The pitch deck guide + 6 tips no one else talks about

I have pitched my company thousands of times. Sometimes I have knocked it out of the park.

Sometimes I have completely bombed.

Many pitches I’ve left thinking we had the investment in the bag, only to get a no.

Other pitches I thought were horrible, and they landed the check.

You never know which way a pitch is going to go, no matter how many times you do it. But there are some things you can do to make it better.

Let’s talk about perfecting your pitch deck, take a few looks at possible outlines, and I’m going to share my personal tips that the bloggers leave out when giving advice on decks.

Three types of decks

I’ve built decks for other companies in my agency days, and I’ve built hundreds of versions of our deck for GoWild. It’s evolved a lot over the years, as has my pitching style. Over the years, I’ve found there are generally three types of decks you’ll find yourself building: 1) Hype Decks, 2) Summary Decks, and 3) Traditional Pitch Decks

The Hype Deck

First, let’s be clear—you’re not likely to need a Hype Deck. This is the style of deck you’ll see at big pitch events, such as accelerator demo days. They’re far more visual, barely have any words, are highly animated, and are often just very, very pretty decks. They usually skip financials or deep metric dives, though. The goal of a hype deck is to get an investor thirsty for more so they’ll find you after the pitching to chat.

I only call this style out to say you don’t need to replicate this—it’s what you see on Shark Tank. It’s not for normal pitches.

Below is a video of me pitching my Hype Deck in 2019 at Stadia Ventures’ Demo Day.

Note: It’s comical to me now to see how much has changed—we killed the activity tracking, leaned into ecommerce hard, stopped focusing on ads as much, and refocused in many other ways. Still, that pitch worked, as we oversubscribed that round by double.

This is a horrible quality video but hopefully it gives you a feel for a real hype deck.

Summary Decks

These are sometimes as short as one slide. We created them in the accelerator I was in, and they can be handy for cold outreach or leave behinds.

Generally I’ve found it too cumbersome to keep a Summary Deck and a Trad Pitch Deck up to date at the same time. My decks evolve daily if not hourly when I’m fundraising. But, if you’re starting out, it can be helpful to have a Summary Deck for all of the various meetings and emails you’re crafting. These decks are also great for early sales meetings. There is also something about forcing yourself to boil your story down to an executive summary that’s a good experience in practicing your story.

Traditional Pitch Deck

This is the holy grail. When you’re fundraising, nothing is more sacred than this document. It is the key to landing the meeting. It will be your guide for the big meeting. It is your chance to knockout any opposing rebuttals before they happen. And most importantly, it’s your chance to leave them wanting more.

The go-to pitch deck template—Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki is a legend among marketers and investors. As one of the marketers who launched Apple’s now famous Macintosh campaign in 1984, and a famed venture capitalist, Guy knows how to present. He’s well known for his strict 10 slide template for pitch decks—and it’s an awesome place to start if you have nothing.

Guy’s formula:

1) Title
Provide company name plus your name and title, address, email, and cell number.

2) Problem & Opportunity
Describe the pain that you‘re alleviating or the pleasure you‘re providing. The goal is to change the pulse rate of the investors.

3) Value Proposition
Explain the value of the pain you alleviate or the value of the pleasure you provide.

4) Underlying Magic
Describe the technology, secret sauce, or magic behind your product. The less text and the more diagrams, schematics, and flowcharts the better. If you have a prototype or demo, this is the time to transition to it.

“If a picture is worth 1000 words, a prototype is worth 1,000 pictures.”

5) Business Model
Explain who has your money temporarily in their pockets and how you're going to get it into yours.

6) Go-to-Market Plan
Explain how you are going to reach your customer without breaking the bank. “Go viral,” btw, is total BS.

7) Competitive Analysis
Provide a complete view of the competitive landscape. And saying that you‘re “more passionate”’ is utterly meaningless.

8) Management Team
Describe the key members of your management team, board of directors, and board of advisors as well as your major investors. It‘s okay if you have less than a perfect team. If your team was perfect, you wouldn‘t be pitching.

9) Financial Projections
Provide a three-year forecast containing not only dollars but key metrics such as the number of customers and conversion rate. Do a bottom-up, not top-down, analysis. You are not going to get 1 percent of the people in China...

10) Current Status, Accomplishments, Timeline & Use of Funds

Explain the current status of your product, what the next version looks like, and how you’ll use the money you’re trying to raise.

I’ve used Guy’s template at times when I’m completely scrapping a deck and starting over. It’s great to get you started, although I’ve always found it tough to stick to 10 slides. That last slide, in itself, needs to be broken out into several slides.

Another angle—focus on simplicity

While I like Guy’s model, I also think it’s helpful to look at other templates. Jean de La Rochebrochard has another template that focuses on keeping your deck really simple, clean, informative and short.

Problem

• There is problem.

• Unsolved for a reason.

• We’ve cracked a solution.

Product

• Here is our value proposition.

• Look at our demo

• People love our product

Market

• Those people/companies are our target (initial and potential). We don’t talk in billions, we talk in real buying/using people!

