 times. You know exactly what you’ll say and when you’re going to say it. You’ve studied all the best pitch decks, and you’ve created one that exceeds the standard. You know what to say, when to say it and exactly when to click to the next slide. What you don’t know is what investors are going to ask you after the pitch is finished. If you aren’t prepared to answer these questions, you will quickly lose their interest.

These questions don’t only give investors better insight, but they can also help you identify weaknesses in your startup pitch. Whatever the question may be, the investor thought it was important enough to ask but didn’t find the answer in the pitch itself.

Remember the questions that they asked and use them to strengthen your pitch the next time around. As you pitch and fail more and more, you will be able to continually optimize your pitch. Each time, you will be able to better convey the information that investors find most important.

3. Follow Up With Investors

Don’t allow a “no” be the end of your relationship with the investors that you have pitched. A “no” today can be a “yes” a year from now. Keep the relationship alive by following up with investors with an e-mail and thanking them for their time and consideration.

If they already passed on making a deal with you, email them and politely ask if they can give you a few pointers on how your pitch can be improved. Not every investor will give you a reply, but the ones who do can provide you with insights that can be extremely helpful when pitching again in the future.

4. Participate in Pitching Competitions

Pitching more means generating more feedback, which ultimately leads to a better-optimized pitch. Before you can give your best startup pitch ever, you’ll likely give your worst startup pitch ever. Startup funding is a numbers game, and the more you do it, the higher your potential for success becomes. As you make changes to your pitch, take advantage of opportunities to test it out before going into another investor meeting.

Pitch competitions are an incredible way to test new pitching ideas and generate more feedback. There are often cash prizes associated with winning a pitch deck competition, and they can also open the door to new investor relationships. Participating in these competitions allow you to try new strategies so that you can see what works and what doesn’t before getting in front of a potential investor.

5. Never Give Up

Even when it seems that you will never meet your funding goal, keep pushing forward. You never know just how many investor meetings it will take until you get funded. Your next pitch may be the one that succeeds!

Use every failed startup pitch as a stepping stone – pitch, fail and learn over and over again until you meet your goal. Walking away without a deal can feel like the end of the world, and you may go through this experience multiple times.

Always remember, the day you walk away with your first deal, you will appreciate the lessons you learned during each and every failed pitch. It doesn’t matter how many times you fall, only how many times you get up!

If you’re seeking startup funding, you’ll need a great pitch deck. Check out one of our sample pitch decks and contact us today to speak with one of our expert consultants!

The post How To Bounce Back From A Failed Startup Pitch appeared first on Startup Squared.

If you’ve ever attended a Pitch Day or have witnessed numerous pitches, it’s easy to see that some people seem to have the gift of pitching while others just seem uncomfortable, timid and uncertain. There’s a major difference in these two types of entrepreneurs and it’s not ‘natural talent’ – it’s knowing how to pitch effectively and generating the necessary experience by pitching your business over and over again.

At ThinkLions, we’ve worked with hundreds of businesses around the world – helping them create the best investment tools and consulting with them to develop successful pitches. In this post, we will share a few tried-and-tested tips to help you deliver the best possible pitch and raise the necessary funds for your startup.

What To Do Before You Pitch

There are several things you should do before approaching an investor to maximize your potential for success; but if this is your first time pitching, you should start by familiarizing yourself with the process.

The great thing about living in today’s world is, we have access to things we could never access before the “internet age”. Twenty years ago, you may be walking in to give your first pitch without even knowing what a successful pitch actually looks like. Today, you can simply go on YouTube and type in “pitch competition” or “investor pitch” and watch hundreds of pitches; preparing you for what to expect. Preparation is key, and using tools like YouTube can give you a serious boost and a major advantage when you’re standing in front of a potential investor.

Your first investor pitch shouldn’t the first time you’ve pitched your business. By the time you’re in front of a potential investor, you should have already tested your pitch dozens of times. Write out a few different pitches. Pitch it to yourself in the mirror, pitch it to your family and friends. If you’re tripping over your words and finding that your nerves overtake your delivery in front of your brother or cousin – how do you think you’re going to do when you’re in front of several experienced entrepreneurs and investors? Pitch to anyone that will listen – then ask for their honest feedback. Ask them what parts they understood and what parts they didn’t. Wait a few days and ask them what they remember from your pitch. If they don’t even remember what your business was about – maybe you should go back to the drawing board before pitching in front of an investor.

Finally, record yourself delivering the pitch. Even if you’ve given your pitch in front of family and friends 100 times, there are still weaknesses that you may not notice until you’re actually watching yourself. For example, a client of ours once told us that while he thought his delivery was perfect, he realized only after recording himself that he used the filler “um” over sixty times during his 7-minute pitch. Realizing the existence of this subconscious habit, he started to practice slowing down his delivery and taking small pauses instead of using filler words – a simple solution that made his pitch increasingly more effective.

I know what you’re thinking, “I’m not the type of person that does well speaking in front of people.” Nobody is comfortable speaking in front of strangers, especially not investors, until they have done it over and over. If you’re not good at public speaking, now is the time to build that skill. Raising funds is going to require you to go outside of your comfort zone – shaking unfamiliar hands and pitching crowds that you aren’t used to communicating with.

How To Deliver An Effective Investor Pitch

Putting together a winning pitch isn’t easy. For many entrepreneurs, it’s easy to talk about your business for hours and hours on end, but condensing it to under 10 minutes is a major challenge! To give a great pitch, you’re required to decide which points are most relevant, and then figure out how to tie that information together to persuade investors to be a part of it. Delivering an effective pitch means stepping outside of the box and speaking confidently, even when you know that the odds are against you. Every month, thousands of investors are pitched by new startups – and every month, thousands of startups are rejected. However, out of those thousands of startups, a few will succeed. A select few will break the mold and deliver a pitch that leads to a deal.

