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• by Stacie Sterren
• What is a Pitch Deck

Whether you’re a first time founder, a hopeful entrepreneur or a serial startup guru, you’ve likely pondered “What is the difference between a pitch deck and a business plan?” Which one came first? Why would you use a pitch deck over a business plan? Or, why would you use a business plan over a pitch deck? Are business plans archaic? Is a pitch deck just a pretty business plan? What works best for your startup? And at what time? Do you even need either one? These are important questions. Especially when your time is limited as you are building and growing your company.

Before we can answer these questions, let’s talk about what a pitch deck and a business plan are.

THE BUSINESS PITCH DECK

A pitch deck is a presentation that contains 10-20 slides. The pitch deck presentation is either sent to investors as a pdf to get them interested in taking a meeting with the entrepreneur, or used as a visual aid during a live presentation to either investors or other audiences like pitch competitions. Sometimes pitch decks are used for both.

A pitch deck is meant to share information about your business. Who does it serve and why, the size of the market, your special sauce and how you will win in that space. It lays out clear go to market strategies, and delves into some detail on future opportunities. It relies on your research of your industry and understanding of your business’ plan for launch and growth. The pitch deck helps an investor see where you are, where you are going and enables them to decide if they want to help you get there. The goal of a pitch deck is to score an in-person meeting or to kick off the conversation with an investor about joining your funding round.

• 10-20 slides
• Highly Visual
• Used to Get Investors Attention

THE BUSINESS PLAN

A business plan is a fully researched 10-100 page document. The document is used to store and convey in detail your business’ plans for the next 1,3, 5 years. The business plan lays out the research you’ve done in your industry and competitors. It discusses your sales, marketing, and operational plans. It takes into account your financial analysis, assumptions on growth and success, and lays out a map of where your company will be and how it will get there.

The business plan goes into detail on the management team and what unique skills they bring to the table. The document usually includes a significant number of charts, depictions and pictures. But it relies heavily on text to convey the information. The business plan is used as a document that is shared with potential investors for them to use as a reference point when deciding whether or not to invest in your company. It is often used in a due diligence step in the funding process. The goal of a business plan is to lead you and your team members down the path of success over the next few years, and to show an investor how you plan to be successful with their investment.

• 10-100 Pages
• Highly Text-Based
• Used to Get Investor Buy-in

Which Came First, the Pitch Deck or the Business Plan?

The business plan is a longstanding document that has been been used in the building and planning and funding of businesses for quite some time. Possibly as long as  businesses  have been a thing. If you can believe that. It is a basic document really, it is the plan for the enterprise which you are setting out on.

To ensure that you are successful, you should carefully plan how you will be successful, and make those decisions based on thorough research. You need to understand your customers and their problems as well as your competitors and their weaknesses. Before the existence of Venture Capital firms and other now widely available forms of equity funding, banks gave out loans to businesses to help them get started. But in order to choose who to give the loans to, they needed to make sure that they would be able to pay those loans back. A business plan was required to convey to the banker the viability of the venture. It has been a staple ever since. Banks still require business plans for loan applications today. Some request or accept pitch decks too, but not usually instead of the business plan.

It is not clear who put together the very first pitch deck, or since exactly when investors have been looking for the pitch deck, but we can deduce a few things from history. Venture Capital firms really started to gain traction as a viable source of funding during or right before the tech boom of the 90’s. They played a big role in bank-rolling the launch and growth of many 90’s startup companies. Back then, it took a lot of capital to set up the infrastructure needed to start a large tech company. Websites needed to be built and coded, infrastructure (like servers, mainframes & networking components). They needed to be purchased and set up and run and maintained.

But, online companies looked nothing like traditional businesses. Like a restaurant or a manufacturer–it was all a little too uncertain and risky for banks to give out loans. So, venture capitalists and angel investors filled the void. They offered funding in exchange for equity.

The Beginning of the Business Pitch Deck

I imagine in the beginning these groups read the full business plans of potential deals. But as the venture capitalists got more busy, received more applications, and more and more founders looked to equity instead of debt financing, they likely couldn’t read a whole business plan for every applicant. One pagers and executive summaries helped, but even these were tiresome text-heavy documents to read through all day long. There was a need for a shorty, easier to digest document.

In comes graphic design tools for the masses. Microsoft PowerPoint was invented in 1987, and grew in it’s popularity through the 90’s. The appeal of PowerPoint was that you could use it to project a visual aid as you spoke to your audience. This meant they could see additional information, charts and pictures that provided more context to your speech. So founders started using these technologies when pitching to investor during those initial meetings.

Somewhere along the line, the ease and visual nature of the Slide Deck merged with the long-form business plan. And founders started sending visual documents created in PowerPoint and other slide deck design tools to investors before they met them.

So which came first the pitch deck or the business plan? The pitch deck is a child of the business plan. The business plan came first, then the pitch deck.

Why You May Not Need Both a Pitch Deck and a Business Plan

All of that said, today you may not need both a pitch deck and a business plan. It depends on your business stage and what your goals are. A business plan is a thorough document that contains “the plan” itself. If you have “the plan” itself written down in a variety of documents or sources of information than you may not need an official business plan document in the traditional sense. And at least not a 100 page one.

If you are looking to work with a pitch deck designer, it may be advantageous to have a full or partial business plan. Your pitch deck designer will most likely not assist you with business decisions and strategies. Rather, they will work with you–the expert–to tell your plan, ensure it is compelling to the investor audience, and well designed and visually appealing. You need to have a concept. And likely need to have done some level of research into your industry and competitors to work with a designer on your deck. But, you needed that anyway just to be an effective founder.

When You Need a Business Plan and Not a Pitch Deck

• If Seeking Debt Financing: Banks still review business plans, so you will need a business plan if you’re looking to get any kind of loan from a bank.
• When Raising Over $500K: If you’re raising a lot of money, you better have a plan for what you’re going to do with it. Investors will be doing due diligence, be prepared.
• When You Have Co-founders / Co-owners: When you have several cooks in the kitchen, it is helpful to have a written and agreed upon plan to make sure everyone stays on track and executes the way you intended. This should be a living document that is updated over time and as things change.

When You Need a Pitch Deck and Not a Business Plan

• When You are Seeking Equity Funding: If you’re looking for funding from venture capitalists, angel investors or saavy friends and family, you need a clear pitch deck.
• If You’re Networking with Investors: Not ready to get investment now, but have the opportunity to network with investors? You should have a pitch deck ready. First impressions are important, especially when building influential relationships.
• When Your Pitch in a Competition: In the startup community there are a lot of pitch events and competitions designed to give founders a chance to get exposure and practice pitching their company. You definitely need a pitch deck.
• When You Are Seeking CoFounders: If you’re looking for cofounders, there is no better way to convey to them your concept, and the value you can bring to the table than through a pitch deck.
• When You Apply to an Accelerator: Many accelerators require a pitch deck in order to apply. They use the deck to evaluate your company and decide whether or not you should join the next cohort.

Which is More Important, the Pitch Deck or the Business Plan?

In can be argued that the pitch deck is more important than the business plan, because it is likely to actually be seen by others. If you don’t have a good business pitch deck, you won’t get the opportunity to talk in more detail with potential investors. You won’t excite and evangelize the startup community and your early team around the company’s growth. And, it may ruin your ability to connect with key mentors and partners that could catapult your startup business.

That said, with no plan, the pitch deck will not work. Investors see pitches day-in and day-out. They can sense a snake-oil salesman, an impossible tech product, and an unprepared founder from a mile away. If you don’t know your stuff, then the best pitch may help you get the meeting, but it won’t help you get funding. But today, the plan doesn’t have to be in the form of a traditional text-based business plan.

I hope this has helped you to better evaluate the differences between pitch decks and business plans. And help why you might choose to develop one or each of them for your startup. If you’re building your pitch deck, I strongly encourage you to work with pitch deck experts. We  evaluated different options for getting your pitch deck designed here (including DIY, all the pros and cons).

