How To Start Building a Good Pitch Deck For Investment

Pitch Decks represent perhaps the most important document your company will ever produce. They represent the first route any investor takes when looking to your business. As such, it is vital that this document has the ability to ‘grab’, and then ‘hook’ investors.

How To Secure Funding For Your Business By Building a Solid Pitch Deck

a) Identifying a Problem
b) Communicating a Solution
c) Proving the Market Value of your product
d) Demonstrating the benefits of your product over others
e) A strong Business model
f) Insight into the team leading your project
g) A convincing call to action
h) Milestones – both future and achieved

Once you have identified these key points, you can use these ideas to create a great pitch deck. Although opinion differs as to how many slides one should include in the pitch itself, 10 – 15 tends to be the agreed number of slides. Bearing in mind how each slide corresponds to the basic structure above, each slide should be labelled in a similar vein to these below:

1) Company Overview
2) Company Mission
3) Your Team
4) The Problem
5) The Solution
6) The Market Value
7) The Product
8) Customers
9) The Technology
10) Competitors
11) Traction
12) Business Model
13) Marketing
14) Finances

Now you have the structure and themes for your pitch deck. However, this structure is the same that all companies will use in all their pitches. What is vital at this stage is elevating your pitch and allowing it to stand out from the others.

Tips That Will Help In Creating Your Pitch

At Challenge Advisory, we view, produce and advise on hundreds of business presentations every single year whether it would be pitching to raise seed funding or advise startup owners on series A funding requirements that are needed for them to proceed with the pitch. Based on this experience, we have compiled a list of tips and pointers that are tried and tested in the pitching world, and are able to take your Deck to the next level.

• Ease of Access
  • It is hugely important that the information in your slides is accessible and clear. Attention to this will allow your points to remain interesting and prevent the investors from becoming distracted from your core themes.
• Grasp Your Market
  • Deep knowledge of your market will not only impress investors, but it drastically reduces the chances of being caught out by tricky questions raised – something that can make or break a pitch.
  • This knowledge should take the form of both a global understanding of the challenges facing the industry worldwide, but also a local understanding of how communities use and engage with your product
• Utilize Graphical Elements
  • This may seem like a simple tip but we note it here to stress how pivotal it really is. No investor wants to look at text and numbers while they review your presentation. Investors need to feel engaged and excited by your product.
  • Graphs and images can help with this to some extent, but investors also want to see your product in action. Photos and walk-throughs can help them visualize how the product will operate, and help them understand in more depth what it is you are offering.
• Demonstrate Your Character
  • Investors love to see the passion in your Pitch Deck. Whether it is in the slides or in the Pitch itself, showing ambition, and backing that ambition with passion will help enhance your credibility in the eyes of investors.
• Avoid Excessive Detail
  • Yes, investors want to know about the viability of your product. However, going into too much detail about financials or the minute details of how it all works can take up valuable Deck space.
  • Such information can easily be provided in follow up meetings or further correspondence. The overarching goal of your talk is to secure these further meetings and generate interest in your product.

About Our Company:

Challenge Advisory (https://www.challenge.org/) is a multi-faceted strategic business consultancy that aids startups and medium-sized businesses with growth and capital acquisition whether they require advice on how to become more attractive to future investors or whether they simply need more advice and clarification in terms of raising capital, finding investors, building their business plan or creating their first pitch deck. We work hard to explain everything related to series A funding and more on our Google+, Facebook and social media platforms.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Chris Burns

Head of Funding

Challenge Advisory

E: cburns@challenge.org

T: 0207 096 1157