If you want to know how to pitch to investors successfully, you’re in the right place. Below, our experts at ThinkLions have put together five tips to help you maximize your chance of pitching yourself into an investment deal.

1) Know What Makes You Special

No matter how unique your business seems, likely, it’s not as unique as you think. You’d be surprised to know how often investors hear, “we are the Uber for (fill in the blank)” or “we have the next solution to disrupt the (fill in the industry) sector”. Ideas are a dime a dozen and you’re not going to turn an investor’s head based upon your idea alone. Find the thing that makes you special – whether it’s the traction you’ve already gained, a new process you’ve perfected, or real lives that your solution has changed. Find your special sauce, and pour it all over your pitch. Investors turn down good startups all the time. Don’t be good, focus on what makes you great.

Take a true assessment of your business. Examine every sentence of your pitch and ask yourself, “has this been said before?” and “has this investor heard this line before?” If the answer is yes, replace it with something that the investor hasn’t heard before. Never leave a gap where an investor has a chance to lose interest – be great from the opening sentence through to the closing. 

2) Tailor Your Pitch To Your Audience 

Your first pitch probably won’t be your last. Likely, you will pitch to many different investors before finally landing a deal. Investors don’t all have the same goals, objectives, perspectives, experiences or backgrounds. It is critical for you to learn about who you are pitching to before pitching to them. Knowing what is important to them will give you the opportunity to tailor your pitch accordingly.

See what you can find out about the investor or the firm – do they typically invest in startups or existing businesses? What range of funds do they generally offer? Is there a specific industry that they usually invest in? Are there any patterns you realize regarding the businesses they have invested in previously? Ideally, you want your pitch to be like a perfectly wrapped gift for every investor you deliver it to. Your pitch should push the buttons that get them excited and should avoid pressing the buttons that deactivate their enthusiasm. Always remember, an investment deal isn’t a one-way benefit. Don’t just focus on why their investment would be great for your business, but allow them to understand why your business is perfect for their specific investment portfolio.

English novelist Charles Reade once said, “If you wish to please people, you must first start by understanding them.” When it comes to pitching an investor, this couldn’t be truer – if you want them to understand the value of what you are delivering, you must first understand what it is that they find valuable.

3) Use Time To Your Advantage

If there is one common regret that entrepreneurs have after a failed investor pitch, it is that they wish they had more time to say everything they wanted to say. In many cases, pitches will have a time limit – and if they don’t, it’s still wise to be brief. Knowing that you only have a certain number of minutes to deliver all of your information can seem extremely restricting. How do you explain the last year of traction and the next three years of forecasts in ten minutes? In some cases, such as a pitch competition, a team may only have a minute or two to deliver their entire pitch.

Where the average startup sees limitations, a winning team will see an opportunity. A time limit can be used to your advantage if you implement the right strategy. In many cases, investors aren’t really sold until the question and answer portion of the pitch when they get to inquire a bit further. Knowing this, it is wise to strategize your pitch to captivate the audience with strong information; but to present the information in a way that will immediately drive specific questions during the Q&A session.

For example, if I just landed Walmart as a large client, I can set up this information as “we recently secured a partnership with one of the largest retailers on the planet.” By framing the information this way, I know without a doubt that someone will ask, “who is the retailer?” during the Q&A session. Once they ask this question, I can delve into information about the partnership without being held to a time limit. First, know your audience; then use what you know to craft not just the perfect pitch, but the perfect pitch experience.

4) Create an Entertaining Pitch

Just to clarify, this doesn’t mean walking into your pitch dressed as a superhero or doing backflips during your presentation. However, if you’re going to keep someone’s interest for ten minutes, you’ll need to keep them on the edge of their seat.

Consider the way an author or film writer keeps their audience entertained. There’s an introduction where the characters are introduced and the audience is given the chance to relate to the characters. Then, there’s a huge challenge or obstacle that a beloved character is faced with. The climax hits as the character tries to find a solution to their issue. They find a solution and the world is better because of it. Then, there is an ending. In many ways, this is exactly how your pitch should be set up – get them connected to the characters, introduce the problem, build up to the climax, then provide a strong closing.

Investors are pitched by businesses constantly. The majority of pitches they hear, they forget about within an hour. If you want to succeed, your pitch needs to be unforgettable. Whatever method you take to achieve this, make sure that you give a memorable pitch that stays on the investor’s mind even after the pitch has concluded.

5) Develop a Great Pitch Deck

Strengthen your pitch by developing an amazing pitch deck that helps the audience follow your presentation and helps them visualize your message. Your pitch deck must create a harmonious balance with your pitch. It should have enough words to summarize the message, but not so many words that the audience gets caught up in reading the slides instead of listening to your presentation. It should include images and visuals, but not so many graphics that it becomes a distraction to your message. Without using too many words, your pitch deck should be a positive tool that supports your message. Your pitch deck slides should be minimal, but explanatory enough to stand their own and deliver the right message even when you are not pitching.

How To Pitch Investors Successfully

Following these tips will help you put together a pitch that stands out and delivers exactly what investors are looking for. However, if there is one key to success when pitching investors; it is to take each pitch as a learning experience, iterate your delivery, and improve your pitch each and every time. The more often that you stand in front of investors and answer the unexpected questions that may come to you – the stronger, more confident, and more successful you will become in your pitching efforts.

At ThinkLions, we have helped hundreds of startups during the fundraising stages. From business planning and pitch deck consulting to app development and beyond; we are the team you need to help bring your startup ideas to life. Check out one of our sample pitch decks and contact us today!

The post How To Pitch Investors Like A Seasoned Pro appeared first on Startup Squared.