The Inventure early-stage Pitch Deck template
By Kevin Lösch
And special thanks to Daniil Liaimer and Anna Salminen
What makes a perfect pitch deck? This is a question I often ask myself as I hammer the ➡️ button and another slide flies across my screen.
I’m no stranger to the pitch deck. I’ve scrolled through decks across almost the entire private market value chain, including professionally produced slides that reached me as a former banker, the ones thrown together when I was an entrepreneur, and everything between those two extremes now as a VC.
The holy grail for every founder is the perfect pitch deck– the deck that effortlessly results in a successful fundraising. Out there is a certain combination of words, numbers, and clipart that would make every VC feel instant FOMO.
You are a founder and hooked? Well, then I have a short disclaimer: there is actually not a “perfect pitch deck” you can ctrl + v, nor is fundraising effortless. But don’t give up, with this template you’ll find your way there.
The Structure
Before we really get into it, there are two types of decks you should build. First is a handout deck, which contains more text to hook an investor and give context before a meeting. And then there’s a presentation deck, edited down to the key messages and big numbers for your roadshow.
Either way, your deck should be about 15-20 slides in total, with 20 being the maximum you should aim for. The following are some key slides that should work for most startups, but you’re not restricted to this as a formula. Play with the storyline to highlight what you think is most important.
- Purpose of your journey
- Problem
- Solution / Product
- Market
- Why now (!)
- Competition
- Traction
- Business model
- Go to market
- Team
- Vision
- The Ask!
Let’s dig deeper into those points.
The Company Purpose
The best entrepreneurs can turn a frankly boring concept into a mission you want to quit your VC job for. Would you rather invest in a B2B factoring company that makes something involving invoices even more boring? Or would you rather invest in a B2B factoring company that keeps thousands of small businesses afloat, solving their cashflow needs when they need it most?
We’re looking for is the big ‘Why’ you exist. As this certified classic TED Talk says, “People do not buy what you do, they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe”.
We need context and framing to get excited, because we don’t have to just convince ourselves– we also have to sell your vision to our colleagues.
What we’re really looking for
Honestly, at slide #1 we’re looking for the first reason to close your deck and toss it in the pile marked “rejected”. There are so many pitches out there, and we’re chasing the rush of finding the next big opportunity. So please hook investors right away ❤
The Problem
You have a lot of flexibility on this slide, but you should make us feel the pain on an emotional level. The bigger the pain point, the better. We want you to show us that something is fundamentally broken. We need to get it.
However, you need to be very clear about the problem that you are actually solving:
- Consumer related concepts need to be explained by the underlying user’s needs.
- Enterprise related concepts need an expert-level of understanding your customer’s pain.
This slide is crucial, so work off of feedback you get from your friends, angels, VCs… everyone. Experiment and see what works.
What we’re really looking for:
On top of the emotional pull, be sure to give us a great punchy statistic to visualize the problem. It adds an intuitive component, and VCs need to feel like they’re making a rational data-driven decision despite feeling the customer’s pain emotionally.
The Solution
When you showcase your product, you should outline its core functionalities and explain how they add value– the investor should be able to quickly understand what your product does and get an impression for the look and feel. This becomes more important in early stages before you have numbers to show traction.
It’s always great to let the product speak for itself by giving access as a demo, or at least plenty of screenshots if possible.
What we’re really looking for:
If you’ve framed our expectations correctly, we don’t care if you show us a buggy MVP or very rough screenshots. We just like poking around to see how your team thinks, and to have something concrete to talk about.
In pitches, give us a quick demo if you can. We’ve also seen every kind of “demo effect” bug in existence, so don’t worry if things go wrong.
The Market
Market sizing is a critical component for investors to understand and evaluate if the underlying opportunity has the potential to get big enough to justify an investment.
Start by explaining the overall size of the market and from there, try to narrow it down to the TAM size. This will not only help investors understand the link to your “go-to-market” strategy, but also avoid the risk of inflating the industry market sizes. Trust me, we already have too high of inflation, recently. We do not need an inflated market assumption 😉
Furthermore, you definitely should address your perspective on the future market development and market characteristics:
- Is the market highly fragmented, if so why? Do we already see a consolidation?
- What are the factors driving the market?
- Are new regulations potentially coming in, influencing the market growth?
What we’re really looking for:
We want you to truly understand your total addressable market, but keeping in mind what the long-term potential might look like. Because of that, we want you to narrow the market down to directly link it to your GTM strategy. That is important for us, that you keep in mind that the TAM and the GTM go hand in hand.
Why Now???
We want to back entrepreneurs that know the stars have aligned perfectly for a billion dollar company to be born today. We’re not alone. According to Marc Andreesen, “The biggest variable in entrepreneurial risk? Timing. By a wide margin.”
That being said, from the outside it always looks like you’re way too early or way too late. If you’re one of the first tackling the problem, you can expect to hear, “Why has nobody else done this?” Usually, there are actually good reasons for this. Point them out and underline your uniqueness and why you think the timing is perfect now, maybe even draw a line to similar technologies in the past.
Or if there’s already an established market, talk about the ongoing shift within the market, which enables your product to actually hit the “right-timing” button. Elaborate about potential technological changes, change in cultural norms as social expectations shifts, regulatory changes or maybe even shift in available resources.