Stacie Sterren

Related posts.

What is a Startup Accelerator?

What is traction?

Why You Need More Than One Pitch Deck

Can You Get Funding with a Bad Pitch Deck if your Startup is Good Enough?

Is it time? Does your startup need a pitch deck?

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Blog Graphic Design 30+ Best Pitch Deck Examples, Tips & Templates

30+ Best Pitch Deck Examples, Tips & Templates

Written by: Ryan McCready Jul 04, 2023

A startup is, by definition, a fast-growing company. And to grow you need funding.

Enter the pitch deck.

In this post, we’ll look at the best startup pitch deck templates from heavy-hitters such as Guy Kawasaki, Airbnb, Uber and Facebook. We’ll also uncover the secrets of their successful startup pitch decks, and how you can leverage them to attract investor dollars, bring on new business partners and win new client contracts.

Haven’t created a winning pitch deck before? Then, use Venngage’s Presentation Maker to easily edit the templates — no technical expertise required.

 Table of contents (click to jump ahead):

• What is a pitch deck?

30 pitch deck examples for businesses

What makes a good pitch deck, what is the difference between a pitch deck vs business plan, pitch deck faq, create a pitch deck in 4 easy steps, what is a pitch deck .

A pitch deck is a presentation created to raise venture capital for your business. In order to gain buy-in and drum up financial support from potential investors, these presentations outline everything from why your business exists, to your business model, progress or milestones , your team, and a call-to-action.

The best startup pitch decks can help you:

• Prove the value of your business
• Simplify complex ideas so your audience can understand them (and get on board)
• Differentiate your business from competitors
• Tell the story behind your company to your target audience (and make that story exciting)

What is a pitch deck presentation?

A pitch deck presentation is a slideshow that introduces a business idea, product, or service to investors. Typically consisting of 10–20 slides, a pitch deck is used to persuade potential investors to provide funding for a business. It serves as a comprehensive overview of your company, outlining your business model, the problem you solve, the market opportunity you address, your key team members, and your financial projections.

1. Buffer pitch deck

Industry: Social Media Management

Business model: Subscription-based SaaS (Software as a Service)

Amount raised: $500k, according to Buffer’s co-founder Leo Widrich .

Location: San Francisco, California, USA

Website: Buffer.com

Key takeaway : The traction slide was key for Buffer: it showed they had a great product/market fit. If you have great traction, it’s much easier to raise funding.

What’s interesting about Buffer’s pitching process was the issue of competition, as that’s where many talks stalled. Investors became confused, since the social media landscape looked crowded and no one was sure how Buffer differed.

Eventually, they created this slide to clear the air:

To be frank, I’m still confused by this addition to the Buffer pitch deck, but perhaps their presentation would have cleared things up.

In any case, we’ve recreated Buffer’s pitch deck with its own traction, timeline and competitor slides, plus a clean new layout and some easy-to-customize icons:

Design tip : don’t forget to add a contact slide at the end of your pitch deck, like in the business pitch example below.

Because sometimes you’re going to pitch to a small room of investors. Other times, it will be to an auditorium full of random people in your industry. And I can guarantee that not everyone is going to know your brand off the top of their head.

You should make it extremely easy for people to find out more info or contact your team with any questions. I would recommend adding this to the last slide, as shown below.

Alternatively, you could add it to the slide that will be seen the longest in your pitch deck, like the title slide. This will help anyone interested write down your information as event organizers get things ready.

Related:  Creating a Pitch Deck? 5 Ways to Design a Winner

2. Airbnb pitch deck

Industry: Hospitality, Travel, and Technology

Business model: Online marketplace (peer-to-peer) for lodging and travel experiences

Amount raised: $20k at three months and $600k at eight months (seed), according to Vator .

Website: airbnb.com

Key takeaway: A large marketplace, impressive rate of traction and a market ready for a new competitor are the factors which made Airbnb stand out early on, says Fast Company. The organization’s slide deck clearly demonstrates these points.

Your pitch deck should explain the core information in your business plan in a simple and straightforward way. Few startups have done this as well as Airbnb.

We’ve re-designed Airbnb’s famous deck as two light and airy sample pitch deck templates. The focus here is on engaging visuals, with minimal text used.

Airbnb fundraising slide deck

This type of deck is also called a demo day presentation .  Since its going to be viewed from a distance by investors while you present, you don’t need lots of text to get your message across. The point is to complement your speech, not distract from it.

Another great thing about Airbnb’s fundraising slide deck format is that every slide has a maximum of three sections of information:

As one of the most popular presentation layouts , the rule of three design principle has been drilled into my head. And for good reason!

Here’s one of the slides that demonstrates why this pitch deck design tip works:

VIDEO TUTORIAL:  Learn how to customize this pitch deck template by watching this quick 8-minute video.

Minimalist Airbnb pitch deck template

This simple sample pitch deck template is clean and incredibly easy to customize, making it perfect for presentation newbies.

Don’t forget to insert your own tagline instead of the famous “Book rooms with locals, rather than hotels” slogan. Hint: your tagline should similarly convey what your business offers. Airbnb’s pitch deck offers up tantalizing benefits: cost savings, an insider’s perspective on a location and new possibilities.

Design tip : Click the text boxes in our online editor and add your own words to the pitch decks. Duplicate slides you like, or delete the ones you don’t.

Related:  How to Create an Effective Pitch Deck Design [+Examples]

3. Uber pitch deck

Industry: Transportation, Technology, and Logistics

Business model: On-demand transportation network and logistics platform

Amount raised: $1.57M in seed funding in 2010, reports Business Insider .

Website: uber.com

Key takeaway : Successful pitch decks clearly highlight the key pain point (the inefficiency of cabs) and a tantalizing solution (fast, convenient 1-click ordering).

Uber co-founder Garrett Camp shared the company’s very first pitch deck from 2008 via a  Medium post .

While there’s a surprising amount of text, it still manages to hit on every major part of their business plan succinctly — including key differentiators, use cases and best/worst-case scenarios.

Want something similar? We’ve updated the classic Uber pitch deck template with a sharp layout:

Uber investor deck

Many of the best pitch deck presentations out there are rather brief, only covering a few main points across a handful of slides. But sometimes your deck needs to provide more information.

There’s nothing wrong with having a longer investor pitch deck, as long as you switch up the slide layouts throughout — no one wants to see basically the same slide (just with different metrics or points) 25 times over.

This sample pitch deck template we created based on the infamous Uber deck has 20 or more slides and a diversity of layout options:

Design tip : Replace the photos with your own or browse our in-editor library with thousands of free professional stock images. To do so, double click any image to open our “replace” feature. Then, search for photos by keyword.

Blue Uber slide deck

In this navy version of the Uber pitch deck template, we’ve added bright colors and creative layouts.

Again, it’s easy to swap out the icons in our online editor. Choose from thousands of free icons in our in-editor library to make it your own.

Related : 9 Tips for Improving Your Presentation Skills For Your Next Meeting

4. Guy Kawasaki pitch deck

How much did they raise?  Guy Kawasaki’s Garage Capital raised more than $315 million dollars for its clients, according to one estimate .

Key takeaway : Avoid in-depth technical discussions in your pitch deck. Focus on the pain point you’re solving, how you’ll solve it, how you’ll make money and how you’ll reach custvomers.

Guy Kawasaki’s 10 slide outline is famous for its laser focus. He’s renowned for coining the 10/20/30 rule : 10 slides, 20 minutes and no fonts smaller than 30 point.

While you may be tempted to include as much of your business plan as possible in your pitch deck, his outline forces you to tease out your most important content and engage investors or clients within a short time span.

We’re recreated his famous outline in two winning templates you can adapt and make your own:

Gradient Guy Kawasaki pitch deck

This clean pitch deck template has all the sections you need and nothing you don’t.

