Pitch deck is used for personal communication or during negotiations with potential investors, customers, partners, and founders. Sometimes such pitches are used for speaking to a large audience, for instance, during investment sessions. Sometimes a potential investor may ask you to send him a presentation by email so that it should impress without your comments.
That is why they say that a well-made pitch deck is half the success of finding an investment. If so, then let’s find out what should be in the presentation so that investors believe you and trust their money? In this article, we analyze examples of successful pitches that can inspire you and protect you from common mistakes. Let’s find out more about it.
Who is your target audience?
There are no products and problems that are relevant to absolutely everyone. Trying to please everyone, no one will like you. This is important to remember. And for this very reason, it’s important from the very beginning to understand who your target audience is.
In order to understand this, you need to spend a lot of time searching for information. You need to display your target audience in the pitch deck. Investors should get a clear answer to the question who is your target audience? Are you ready to give this answer without delay? How about a show review? Can you do it just right now? If not, then you urgently need to understand who your target audience is. But how to do that?
To do this, interview your current customer base. You can ask them to leave a comment on social networks or take a short survey. You can come up with a different way to get information. But trying to determine whom you are going to attract, find out whom you have already attracted.
Interact with your audience. This can provide many more benefits than you might expect. Interaction with your audience is a valuable resource of information that can promote your business or give a couple of good ideas for improvement.
Explore your competitor. Explore all of them. Of course, you never need to copy rivals in the market, because it can end badly. However, if you follow your competitors, you can even better target your target audience.
What do you need to do? Examine their main pages, landing pages, lead magnets, and product descriptions. See what competing companies don’t do and give users new opportunities.
You need specifics. Find your niche and occupy it. Become cool in this area and only then can you think about expanding for a larger market. In any case, the winner is the one who always follows the path of development and not the one who is afraid to make mistakes.
Is your pitch deck convincing enough?
To create a good pitch deck, you need to take care not only of the design but of the essence. This is very important, because in this case the investor does not buy the design, but the idea and options for translating this idea.
Therefore, in order to sell something, you must speak convincingly. Loud statements must be supported by something because modern investors are rather distrustful. Ask yourself, would you believe your slides yourself? What can you do to make these slides even more compelling?
Only a beautiful picture and a good font will not help you get an investment. Alas, that’s the reality. An interesting idea should have a clear business model and a strong team. And if you have it, then you need to emphasize it in your pitch deck.
How do you help your customers?
Every novice entrepreneur should answer this question during his pitch deck. As you know, the devil is in the details. It doesn’t matter how much you can describe the activities of your company, it is important how you do it.
Each new business is built on what solves the problem of a potential buyer. It can be a product or service, it does not matter. The important thing is that you help solve the problem or give a new way to solve it, which will be more convenient than the old one.
Tell your investors about this. Show why your idea can be an effective solution to someone’s problem, because if it’s really so, then you will have a profit.
Of course, investors have their own goals. They are interested in your pitch deck from the point of view of whether they can make money on it or not. No one is interested in an idea on which he cannot earn. In addition to money, you can earn a reputation, but still, the most optimal motive is money. Do you talk in a nutshell about why your business will bring a lot of money? Are you ready to tell how exactly this will help your future customers? Do it now. A couple of drafts are a great way to prepare for a cool pitch deck.
Express your idea in one sentence
Can you express your idea in one sentence? Yes, just one thing. If you are unable to do this, then you need to either practice and expand your vocabulary or your idea is not as good as it sounds.
All the most successful companies can describe their business idea in one sentence. Let’s give some examples.
The idea behind Slack is this: we help companies communicate using simple chat.
The idea of Uber sounds like this: we help people go from point A to point B using a simple taxi application.
Facebook would say its idea is that we help people stay connected with each other and share experiences online.
In fact, everything is simple. We help X get Y.
Using this formula, you can start any pitch deck. It attracts attention and immediately explains the essence of your business. There are not too many details in it, but all the fundamentals are outlined – who does what and how.
Your idea should be simple. If this is not so, then it means that your idea will be difficult for understanding the masses. And this will significantly reduce theoretical profits. No one wants to set limits on their earnings. Do not do this either. Dream big. This will help you achieve great results. And that should be displayed in your pitch deck.
What for?
It is most difficult to answer the simplest questions. For example, it is very difficult to answer the question of why did you decide to create such a business? It can make you sweat and blush in front of the audience. Why? Because it may seem to you that the answer is obvious. But the obvious questions are therefore complicated because rarely anyone prepares answers to them in advance.
It is always important to mention why you created this business. It depends on this reason whether investors and employees will support your idea.
Of course, the fact that you want to earn a lot of money will not work. This does not explain the emotions that drive you. This does not explain anything at all. Think about it.
Purposeful entrepreneurs who solve personal or global problems are most motivated for success. They cope with ups and downs and do not give up. Those who crave quick money are not capable of this. This is a bad motivation. Investors are aware of this. Now you know about it. Add a strong reason for your pitch deck and it will only get better.
The super goal is what your pitch deck needs
Does your startup have a super goal? No, for this you do not need to be a prophet or mission. It is enough to think about big plans for the future. How do you see this world? What do you want to create? All these ideas catch people. They attract them to your brand. And it is this spark that investors are looking for. They are looking for something that will become very popular in society. Why? Of course, because it guarantees a profit.
Determine what drives you. This will bring you success or show that your idea needs refinement.
Have you thought about money?
As you understand, financial questions are the most important questions. It depends on your answers to these questions whether someone will invest in your idea or not.
Low income attracts rarely wealthy investors. But the opportunity to earn a lot, on the contrary, can spark hope and a desire to finance. Use this as aggressively as possible. But be careful.
Do not talk about some unrealistic market volumes and draw incredible analogies. Say only specific things. Explain your reasons.
Design three schemes. The first scheme will talk about the most optimistic scenario. The second scheme tells the most pessimistic. And the trey scheme will be combined, that is, it will become the most real. But do not exaggerate.
Very often, novice entrepreneurs talk about the size of the market and choose a little not what they need. For example, the global professional real estate market is about $7 trillion. But the total real estate market is $217 trillion. This is a big difference.
Do not allow investors to think that you are lying because of your ignorance. Your pitch deck should be perfect or at least strive for it. Do everything you can do. It’s time to give all your best.
What should be the perfect pitch deck?
Do not constantly insert elements of professional jargon into your speech, because you will look out of place. A successful pitch deck should answer the following questions:
- Who?
- What for?
- How?
- How big?
- Why now?
And that’s all. You don’t need anything else.
Try it with your own experience.
Why is this so important?
You need to pay special attention to your pitch deck because the future of your business largely depends on this. This is a crucial step and your task is to minimize the likelihood of error. In order to do this, you can read one more of our articles or contact our experts for help. We are ready to create a pitch deck that will be potentially attractive to investors. Our experts will work out the design in such a way that every element of any slide says that it is worth investing in your idea.
We have extensive experience in creating pitches, which is out of competition. If you really want to count on success, then you should trust us and send the email now, before your competitors have done it.
