Five years ago I founded my first company, and as of this year, I’ve invested in 30 startups. From being a founder pitching to investors, to reviewing companies to invest in, I’ve seen over 1000 pitch decks. It’s true that investors don’t invest in decks, they invest in teams; so how do you create a deck that excites VCs and tells your story? I’m going to break it down here.

Tips

Dwight from The Office reminds you to: Keep It Simple Stupid. 😂

Do’s

Do follow the Rule of K.I.S.S. You should never overlook the power of simplicity.
Do get the VCs excited by telling a story. VCs get the same boring 10–12 slide deck from every startup — make yours stand out. Check out the 12 Storytelling Techniques to Supercharge Your Pitch by Dave Bailey.
Do talk about your personal story and why you are the best founder of your product/service.

Don’ts

Don’t make shit up. VCs are professional bullshit detectors, and it’s not worth losing trust when you’re caught bending or fabricating the truth.
You say: “We felt we were too far along to join an accelerator.”
VCs hear: “YC rejected us — twice.”
Don’t try to trigger FOMO (fear of missing out) with VCs, unless your round truly is oversubscribed. This approach can backfire on you if you don’t close your round quickly. Pretty much all founders try to do this, and it’s usually not true, so VCs won’t fall for it.
Don’t give VCs unrealistic projections to show hockey stick growth. They’ll dig in on the specifics and quickly learn the truth.

Know What Matters

When you are raising seed-stage money, there are only 4 criteria that matter: founding team, vision, market size, and product. Often, you can show meaningful metrics; you can’t measure revenue, CAC (customer acquisition cost), or LTV (life-time value) when none of that stuff exists. Ted Serbinski from Techstars does a great job explaining how he selects startups for his cohort.

You can think of a startup like of a music band — there’s a singer, a guitarist, a drummer, and together they create the harmonist effect, but individually there wouldn’t be the music. We look for that harmony in teams of designers, developers, salespersons, executors.

The Outline

Here is the list of slides you need to have in your deck. The order of slides will be different based on your story and the narrative of the deck.

Founders/Team
Key to every successful startup are the founders. During the early stages, the vision, market size, and product will change constantly. One thing that won’t change is the founding team. That’s why investors love to invest in founders that are hungry, passionate, and, most importantly, coachable.
Vision
What’s your vision? It should be something really big and crazy that feels almost impossible to achieve but worth pursuing.
Problem
What is the problem you are going after? Is it big enough for a VC to get excited about?
Market Size
How big is the potential market size? Is it big enough to be venture-backed? Use bottom-up, unit-economics analysis to back up your numbers. Watch this short video by Kevin Hale, a Y Combinator Partner, on how big of a market VCs look for before investing in a startup.
Solution/Demo
What’s your billion-dollar solution? Why is it so unique? Be very specific. If possible, have a quick demo of your product.
Traction
Talk about key performing metrics that drive the success of your business. How many customers do you already have in your pipeline for a paid pilot? Be creative about the data you use to show traction, but remember that the point is to clearly communicate with the investor.
Business Model
How do you generate revenue? Or how do you plan to? Make sure you have a metric that will help generate revenue.
Fundraising and Milestone
What are you raising and how are you going to use the money? To grow a team? To support overhead? How much have you raised so far and from whom? What major milestones have you set for the next 3 years? How is the money going to get you there? Remember, VCs evaluate your progress based on accomplishing milestones.

Accelerator programs help prepare founders for pitching to investors, so demo day pitch decks tend to be fine-tuned and effective. Here are some amazing examples.

Techstars Detroit Demo Day 2018
500 Startups Demo Day 2019

Design for Your Audience

Once you create your deck, always get input and opinions from your mentors, advisors, and, most importantly, someone new who doesn’t know about your business — it’s always good to get an outside opinion. They might point out obvious holes in information, or help you see where you could communicate more clearly.

The truth is that there really is no such thing as a perfect pitch deck. It’s a living document you iterate on as you progress and learn from your fundraising efforts. The more you work on it, the better the story becomes, and the more you learn about your business and communication along the way. And always remember, your deck isn’t designed for you, it’s designed for the person you’re sharing it with.

About Tops

I immigrated to the US in 2008 to live life with no regrets. I am a 2x founder, DJ, and investor in 30 startups. I’m obsessed with rapid growth marketplace, mobility, under-utilized asset, and breakthrough technology. Currently, I’m a Director, at Backstage Detroit, and mentor at Techstars Accelerator. Learn more about me and get in touch at iamtops.com. 🙂

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