Kawasaki’s format steers you towards what venture capitalists really care about : problem/solution, technology, competition, marketing plan, your team, financial projections and timeline.

Read our blog post on persuasive presentations for more design and speaking tips.

Design tip : Quickly add in charts and graphs with our in-editor chart maker. You can even import data from Excel or Google sheets.

Blue Guy Kawasaki pitch deck

This more conservative pitch deck template design keeps all the focus on the core information.

Remember: opt for a 30-point font or larger. This will force you to stick to your key points and explain them clearly. Anything smaller, and you’ll risk losing your audience — especially if they’re busy reading while tuning out what you’re actually saying.

5. Sequoia capital pitch deck

How much did they raise? Sequoia Capital is actually a Venture Capital firm. According to TechCrunch , they’ve raised almost $1B for later-stage U.S. investments.

Key takeaway : “If you can’t tell the story of the company in five minutes, then you’re either overthinking it or you haven’t simplified it down enough.” – Mike Vernal, Sequoia Capital

VC firm Sequoia Capital has its own  10-slide pitch deck format to rival Guy Kawasaki’s famous example that we’ll take a look at a little later on. Its highly-curated, clarified format shines a spotlight on innovative ideas.

As the video above suggests, effectively communicating your mission, not just listing features, is key. Below is our take on the Sequoia Capital pitch deck example; you’ll find it clean, clear and easy to create.

Design tip : Click the blue background and select a new color from our color wheel (or one of your own brand colors via My Brand Kit, available with Venngage for Business ) to create a pitch deck with your branding.

Related:  How to Make Successful Financial Pitch Decks For Startups

Blue and pink iconics pitch deck

Ready to try it for yourself? Add a pop of color to your version of the Sequoia pitch deck template with this pink and blue slide deck. The contrasting colors will make your information stand out.

6. Facebook pitch deck

How much did they raise? $500K in angel funding from venture capitalist Peter Thiel (first round).

Key takeaway : If you don’t have revenue traction yet, lean heavily on other metrics , like customer base, user engagement and growth.  Use a timeline to tell a story about your company.

The best pitch decks tell the real story about your company or brand. You should not only want to sell the audience on your product but also on the hard work you’ve done building it from the ground up.

Design tip: Try data visualizations to relay a company or product timeline . Since people are familiar with the format and know how to read them quickly, you can convey the information impactfully and save room while you’re at it.

Here, Facebook’s classic pitch deck shows the incredible schools that’ve already signed on and describe when future launches will happen.

The sample pitch deck template featured below shows another example of a company or product timeline . This would have been a great fit in the Facebook pitch deck, don’t you think?

Plus you can summarize a ton of information about your brand on a single slide. Check out how well the timeline fits into this pitch deck template below:

If the designer wouldn’t have used a timeline, the same information could have been spread over five or six extra slides! Luckily, Venngage’s timeline maker can help you visualize progress across a period of time without any design experience required.

7. TikTok Pitch Deck

How much did they raise? $150.4M in funding in 2014 (back when TikTok was called Musical.ly), says Crunchbase .

Key takeaway : Use icons as visual anchors for written information.

(The full slide deck is available to Digiday subscribers , though you can view some of the key slides in this Medium post . Keep in mind: this TikTok pitch deck was created for potential advertisers, not investors. No other TikTok pitch decks are publicly available.)

What TikTok does really well in the above example is use icons as visual anchors for their stats. (I could write a whole article about using icons in your presentations correctly. There are so many ways you can use them to upgrade your slides.)

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, just look at the slide deck template below.

Each of the main points has an icon that gives instant visual context about what the stat is about to the audience. These icons draw the eye immediately to these important facts and figures as well.

Design tip: Remember to use icons that have a similar style and color palette. Otherwise, you run the risk of them becoming a distraction.

8. Y Combinator pitch deck

How much did they raise? This startup accelerator has invested in over 3,500 startups to date, according to the company website . They state their combined valuation nears $1 trillion.

Key takeaway : Create clear, concise pitch deck slides that tell a story investors can understand in seconds.

The classic Y Combinator pitch deck is incredibly simple, and for good reason. Seed stage companies can’t provide much detail, so they should focus on telling a story about their company.

That means your slides should tell a story investors can immediately understand in a glance.

Note that one of Y Combinator’s key components is the problem (above) and solution (below) slides.

Explaining how your startup is going to solve a pain point is a vital part of any slide deck. According to Y Combinator , startups should use the problem slide to show the problem your business solves, and how this problem currently affects businesses and/or people. Additionally, if you’re starting a new startup, forming an LLC could be a great choice to launch your business in the right direction, especially if you are focused on asset protection .

Without that information, investors are going to be left with more questions than answers.

The solution slide should show the real-world benefits of your product/service. I recommend using data visualization to show traction, like the chart above, with a couple of notes for context.

To ensure your problem and solutions slides are easily understood, use a similar layout for both, as shown below.

This will help the audience quickly recall the main problem you want to solve, and connect it to your solution (even if the slides are separated by a few other points or ideas).

9. Front pitch deck

How much did they raise ? $10M in Series A funding

Key takeaway : Use a simple flowchart to visualize a problem your product/service solves.

Not everyone is going to be able to explain their problem and solution as succinctly as the previous examples. Some will need to take a unique approach to get their point across.

That’s why I want to highlight how Front masterfully communicated the problem to be solved. They likely realized it would be a lot easier (and cleaner) to create a flow chart that visualizes the problem instead of text. (Did I mention you can make your own flowcharts with Venngage?)

Also, I really like how they distilled each down to a single phrase. That approach, combined with the visuals, will help it stick in investors’ minds as one of the best pitch decks.

Here’s another example pitch deck that uses a chart to convey their problem/solution:

It splits the competition slide right down the middle to illustrate the differences. It also shows exactly how the processes differ between the two entities using mini flowcharts.

Helping the audience make the right conclusions about your company should be an important part of your pitch deck strategy. Without saying a word, the visual choices you make can greatly impact your message.

10. Crema pitch deck

How much did they raise? $175K in seed funding .

Key takeaway : Choose background images carefully — making sure they have a similar color palette.

The best pitch decks keep things consistent, mainly because there are so many moving parts in any presentation. You want each of your slides to feel like they’re connected by a singular feeling or theme. An out-of-place presentation background image can throw that off.

Keeping things consistent when you use a solid background color or pattern isn’t hard. But things can get tricky if you want to use different photos for your backgrounds.

However, if you pick presentation background images that have a similar color palette, you’ll be fine. Check out the images Crema used in their startup pitch deck below:

If you’re struggling to find exactly the same colored photos, you can use a color filter to make things more uniform.

11. WeWork pitch deck

How much did they raise? $6.9M in seed funding in 2011, says Crunchbase .

Key takeaway : Put your metrics on display.

The behemoths at WeWork still have one of the best software pitch decks, despite recent troubles (layoffs, and a valuation that dropped from $47 billion to $2.9 billion).

In fact, this investor pitch deck actually helped them raise money at a $5 billion valuation.

My favorite thing from this is how their key metrics are on the second slide. They waste no time getting down to business!

A lot of the time brands hide these metrics at the end of their presentation, but WeWork made sure to put it front and center in their slide deck.

This approach puts the audience in a positive state of mind, helping them be more receptive to the pitch.

12. Crew (Dribble) pitch deck

How much did they raise? $2M in seed funding

Key takeaway : Start your presentation with a simple statement to set the tone.

Sometimes you have to set the mood of the room before you jump into your slide deck. A simple way to do this is by adding a powerful statement or famous quote at the beginning of your slides.

This may sound cliche, but the creatives over at Crew (now Dribbble ) used this approach well in their pitch presentation.

By claiming that every business is an online business, they instantly change the way that people think about the business sector.

Additionally, the designers used this straightforward statement to set up the rest of the presentation. In the next few slides, the potential market is explained. Without the statement, I don’t think these numbers would be as impactful.