What we’re really looking for:
The Why Now question is the synthesis of the Problem, Solution, Market, and Competition (and everything else). We want an “aha!” moment, and to see a depth of understanding that matches other successful teams we’ve backed.
For example, when we backed Wolt at Seed, German meal delivery startups were raising insane growth rounds and it looked like meal delivery was totally captured. We backed Wolt because Miki Kuusi and the founding team had a deep understanding of the opportunity and knew how to communicate it.
Competition
Stress clearly what the competitive landscape looks like, and truly identify all competitors instead of having investors discover them afterwards. You want to control the discussion and not undermine your credibility.
Illustrate competitors by mapping them out with a clear choice of axes. We will not be shocked to find your logo located in the top right, but use the axes and explain your key success factors and what makes you unique. This helps investors understand your unfair advantage and the secret sauce of your defensibility.
What we’re really looking for
We’re not afraid of competition: it shows there’s an identified market that we’d potentially like you to win. But really we’re looking how you talk about your competitors.
An easy red flag example I hear too often with early stage founders is “we do not have competitors”. It shows that either the founders are too lazy to conduct the right research, or they simply do not understand the market they are operating in. There are always competitors, even if it’s more indirect than head-to-head competition.
Traction
If you’ve got a product out on the market, we’re curious how it’s moving. If you don’t, skip this slide!
We want to learn as much as we can about your metrics, financials, or unit economics. What information you show here will depend on your business, but typical key elements of interest are: revenues, growth, number of customers/users, CAC, LTV, engagement, retention, and churn.
By providing the right information, you make it easier for investors to get excited 🙂
What we’re really looking for
We want to see a team that truly understands the metrics important to their business. In a presentation you can expect to get a few questions on this slide, and we’ll be pattern-matching the depth of your responses to other successful founders we’ve backed.
Business Model
So… how are you planning on making money?
This slide depends on your business model and current stage (similar to the traction slide). Talk about the method of taking in money (i.e. Subscription, transactions etc.). Also mention the potential of further revenue streams in the future to give the investor an idea of how your business model will potentially evolve in the short-term. It is also helpful to talk about your customer pipeline and how much revenue is attached to it.
What we’re really looking for:
A good conversation on this topic. You will hear the question, “Have you thought about…?” We love talking about what we’ve learned from our portfolio and the potential in your company.
Go To Market
Being able to show a repeatable and efficient process for acquiring new customers is a must.
You need to understand your go-to-market strategy like the back of your hand, ideally underlining that you are KPI driven. Therefore, show investors that you have done your homework, and proactively address your marketing channels and metrics like CAC, CLV or payback cycles. Furthermore, you should be prepared to answer investor’s question regarding your assumptions, how this underlying GTM will lead to a profitable business.
Lastly, make sure your GTM strategy slide is easily digestible and can be easily understood without added context.
What we’re really looking for:
Deep understanding on your acquisition strategy (inbound, outbound or offline?). We want you to potentially even outline a new way to go to market to create a temporary moat around your product and maximize your ROI!
Team
When you invest in early stage, you know that all these previous slides – the product, business model, and so on – are just plans. Things can change, startups can pivot, but what’s important are the people making the decision to change business models or pivot the startup. That’s truly what we are investing in.
Focus on areas such as:
- Why is your team the best fit for this idea?
- What is the relevant experience and skill-set you bring to the table for this business?
- Visualize the diversity of expertise and cultural background, and outline your team structure.
- If you have experience working together, make this explicit
- If you still need to complement your management by team hires, do not be shy to talk about. Investors tend to help you 😉
What we’re really looking for:
Good context to get us excited. Please do not simply add logo of companies that you have worked for. Investors want to understand what you have done there – was it a Head of Growth role, or were you doing an internship there? Give light to the logos!
The Vision
End the story by providing an overall vision of the company you have, a snapshot of the next couple years, or even – “How should your company look like in 5 or 10 years time from now?” Try to elaborate on what your company can become, when achieving certain milestones (i.e. Product roadmap, expansion plans, financial milestones etc.).
What we’re really looking for:
We have seen plenty of pitch decks with visuals showing how tech company XY is taking over the world. We would prefer finding a new way of story telling that centers around the unique take of the entrepreneur. What do you see that everyone else does not see! A lot of founders fail because they are reaching for the clouds and miss the secret sauce to the story, which makes them hard to believe.
The Ask
We want to see how much you are raising, what the funds will be used for, and an indication of your run-rate (typically 18-24 months). If there are any further milestones down the road, throw them in here.
Weirdly, a good share of decks nowadays neglect this slide these days, but it’s the reason you’re sending it to us!
What we’re really looking for:
Try to be as precise as possible when talking about how you will allocate funds and how long your run-rate can last. This indicates that you have clearly done the math and that you have a game plan set.
At the end of the day, you need to present this deck a hundred times. So it is very important that you need to feel comfortable with the content and the respective flow.
Do not be afraid to adapt the deck according to your gut, and be sure to keep the numbers updated as time goes on. The perfect seed pitch deck does not exist, but after a few edits you can achieve greatness.
If you have any further questions, or you are actively looking for funding from the best early-stage fund focused on the Nordics and Baltics, then just ping me at kevin@inventure.vc, or the regular social media channels. 😉
