What should be in your pitch deck?

It depends on who you are pitching to, of course, but as a starter, I have a few essentials for any pitch:

• Why are you pitching? To be clear, what do you want the audience to do? If you are looking for an investment and this is your first pitch to this audience, chances are you are opening a sale that will take at least a month to close. If you have pitched them before, chances are you are telling them something new, or assuring their confidence to close the sale. In any case, your goal should be to get them over an action threshold to take a specific action. What action that is should be the action that takes them to the next step in your sales sieve. That is, you are trying to get them from state to state with a desired next state. Your pitch should be intended for and focused on that.
• Who are you pitching to?: The audience dictates the pitch. Of course the audience dictates the pitch. if you're pitching to a potential customer, it's the characteristics of the customer in the context of your sales process that leads you to what you're going to present and how you're going to present it. In pitching to investors, there are also many different kinds of investors, and as such you need to customize to the particular sort of investor you're pitching to. In our online course on how to sell to investors we detail many of the different characteristics and limitations of various investors and investor types. As such, that would be a good place to look for many of the details.
  Pitching to investors:
  • As an opening, I like to start with an intro page that says who I am, the name of the company, the tagline, and if necessary a minimal set of information that will cause the listener either to fall asleep or to pay attention. so when I talk about angel to exit, I start out by saying hi, I'm Fred Cohen from Angel To Exit, and we help grow companies. That's really all I have to say as an opener. That's also what I say when I introduce myself in the context of Angel to Exit today. It gets directly to the point and it doesn't waste their time or mine. If they're not interested they will stop listening. if they are interested they will perk up.
  • The next thing I'm going to tell them if I'm trying to get them to invest in one of my companies, is what the business problem and solution are. I try to put the business problem in a business context. For example, one of our portfolio companies has a stovetop fire suppression system that puts out virtually all stove top fires in apartments, condominiums, and private kitchens. So I'm going to tell them the problem is that 50% of all home fires, resulting in billions of dollars of losses every year, start on stove tops. The solution is a stove top fire suppression system that's highly effective, very inexpensive, saves you more on insurance on the cost of the unit, and is the only UL approved system on the market. Frankly I don't have to say more than that. I don't really even have to say that much. So now I have a problem in a solution with a magnitude in terms of dollars, and it's time to go on to the next question.
  • My next question is almost always going to be who sells what to whom and how? I'm going to tell them that this is sold today directly by inside sales to apartment complex management with more than $1B in assets under management, which they meet at trade shows. The sales cycle takes from 3-9 months for an order, and a typical order will start with perhaps 100 units for test purposes, and that results in $30,000 in revenue with whatever the margin is. A second order will be for something like 1,000 units a month for as many months as it takes to install in all of their units. And did I mention the recurring revenue part?
  • At this point I will go to the financials including past, current, and projected futures. That will take one slide and include the basic assumptions.
  • The financials lead to the fulfillment processes and what they cost, inventory issues, supply chain issues, and so forth.
  • Then the people which usually starts with something like "How do we manage to do this at such a low cost?" It's because of our great people and our planning and execution. The team has been together for 5 years, and so forth.
  • It's all risk mitigation from here on in. One thing after another is brought up to prove that we have identified and properly managed all the risks to the point where you can have confidence in us as an investment. The intellectual property portfolio (patents, trade secrets, etc.), the legal status of the entity (Delaware C Corp), etc.
  • And the ask ... how much you will have to pay for what portion of this opportunity and what we will be spending it on. Round closing soon...
  • Finally, the closing slide is very simple. Any questions? It will also have my contact information, and a call to action - presumably for the investment, or due diligence call, or whatever the next step in my sales sieve is.

What was NOT in the pitch deck?

The one thing you didn't see was a deep dive on the technology. People who start technology companies often make the big mistake of thinking that investors care about technology. Of course some do, and they will ask you if they want to know, but what they almost certainly do NOT want to know is whether you used a FPGA or an Arduino; whether the programing is in C or Javascript; or whether the chemicals are nitrogen based. It's not that it's not important - it's that it only matters if it's a good business idea. And if it's a good business idea, then it still might not matter...

The rest of the deck is a drill-down to answer any questions asked, and is not presented unless they ask a specific question you have one slide to completely answer.

Rule of thumb here... if it takes more than one slide you aren't explaining it well.

Another point of view

Here is a description from an investor who shared their perspective with others.

I love sharing this chart with ... founders ... because founders, generally all, want to show me their product, get fixated on traction, and feel it necessary to explain how it works.

I can't count how many times I met someone at ... who then wanted to turn what should be a 3-minute conversation into a 15-minute chat so they could demo their product (and I often felt bad being busy and saying, "I don't need to see it, just tell me your pitch" because of the look of disappointment on founders' faces at hearing they can't show it off). Think about it... how will seeing your product, and how it works, change any opinion about funding you? You demo for people buying it, not for people taking a risk in whether or not you can build a company.

1. Is there actually a problem (and opportunity)?

2. How is your solution a value proposition? Not just a solution, how does it create value? If it doesn't or can't, you're not yet fund raising.

3. What are the business models that apply, and which will give you a competitive advantage? Note: business model doesn't = how we'll make money; the business model is both revenue and costs.

4. Competition. Shame on you for showing us you're best and woe be you who says there isn't any. I feel bad for founders who don't put marketing first and actually started, or worse, built something, without doing this above all else.

5. Can you and your team accomplish this?? If not, you're not fund raising, you're still team building.

6. Now, what kind of capital do you need, how will that create much greater value and not merely deliver or fulfill what you need to do now, and why do you actually need it? What will that mean for the investors?

SIX SLIDES - - And notice, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to show how it works.

If those 6 slides are nailed, then traction is evident, confidence is established, and opportunity is communicated.

Next frequently valuable to add?

1. Market Validation. Not CUSTOMER validation! MARKET validation. -- If you don't know the difference, call me.

2. Market Size. But really, come on, it's more than billions isn't it? What's your Attainable Market (and how)?

3. Marketing Plan / Go To Market

seeing a recurring theme yet? #marketing

4. Traction / Milestones - you need this if the above fails to convince. Otherwise, you don't need it ;)

5. Use of Funds. Frankly, this should be in there.

So there you have an independent 2nd opinion

A call to action

Now that you know what to put in there, at a first approximation, check out some other methods by watching the free videos at http://a2e.co under "The Pitch", and discuss it with us at our free

Then pitch it to us at

In summary

Join us and let's have a conversation about how to pitch and get investment.