Let’s take a look at the graphs and charts the Dribble team used in their slide deck. In the below business pitch example, you can see that the line charts use the same color palette, size, and typography.

One of my favorite tips from my presentation ideas roundup article states you should never make the audience do the math.

You can also use this mantra when you’re adding data visualizations to your slides. Make each slide extra easy to consume, as well as, easy to compare to other visualizations.

Below the pie charts use the exact same color palette, size, and typography as well:

If the designers would have used a different example, the audience would be distracted trying to decipher the information.

But consistent design across multiple visualizations will ensure your audience can make comparisons that lead to the right conclusions.

Pro Tip: You can use a comparison infographic to summarize key points you’re comparing.

13. Aspire Food Group pitch deck

How much did they raise? $1M from the Hult Prize in 2013 to scale their project.

Key takeaway : Simple graphics clearly illustrate the problem (food security), the size of the market and Aspire’s unique farming project (spoiler alert: it’s insects).

Nonprofits pitching donors or social enterprises pitching for funding have a slightly different challenge than other organizations. They need to present a unique solution and  make an emotional connection to their audience.

Aspire’s simple pitch deck graphics allow investors to grasp their unique business idea at a glance. Plus, by introducing the audience to one of their customers and describing how insect farming has impacted her food budget, the concept is made relatable to many.

Another simple design hack is to choose a unique background for your nonprofit or social enterprise pick deck. Take this sample pitch deck template:

There are millions of stock photos out there for you to pick from, so finding one that will work shouldn’t be too hard.

However, when you’re picking your presentation background images , it’s important to make sure it matches your message or brand.

In the above example, the pitch deck’s slightly crumpled paper background fits an eco-friendly startup well.   Especially because eco-friendly living and minimalism share similar tenants.

Another great example is this sponsorship pitch deck above. It elevates the message by opting for a simplistic background choice.

With a beautiful yet minimalistic slide deck like this, who wouldn’t want to donate?

Most of the time your pitch deck background images are supposed to be used in a supporting role. However, you can also design your presentation around the background images to create some of the best pitch decks out there.

As you can see in this pitch deck template, we added written content to the white space in each of the stock photos:

Plus no one can really copy your pitch deck layout, so you will instantly stand out from other companies.

Be sure to pick photos that share the same color palette and theme. Otherwise, the benefits of using these presentation backgrounds will be lost.

14. Mattermark pitch deck

How much did they raise? A total of $17.2M so far, says Crunchbase .

Key takeaway : Use screenshots in your pitch deck to show the problem you’re solving.

Highlighting digital problems is tough when you have limited space and time…like when you’re pitching your new digital product to a room full of investors.

That’s why some of the best pitch decks include screenshots of the problem being solved.

As you can see above, the people from Mattermark used screenshots to show how unorganized SAAS reporting was. At that time it was spread over a ton of different sites, with different reporting standards and values.

It would be difficult to sell an investor on their product just by talking about the market. Mainly because not a lot of people have experience in that specific niche.

But with a handful of screenshots, they were able to highlight the product potential almost instantly.

In terms of design, the team at Mattermark stuck to the rule of three (see slide below). This rule will help you keep your team from overwhelming the audience with a flood of stats or figures.

They also decided to make these figures easier to consume by highlighting them in different colors

Compared to a boring list of figures, it’s a lot easier to remember three distinct colored numbers. Plus because the background colors darken as they go, it naturally guides the reader’s eyes down the slide.

15. Dwolla pitch deck

How much did they raise? $12M in funding as of 2018.

Key takeaway : Give the reason your company was founded in one quick sentence.

In many of our own presentations, we talk about how Venngage started from humble beginnings before undergoing tremendous growth in just a few years.

That’s because people love origin stories — they help your audience connect with your brand and appreciate all the work put into it.

Take a look at the pitch deck slide from Dwolla above. In a single sentence, they outline their reason for doing business, and what they hope to solve.

Just be sure to talk about your company founding in the first few slides of your pitch. Otherwise, it won’t have the same impact.

On another note, as a design company, we always love to see people create great visualizations in their pitch decks — particularly when these visuals communicate key information well….like when it comes to your ideal users!

I have seen a lot of brands just talk about their users, but I recommend creating visual user personas instead. Our persona guides can help you with this!

As you can see above, Dwolla visualized their user personas for each use case.

These visual user personas allow audiences to put a “real” face to your user base. And if you have many ideal users (like Dwolla), it helps keep each group organized.

16. Kickfolio (App.io) pitch deck 

How much did they raise? $1M in seed funding.

Key takeaway : Go for huge graphs! The bigger, the better.

Be proud of your brand’s growth and metrics in your slide deck.

You worked hard to grow a company from nothing, and that’s a big achievement! So why would you want to make that growth hard to see?

However, I’ve seen a lot of people inadvertently hide their key metrics by using small graphs or charts.

The only solution to this problem is…get bigger with your graphs! And I mean huge, like the ones App.io deployed in the pitch deck above. Their graph is so large and imposing, every audience member could see it clearly.

Venngage’s  graph maker can help you do this for your own pitch decks too.

17. Yalochat pitch deck

How much did they raise? $15M in Series B funding, says TechCrunch.

Key takeaway : Use icons as illustrations to add instant context.

Icons have been making a comeback in the design world over the past few years. According to recent reports on graphic design trends , they’ll continue to be popular.

This presentation from Yalochat is one of the best examples of how to use illustrated icons correctly.

Each icon perfectly illustrates the point being made on each slide, giving instant context. They will definitely catch the eyes of any audience member.

Just remember to follow their lead and  use consistently designed icons !

18. Brex pitch deck

How much did they raise? $1.5 billion to date.

Key takeaway : Include a single slide about your team and highlight what makes them truly exceptional.

Another important part of your story is the people who helped you build your company. These people are the lifeblood of your brand, and what helps it stand out from the competitors.

Corporate card startup Brex does this well by using team member photos, and including their titles and company affiliations to build credibility. You can download the Brex slides for free, thanks to Business Insider .

Let’s tale a look at a sample pitch deck that employs a similar philosophy.

I’m guessing you already planned on adding something similar to your pitch deck. Again, I would recommend using only a single team slide like they did.

You can use a team photo if you want to talk about the whole team, or add an organizational chart instead. Alternatively, like Brex, you can highlight the most important individuals, like this business pitch example:

Whatever you choose to do, don’t forget to talk about your team on a team slide, and highlight the people who make your company truly great.

Read More:  12+ Organizational Chart Examples and Templates

19. Purple Go pitch deck

How much did they raise? Undisclosed.

Key takeaway : Use a contrasting hue to draw your audience’s attention to key information.

Color isn’t just about making your designs look good — it can also draw your audience’s attention to important information.

For example, take a look at this simple pitch deck from Purple Go . They contrast deep purple with white to help certain sentences pop.

This is a simple way to make your slides have a lot of impact; pick colors that contrast boldly with each other.

20. Mint pitch deck

How much did they raise? $31M to date, according to Mint.

Key takeaway : Add visual cues, such as illustrations and icons, to help explain your brand to investors.

I’m guessing your pitch deck is already going to touch on how you stand out from the competition. But just listing a few things that set you apart may not be enough on your slide deck!

You may need to add some visual cues to help the audience out.

We decided to redesign Mint’s original deck for a contemporary take on this.

In this minimalist pitch deck template, our designers used visuals to make the main company stand out even more. And best of all, it doesn’t distract from the minimalist theme.

This simple addition to your slides will help your information jump off the page, providing a rewarding visual break from related companies.

21. Park Evergreen (Plot) pitch deck

How much did they raise? $400k in seed funding.

Key takeaway : Give each metric its own slide.

Generally, slide decks are full of important metrics that you’re supposed to remember. But not all of those numbers are presented in a way that would make them easy to.