• This is how we position ourselves in the ecosystem

• Here is our secret sauce that makes us different

Data

• Our Business Model is: Sales - Variable Costs = Contribution Margin

• We distribute it that way, this is our funnel of conversion

• Our KPIs are not cumulated data but rather Compound Growth, Cohort and Sales Payback Time.

Story

• Here is our story so far, with relevant and/or fun facts

• This is our great team, and what they’ve accomplished

• Here is the plan for the next 12 to 18 months

Final

• Here is our business plan or 18/24 months cash plan

• Our end game is to be a leading top of mind for…

With either Guy or Jean’s template, know you can expand your deck, but you probably shouldn’t contrast much from their models. You need data as Jean lays out in his model, or a plan as Guy says. But, don’t think you can’t add something that you find really unique to your business.

Of course, if you’re stepping outside of these templates, it’s worth asking if your business is really that special. I’ve seen many founds go on for days on slides at pitch competitions or group pitch events, dolling on and on about something that they think is important, but puts investors to sleep.

Tips you won’t find in most templates

I was recently asked to help a friend with their pitch deck, and found myself just saying “You really just need to use Guy’s model.” It’s the best place to start, and it’s such a good starting point, there isn’t a need for me to reinvent it (although I could have done what many content creators do, and just used it and claimed I have used it to raise a hundred million dollars).

While I’m not going to give a take on the pitch template, I do have some tips that I think make your deck much better.

6 tips to help you pitch better

1) The headlines are mini billboards—the should tell the story

I can get wordy on decks. I need to remember the 20 word rule Jean lays out here. But one thing that helps me be impactful is remembering that most investors will not read any text I write below the headline. Your headline is your billboard for the slide. Most investors are going to flip through your deck in 90 seconds. They will read the headlines, glance at the graphics, and if it didn’t catch their attention, there is no round two.

Instead of saying “Solution” then laying out a bunch of words below, say how you’re solving the problem in the headline. For Holler, for example, I might say “We solved the burdens of ecomm with turnkey storefronts that don’t require inventory.”

2) Use a consistent design format and anchor headlines to the top

My old agency role is rearing its ugly head here, but this is more than a washed up Creative Director’s pet peeve. I see so many decks with three or four different design templates. Headlines get baked into various sides, bottom, or change fonts and sizes. It’s horribly jarring when you’re trying to flip through a deck, and it interrupts the story.

Imagine talking to someone who is constantly changing the volume of their voice—it’s distracting. Come up with a simple template—meaning your headlines maintain the same location, and the same font size—and stick with it. This flow matters.

3) DIY decks are OK, but real design elevates your team

I get it, you got a Canva account and think you’re a designer now. That may turn out OK, but in the many deck reviews I’ve done over the years, I often find myself ending the feedback session pleading that the founder hire a designer to create a better looking deck.

Many founders will tell you it doesn’t matter. Sure, LinkedIn raised a boatload of money with the ugliest clip art POS deck I’ve ever seen. But let’s be clear—you are not Reid Hoffman. You are not building LinkedIn.

Great design says your product is great. Great design says you care. Great design will leave investors feeling like you’re worth their money. Don’t settle for good enough on the design, it’s such an easy thing to fix.

4) Don’t overdo the product explanation

I was so guilty of this in the early days. If I had a 15 slide deck, it would have been 10 pages of product designs. I thought having the best product is what mattered, but it is only one component of the deck.

Look back at Guy’s template. Product gets ONE slide. Investors like that your product is good, but I promise you, what matters more is that you have a great opportunity, and that you’re the right team to get it done.

I have generally found that less skilled investors will ask most of their questions on products (or valuation—entirely different newsletter, though), because it’s something anyone can have an opinion on. Savvy investors will want to know more about your market size, trends, gaps in the market, and unit economics. If they like you, they’ll trust you to get the product right. The biggest assessment they’re making is if the company’s vision in the market is big enough. Don’t leave those questions unanswered.

5) Remember, you’re telling a story—and you’re the hero

This is it. Forge the templates. Forget the product. Forget the headlines. If you can’t do this one thing—tell the story—you will not get the check. Great stories start with pain, introduce a hero to stop it, and end with a storybook celebration of victory (OK actually my favorite author Cormac McCarthy notoriously kills off the main character, leaving you crying yourself to sleep after finishing the book—but let’s stick with the happy thoughts).

6) Start pitching

The thing that is going to teach you how to pitch better is not just the deck. It’s getting started. Go find pitch events or angel syndicates, and start vying for a spot. The only thing that’s truly going to make your pitch better isn’t in any slide—it’s getting experience talking about what you do. Nothing has ever helped me refine a deck down like talking through it over, and over, and over, and over. Every pitch leaves me with something I should have said to be better. The only way to really perfect your story is to start sharing it.

Alright. Go break a leg and cash a check.

Resources

33 pitch decks to review
Guy’s 10 slide template
Jean de La Rochebrochard’s model
Building a compelling deck
Techstars advice on pitch decks

Who I’m listening to: Geno Seale

What I’m reading: “The Innovator’s Dilemma” by Clayton M. Christensen

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