Some are hidden in long paragraphs, while others are smashed together with less important findings.

That’s why I’m a huge fan of how Park Evergreen (now called Plot ) included important numbers in this slide deck. As you can see below, each metric is given its own slide:

With this approach, the audience members place their full attention on that number. And they’ll be able to recall the information a lot quicker.

It may look overly simple to some, but the best pitch decks use this tactic a lot.

22. Hampton Creek (Eat Just) pitch deck

How much did they raise? $1.5M in Series A.

Key takeaway : Create a minimalist title slide to build anticipation for your presentation.

You probably know that presentations don’t always run as smoothly as planned. With long breaks and technical problems, the time between presentations can end up running rather long.

Translation: you might spend more time looking at the title slide than the actual presentation itself.

So if you really want to build some anticipation for your pitch, create a minimalist (some might even say, mysterious) title slide. As you can see, the team at Eat Just (once known as Hampton Creek) did just that.

The lack of information makes spectators want to learn more about your brand, effortlessly engaging them.

The only negative is that no one is going to know the name of your company — yet.

23. Sickweather pitch deck

How much did they raise? $2.6M to date, according to Crunchbase.

Key takeaway : Pull out the main metrics from your graphs and charts to make your slide a snap to understand.

Remember when I said: “Don’t make your audience do the math”?

Yeah. That’s because people hate doing math — so you never want to make investors try to calculate your data themselves. Especially when dealing with millions of dollars, tiny percent changes or other complicated numbers.

Out of all the tips in this article, this one might be the most important. Mainly because forgetting this idea all but guarantees your failure.

That’s why I recommend you “do the math” on every slide where you include a graph or chart — like how Sickweather did above.

By pulling out the main growth metrics from the graph, they made this slide a lot more consumable, and showed the audience exactly what they should pay attention to.

24. Dutchie pitch deck

How much did they raise? $35M in 2020, according to TechCrunch .

Key takeaway : Set the tone by putting your most impressive stat(s) in the introduction.

Dutchie, an all-in-one technology platform for eCommerce, POS and payments, wastes no time coming out the gates with one impressive insight: “10% of all legal cannabis in the world” is purchased through their product.

Now I don’t know about you, but that’s pretty tantalizing.

So it makes perfect sense they would pull it out from their market share figures and feature it in their introduction. By doing so, investors get an idea how successful and established Dutchie is right off the bat.

25. Studysmarter pitch deck

How much did they raise?  $15M according to TechCrunch .

Key takeaway : Illustrate your vision over several slides.

Rather than dedicate one slide to their vision for the company, digital learning company Studysmarter continuously brings up how their product will be understood in the future — as “the world’s central hub” for “lifelong” learning, becoming the “largest learning platform in Europe” by 2021.

While this visionary sentiment is not new to the pitch deck industry, it makes sense Studysmarter would want to focus much of their presentation slide deck on this idea: the idea of an unlimited target market and use cases.

Design wise, their illustrations are consistent, using visuals to illustrate their message and various target demographics.

These graphics build off the sleek, modern interface Studysmarter’s brand image invokes. It also illustrates what they want investors to envision for the future of the brand.

26. Clearbanc (Clearco) Pitch Deck

How much did they raise? $70M in series A funding, according to TechCrunch.

Key takeaway : Use flow charts to communicate complicated processes.

As a company that offers startups “growth capital for the new economy” through non-dilutive revenue-share agreements, Clearco (previously known as Clearbanc) wins big by communicating how the process works in less than a slide’s time.

That’s right: the company uses a flowchart .

For complicated business processes that would normally take several slides of text to communicate, a flowchart is a smart way to visualize a process while saving space and keeping your audience engaged.

Particularly for a company like Clearco, this is key for getting investors up to speed. Then you can move on to the other facts and figures they’ll surely want to hear.

27. Foursquare Pitch Deck

Key takeaway : Show how the end-product looks in your presentation.

Okay look, I get it. This slide deck from 2009 is certainly behind on times when it comes to design tips in this current day and age…

BUT take it back to more than a decade ago, and you’ll see why Foursquare’s pitch deck won big with investors.

As one of the first businesses to employ gamification, the company lets this selling proposition shine by using an iPhone graphic to show how the app’s points and badges look to the end-user. These visuals communicate the appeal by showcasing exactly how consumers will interact with, and understand, the product.

In essence, it takes the guesswork out of their pitch.

So while the text-heavy aspect of this sample pitch deck isn’t exactly ideal, their use of visuals can teach us a lesson.

28. TalentBase pitch deck

How much did they raise?   $330K to date.

Key takeaway : Let the numbers do the talking.

Rather than take up a ton of slide space in this pitch deck example, TalentBase, an affordable payroll solution , focused their real estate on the real deal-closers: the numbers.

While this won’t work for every business, as you may need to add more slides to truly explain the environment your organization exists in and your processes, TalentBase uses their positioning to drive forward a captivating narrative.

And this narrative utilizes only numbers to connect the dots in the mind of potential investors about the value TalentBase offers, in terms of market capture.

29. Peloton pitch deck

Key takeaway : Discuss both the tangible and intangible benefits your product offers.

In 2018, back before the real pandemic hey-day of this tech unicorn, Peloton dazzled in a funding round and managed to capture in $550M funding.

Part of this can be attributed to Peloton’s emphasis on the benefits it brings customers.

Across multiple slides, the exercise equipment and media company highlights how customers’ lives are improved in various emotional and functional ways. Since this connection lays the groundwork for long-term B2C relationships, investors can immediately identify the value encompassed by this modern fitness tool.

Looking to try something similar? Check out the below Peloton sample pitch deck, reimagined by our Venngage design team.

30. Ledgy pitch deck

How much did they raise? $ 10M in September 2021.

Key takeaway : Cut down on space with text and graphics that follow a clear logical narrative.

In just seven slides, the equity management and investor relations platform, Ledgy, was able to convince their audience that their product was worth investing in.

By putting their mission first, and following it up with engaging visuals, the company tells a story despite using minimal text.

Yoko Spirig, CEO and co-founder of Ledgy, echoed this sentiment in an interview : “Starting with the ‘why’ lets you build the business case for the product, and create a logical narrative that investors can follow.”

That’s why, design-wise, this is one of the cleanest pitch deck examples in the bunch. It’s one of the shortest too.

I also appreciate how their brand colors are used in conjunction with white to keep everything consistent (something that Venngage’s automated branding feature My Brand Kit can help you out with).

To summarize, some of my favorite pitch deck design tips include:

• Adding icon headers to your most important insights
• Use similar charts and graphs for easy comparisons across slides
• For longer pitch decks, switch up the slide layouts
• Pick a consistent theme for your presentation background images
• Don’t just list your ideal users, create visual personas
• Use a timeline to show how your company has grown
• Always do the math for your audience

Now let’s take a look at what’s the difference between a pitch deck and a business plan.

A pitch deck and a business plan serve different purposes in the world of entrepreneurship, each playing a crucial role in showcasing and strategizing a business venture. The main distinction lies in their format, level of detail and intended audience.

Pitch decks typically consists of a series of carefully crafted slides, highlighting key aspects of the business such as the value proposition, target market, revenue model, competitive advantage and team expertise.

The goal is to pique interest, generate excitement and secure further engagement or funding opportunities. A pitch deck emphasizes storytelling, persuasive visuals, and concise messaging to create an impactful impression.

On the other hand, a business plan is a comprehensive and detailed document that provides an in-depth roadmap for the entire business venture. It outlines the company’s mission, vision, goals, market analysis, marketing strategies, operational details, financial projections and risk assessment.

A business plan serves as a strategic blueprint, guiding the entrepreneur and internal stakeholders in executing the business idea effectively. It tends to be more exhaustive, often spanning several pages or even chapters, and is typically presented in a written format.

What should a pitch deck contain?

A well-crafted pitch deck should contain key information that effectively communicates your business concept, value proposition, and growth potential. While the specific content may vary depending on your industry and target audience, here are the essential elements that a pitch deck should typically include:

• Problem statement
• Market opportunity
• Business model
• Competitive analysis
• Marketing and sales strategy
• Team members
• Financial projections
• Milestones and timeline
• Investment opportunity

Not a graphic designer? No sweat — creating your own pitch deck is a breeze using Venngage’s Presentation Maker . (We’ll go over the basics here; for a more in-depth look, check out this article .)

Step 1: Sign up on Venngage for free using your email, Gmail or Facebook account. If you already have an account, log in to access the platform.

Step 2: Browse through our selection of professionally designed pitch deck templates and select one that suits your needs and preferences.

Step 3: Once you’ve selected a template, start customizing it to match your branding and content. Venngage’s drag-and-drop editor allows you to easily modify every aspect of the template, including colors, fonts, images and layout. Replace the placeholder text with your own content, such as your company information, product or service details, market analysis and financial projections.

Note: there are hundreds of templates available that you can design and share for free. If you want to access certain designs, take advantage of in-editor features like My Brand Kit/Team collaboration .

Step 4: Once you’re satisfied with your design, you can download it in various formats such as PDF or PNG. Alternatively, you can use also Venngage’s sharing options to present your pitch deck directly from the platform or share it with others via a generated link.

To leave a lasting impression on your audience, consider transforming your slides into an interactive presentation. Here are 15  interactive presentation ideas  to enhance interactivity and engagement.

Now that you know how to create the best pitch decks to communicate your ideas, present your startup or raise venture capital, take action and start designing your own pitch deck today!

And if you want to learn more, there are a ton of other presentation design resources you can take a look at next:

• 20+ Business Pitch Deck Templates and Design Best Practices
• 120+ Best Presentation Ideas, Design Tips & Examples
• 15 Presentation Design Statistics to Know For 2019
• 7 Tips for Designing a Persuasive Presentation [Presentation Design Guide + Templates]
• 20+ Consulting Proposal Templates

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Creating the perfect pitch deck and business plan: Examples and best practices [2022]

• January 7, 2022

I know you’ve probably been told that a good pitch deck and business plan are essential in the world of startups. It’s true — they are — but there is a LOT of conflicting advice out there on how to create them. (Hint: There isn’t just one right way.) I want to share some ideas based on solid research and real-world experience so you can create something that works for you.

What is a pitch deck?

What is its purpose, do you need a pitch deck and a business plan, who should create the pitch deck, how do you create a pitch deck, what is a financial model, what is a financial forecast, how accurate does a startup financial model need to be, what to include in an early-stage pitch deck, what should i avoid putting into my pitch deck, slide #0 – title, slide #1 – executive summary, slide #2 – trends, slide #3 – problem, slide #4 – solution, slide #5 – business model, slide #6 – market, slide #7 – competition, slide #8 – go to market, slide #9 – traction, slide #10 – team, slide #11 – investment proposal (the ask), keep it simple, stick to a consistent layout, make it easy to read, use a pitch deck template, beautiful.ai, key takeaways.

In this article, I’ll discuss what a pitch deck is, explain its purpose and its importance in the outreach process, give you tips and practices to create your perfect pitch deck, and what to include in it. We’ll also look at an example of a pitch deck template, using slides from startups that have raised hundreds of millions from VCs. We’ll also explore why you must build a financial model alongside your pitch deck.

Before we get started, remember that pitching on stage and building your pitch deck are two very different things. Pitching is a form of art. Anyone can present a business plan or startup idea to another person, but only a few pitches are memorable and truly capture the interest of investors.

Practice makes perfect, and the better you get at pitching, the more likely you are to succeed. So sign up to pitch competitions, put yourself out there, and get feedback. The more you pitch, the better you will become at it. It’s better to make mistakes when it doesn’t matter than pitch unprepared to critical investors and risk disaster.

Now let’s dive into what it takes to build a great pitch deck!

Pitch decks are an essential document for every founder to master, but there is a lot of conflicting information out there, and no one-size-fits-all template.

To help you get started, we’ve pulled together pitch deck examples and best practices for new founders and early-stage startups.

Using this information to guide you, you’ll be able to create a pitch that will wow investors and get you the funding that your business needs.

A pitch deck is a condensed business plan that communicates your business idea to investors or partners. It should be clear, concise, and well-organised so that it promotes a conversation, not just information that needs to be digested. The pitch deck is used as an elevator pitch during your outreach process and should highlight the key aspects of your startup in a way that gets investors excited about working with you.

The pitch deck itself isn’t going to fund or run your startup — it’s just one piece of the puzzle — but it’s an important one. As Guy Kawasaki, Chief Evangelist at Canva, former Chief Evangelist at Apple, and author of The Art of the Start puts it .

The purpose of a pitch is to stimulate interest, not to close a deal.

While the pitch deck is an information-packed overview of your startup, it should be more than just numbers and figures. A winning pitch deck also captures the imagination by telling a story and getting the audience emotionally involved. People don’t buy products, they buy stories — pitch decks help people to see your startup as a compelling narrative instead of just an idea on paper.

A pitch deck helps you generate interest from investors so that they will fund or work with your company in some way. It is a way to quickly pitch your business idea and get feedback, without having to go through the entire business plan. The pitch deck should be used as a tool to start a conversation with potential investors so that you can get their feedback and determine if they are interested in what you’re doing.

For an early-stage startup, the pitch deck and financial model are the business plan. There are too many uncertainties to waste time writing a 100-page business plan. Founders should use tools like the Lean Canvas to help them think through the different aspects of their business, but a pitch deck and financial model are essential when trying to raise money and get investment.

The pitch deck should be created by the founder or co-founder of the company. They are the ones who know the most about their business and can best pitch it to investors. Remember, the pitch deck isn’t what wins you the investment, but it will start the conversation and get people interested in what you’re doing.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer for this question, as the pitch deck needs to be tailored to your specific startup and its investors. However, there are some best practices that you can use to make sure your pitch deck is as compelling as possible.

Financial Model

The pitch deck should always include a financial model, typically as a supporting document, that shows financial projections for the next three to five years. This will help investors understand how you will manage the financial risks associated with your startup.

A financial model is a document that shows how your business will make money and what kind of return investors can expect on their investment. It includes projected revenue, expenses, and profits over a specific period of time.

Investors will expect to see a three to five-year financial forecast, broken down by year and month.

The financial model should also include a section on the startup’s burn rate – how much money the company is spending each month and how long it can continue to do so before running out of funds.

A financial forecast is a projection of future income, expenses, and profits. It typically covers a period of three to five years and breaks down revenue, expenses, and net cash flow by month.

The financial model doesn’t need to be complex, but it should show a realistic understanding of the numbers behind your startup.

It is important to remember that venture capitalists and angel investors do not expect your financial forecasts to be 100% accurate – they simply want to see that you have put thought into your business, that your operational plans are accounted for, and that you understand the basics of financial forecasting.

Pitch Deck Structure

As a founder, you’ll quickly learn that you’ll need more than one pitch deck. Different pitch decks are used for different purposes, and you may end up using a pitch deck that is specific to your target investor, the stage of investment, or the format in which you’ll be pitching.

This means that there is no magic formula for your pitch deck structure. However, there are a few essential slides that should be in every business pitch deck.

• Title or cover slide
• Market size and opportunity

These slides will give the pitch deck a good structure and focus on the key elements that you want to talk about. There may be more slides depending on your company, but those are the main ones that should always appear somewhere in every pitch deck.

Early-stage startup pitch decks are used to spark interest in your idea and the founding team. Venture capital firms and angel investors will be comfortable with greater uncertainty and higher risk in this pitch deck, so there is more leeway to experiment with different ideas and concepts. This doesn’t mean that you should just throw in everything without a thought though!

At this early stage, there will be multiple unknowns that you are setting out to solve, including exactly how you’ll build your solution to the problem, how you’ll find your scaleable route to market, and maybe even how you’ll convert users to paying customers.

It’s normal to not have all the answers to these questions, and that’s OK! It doesn’t mean that you should pitch an idea if you don’t know how it will work yet. All of this is just a reality check for potential investors — they need to see that you have a realistic idea of what you need to do and a plan for how you might do it.

It’s a common mistake for first-time founders to try to put too much information into their pitch decks. This can include everything from detailed financial models to a full history of the company’s founding story. While it’s important to have all this information ready, it’s best to save it for when you’re actually speaking with investors.

Your pitch deck should be focused on your idea and the current state of your company. It should be set up in a way that clearly lays out who you are, what problem you’re solving, and how you plan to solve it. You want investors to see the actual value in investing in your startup so avoid including anything that’s not absolutely necessary for them to understand this concept.

– Do not include unnecessary information or graphics

– Keep your pitch deck to a maximum of 20 slides

– Stick to clear and concise language

– Make sure all the data is accurate and up to date

Be cautious about adding in anything that doesn’t support your pitch deck theme or the key points you want to make. If it isn’t relevant, remove it! You don’t have time for extra fluff when pitching investors; be direct and focus on what matters most.

Early-Stage Pitch Deck Example

The following pitch deck template is a good example of how you can tell a story that builds investor confidence in your startup idea. Using this format will set a great first impression and can help you with raising capital.

This is the most important slide in the whole deck, you need to grab the attention of the investor with a title slide that convinces them to keep reading. Your title slide must:

• Showcase your logo and brand name.
• In one phrase, state your value proposition.
• Engage the reader by promising them an interesting pitch.

It’s important to make your startup feel credible and trustworthy. Just as people will judge a book by the cover, investors will judge your pitch deck in less than five seconds, so make sure you have a strong first impression!

A common mistake that founders make with the title slide is not making the most of the opportunity. Taking inspiration from other industries, a prize-winning sticker on a book cover or a wine bottle has a tremendous impact on sales. What can you do to make your pitch deck stand out?

After catching your audience’s attention, you should include a company summary on slide one. Investors are unlikely to know anything about you or your company, so this is where you need to tell them what you do, where you’re going, and why they should care.

In just a few sentences, you should be able to concisely state the following:

• What your company does
• The stage you’re at
• The traction you’ve made so far
• Where you’re heading

If the title slide is about grabbing attention, the executive summary is about keeping it.

You need to get investors hooked and hungry for more information.

With the investor’s attention now captured, it’s time to give them some context. What industry are you in? What trends are happening in that industry?

Trends are the market conditions that you have zero influence over. But, by showing how you understand them and how they impact your startup, you can demonstrate that not only is your startup inevitable, but that the risk of failure is also reduced.

Your goal with the trends slide is to show that your startup idea isn’t some crazy gamble, it’s obvious and inevitable, and that the market is about to change in a big way.

In the context of startup ideas, the important things to consider about trends are whether they are weak or strong, societal and cultural, or technological.

Weak Trends: These are usually easy to spot and include things like the aging population, increasing internet penetration rates, or a growing demand for a new product or service.

Strong Trends: These are hard to argue against. They will be big and happening quickly. They could be something like the rise of mobile payments, a technology reaching critical mass, or a new way of thinking about an old problem.

Technological Trends: These trends focus on the development of new technologies. For instance, the rise of drones, Web3, and artificial intelligence technologies are all technological trends that would be relevant to an investor pitch deck when combined with a startup idea.

Societal and Cultural Trends: These trends are about the way people are living their lives, and integrating new technologies into them. A good example of this is the trend towards health and wellness. This could be anything from the increasing popularity of mindfulness to people taking more interest in their food.

It’s important to consider societal trends alongside advances in technology, just because a technology is possible, doesn’t mean that people will want to use it (remember Google Glass?).

Building into emerging trends can lead to you raising millions without even having a pitch deck , like Hopin, or still whilst the world is in lockdown and your app is still in beta – like Clubhouse.

Now that you’ve got the pitch deck rolling, it’s time to talk about your startup idea. What problem are you solving? What is happening right now? What are people not happy with?

When it comes to the problem slide, be specific. Don’t just say that there is a problem. Tell them what it is and make your audience feel the pain; they should be able to recall having had it themselves or easily empathise with those that do.

As a founder, you need to prove that you have a deep awareness and understanding of the problem you’re solving. You need to demonstrate that you can stand in the shoes of your customers and see the problem as they do.

Ideally, you should be able to summarise all of this into a problem statement. This is a simple one or two-sentence explanation that describes the problem, identifies the pain points, and explains why it needs solving.

Providing data to back up your problem statement is also important, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. You’re not trying to show the size of the market, just the severity of the problem.

Having built up an understanding of the problem, you now need to explain how you plan on solving it. What is your solution? How will your startup solve this problem? What makes your product or service different?

Your solution slide should be clear, concise, and easy to understand. You should have a brief paragraph explaining what your startup does, followed by supporting information in the form of screenshots, images, or diagrams.

Remember, during live pitching or conversations, you may be able to talk about your solution in more detail – maybe even showcase a live demo – but in your pitch deck, you need to keep it simple.

If you’re having trouble boiling down your complex solution then consider how you would sell it to a potential customer. If you can pitch it to them in a way that they understand and see the value, then your pitch deck will be able to do the same.

With the problem and solution explained, it’s time to move on to your business model. This is a critical slide for any pitch deck as it demonstrates how you plan to make money from your startup idea. It’s showing your investors that you understand the business side of things and that you have a plan for growth.

This slide can be a little tricky to get right, as you don’t want to overload your audience with too much information (especially at idea stage, when you don’t have a fully formed business model). However, you need to convey that the unit economics make sense and that there is a path to profitability.

There are lots of different ways to structure this slide, but the most common model breaks it down into a one-paragraph pitch of your business model, followed by one or two diagrams showing the relationships between your costs and revenue. By using simple visuals, you can convey complex ideas far more effectively than words alone.

Unfortunately, pitch decks don’t have the space to explore every aspect of your business model. It’s a good idea to create a separate document for this, which you can then share with interested investors or partners.

Now it’s time to move on to the all-important question of market size. Market sizing for early-stage startups can be a contentious issue.

Many entrepreneurs think that they need to show huge total addressable markets (TAM), and pitch themselves as the next billion-dollar startup. However, most sophisticated investors how that for most early-stage startups this is not appropriate.

Pitching a large TAM isn’t going to impress investors, they’ve seen it all before, but pitching yourself as the best company in your segment will demonstrate that you have a great understanding of your industry and the opportunity at hand.

It’s most important to be able to show that there is a market for your product or service, that it’s growing, and that there is room for you to compete. You don’t need to pitch yourself as a billion-dollar company, just pitch that you have a good understanding of the market segment, that people are spending money solving this type of problem, and that you’re going to be one of the best companies in your space.

For example, if your idea is to launch the next big analytics platform, don’t pitch a market size that includes every business in the world. Instead, focus on a specific industry or sector and show how behaviours in that industry are changing, paving the way for your product or service.

Again, you don’t need to go into too much detail in your pitch deck. A one-paragraph pitch of your market size is usually enough, followed by a simple diagram showing the trends that are opening up opportunities for your startup.

This is another key slide for any pitch deck, as it demonstrates that you have done your research and that you understand the competitive landscape.

Start by defining the market segment you are targeting, and then show the key points of differentiation when compared to your primary competitors.

Describe how they fit into the customer’s perspective of the market, show where their strengths and weaknesses lie, and how you plan to compete with them.

This isn’t the place for a full analysis of your competitors, but you should be able to pitch yourself as the best company in your space, with a clear understanding of how you’re going to win.

There are two common ways to visualise your competitor analysis, the magic quadrant (or 2×2 matrix) and a comparison table.

The magic quadrant is a way of plotting your competitors on two axes, based on two factors that you’ll pluck from thin air. These visualisations are rarely credible unless you have a lot of experience in the market you are analysing, or they’ve been produced by large consultancies like Deloitte or Gartner.

On the other hand, comparison tables can be very effective as they’re easy to digest, position you alongside recognisable brands, and allow you to highlight the key differences between your company and your competitors. By comparing factors that are demonstrably important to customers, you’ll come across as more credible and able to back up your pitch with cold, hard facts.

Now it’s time to talk about marketing and sales strategy, or how you’re going to get your product or service in front of customers. This is where you’ll pitch your go-to-market strategy. Your go-to-market slide should include the following elements:

• The channels you will use to reach your target audience
• The actions you will take to put your product in front of potential customers
• The milestones you will hit as you progress through your go-to-market plan
• The resources you will require to reach your target successfully

Start by describing your target market and how you plan to reach them. This might include explaining your distribution channels, sales strategy, or marketing approach. You can also use this slide to talk about any partnerships you have in place, or how you plan to leverage them.

Next, explain the actions you will take to reach your target audience, and how you plan to measure success. These actions should fit within each of the channels that you’ve already identified. For example, if you’re using digital marketing, your actions might be things like website development, SEO, or social media campaigns.

Lastly, list the key milestones you will hit as you progress through your go-to-market plan, and identify the resources you will require to achieve them. You can include your team, budget for marketing activities, or specific assets like signage.

As a startup, traction is key. Investors want to see that you’re making progress and that your product is resonating with customers. This slide is often one of the trickiest for startups at idea-stage, as it can be difficult to show commercial progress and it will be too early for product-market fit.

There are a few different ways to pitch traction, and you need to choose the one that works best with your company and the stage you’re at. Some options include user base, revenue growth, or market validation.

If you’re focusing on your user base, you’ll want to pitch a clear and compelling story about your customer base. If you have a small data set, it’s worth showcasing your first 100 customers as this makes the numbers seem more real.

If you have a large customer base, pitch your exponential growth in terms of percentage or absolute figures. For example, pitch how many customers you signed in the past quarter or year.

Revenue Growth

If you’re focusing on revenue growth, pitch your current (or projected) sales figures. You can also pitch the average ticket size or value of your deals. Alternatively, pitch your revenue growth (in terms of percentage or absolute figures) over the past year.

Market Validation

If your product is still at idea-stage and still has a long way to go before it’s ready for market, pitch your progress in terms of real-world validation. For example, pitch the number of people who have registered to use your product or service, or pitch the number of companies that have expressed interest during interviews.

Most importantly, be honest about your progress. If they are interested, investors will dig into your traction claims and you’ll need to back them up with data – if it turns out that you’ve lied or embellished the facts, you’ll not only lose trust and credibility, you’ll probably lose the investment too.

Having set the scene in which your startup operates, it’s time to introduce the management team behind your startup. Investors will be keen to learn about who is leading your company and how they will transform your idea into a profitable business.

The focus here must be you and your co-founders. People invest in people, so you’ll need to show how you have the vision, experience, and motivation required to deliver on your pitch.

Keep your team slide short and sweet. You’ll want to include the founding team, highlighting their relevant experience in the industry or field that you’re operating within.

Pictures help to make your presentation more personal, so make sure you have a good quality headshot of each team member, consistently formatted so that everyone appears the same size and in focus.

The team slide should only include the founding team, though it is acceptable to include key team members, as well as notable advisors or investors if beneficial. If you do this, ensure that there is a clear visual separation between the two groups.

This is the big one. The pitch deck wouldn’t be complete without a clear proposal of what you’re asking for from your investors. This slide should clearly state the amount of money you’re seeking, as well as what you plan to do with it.

It’s important to remember that investors are looking for a return on their investment (ROI), so your proposal must be realistic and demonstrate how you will use the funds raised to reach key growth milestones.

To convince investors, your “Ask slide” will need to answer these three questions:

• How much are you seeking to raise?
• What will you do with the money?
• What do you intend to accomplish with the funds?

Always remember to pitch the ask in terms of how it benefits the investor – not just you. For example, if you’re seeking a £100,000 investment, explain how that money will help you reach a specific milestone that will create value for your investors.

Be specific about how much you need to raise, and where you plan to deploy the money. This will show that you’ve done your homework and understand how you will grow your business.

A simple pie chart with the breakdown of how you plan to use funds can go a long way towards demonstrating to investors that you’re serious about using their money wisely. For example, if 25 percent goes towards marketing spend, 30 percent for technology development, and 45 percent for new hires, that’s a good indication you have your priorities straight.

It’s unlikely that you will be profitable before the next round of funding, but it is usually worth highlighting the key numbers from your financial projections to give investors an idea of the scale and trajectory of your business.

Perhaps the most important factor in your investment ask is demonstrating that you understand how much capital you require to hit key growth milestones without requiring further funding rounds for at least 12-18 months. This is something that almost every investor will expect you to have a solid plan for.

Pitch Deck Design

Whether you’re sharing your deck by email or presenting on stage, the design of your pitch deck matters. However, you can’t afford to hire a professional pitch deck designer to help. So, what do you do?

KEEP. IT. SIMPLE.

Your pitch deck is not the place to show off your design skills – or highlight any lack of expertise in this department! The only goal of your pitch deck is to communicate information clearly and concisely so that investors understand what you’re pitching and can get excited about it.

Keep your presentation simple, use bold typography, highlight key information, and stick to a maximum of two or three colors. Resist the urge to use lots of graphics and animations, as these can be distracting and take up valuable space on your slides.

How to design a better pitch deck

There are a lot of things to consider when designing your pitch deck presentation. Below are some tips on how to make your pitch more effective:

The average investor has a short attention span, so keep your deck concise and easy to follow. Use clear language, avoid complex graphs and charts, and stick to a maximum of 15 slides.

Use the same fonts, colors, and layouts throughout your pitch deck to create a cohesive look.

Slides that are crowded with text and images will be difficult for your audience to read and comprehend.

A pitch deck template is a great way to ensure that your pitch deck looks professional and follows the proper design guidelines.

Pitch deck design tools

Today, there is a huge selection of online design tools and no-code builders to help you build your perfect deck. Below are just a few of the design platforms that can help you craft your pitch.

An easy-to-use platform that allows startups to build a beautiful slide deck without any special design skills. Start from scratch or create your slides using predefined pitch deck templates.

https://slidebean.com/

Offers a wide range of design tools and templates for creating professional pitch decks. The free version includes limited features, while the paid plans start at $12/month.

This pitch deck design app is great for startups and entrepreneurs who need to create a pitch deck quickly. The basic plan starts at $12/month (billed annually) but there is a 14-day free trial.

https://www.beautiful.ai/

The tools provided by Pitch allow you to quickly produce a high-quality pitch. Even if you’re not a designer, you can create a strong pitch deck that looks great. The basic plan is free, but you’ll need to upgrade to the paid plans for more features.

https://pitch.com/

While these design tools can be extremely powerful, it still pays to follow the same basic guidelines to ensure that your pitch deck is easy for investors to understand; Keep it simple, avoid animation, stick to a consistent layout, and make sure your text and images are easy to read.

When you’re trying to capture investors’ attention and raise equity funding, you need to show them that you have a good plan. But startups aren’t traditional businesses and they don’t use traditional business plans.

like the Holy Grail, the business plan remains largely unattainable and mythological. Most experts wouldn’t agree, but a business plan is of limited usefulness for a startup because entrepreneurs base so much of their plans on assumptions, “visions,” and unknowns. Guy Kawasaki

This is why pitch decks are the perfect approach to sharing a startup business plan.

Fundamentally, your pitch deck is used to share your vision, attract investors, and start conversations. As a founder, you should be prepared for investors who may not “get” your pitch deck right away — this doesn’t mean that they aren’t interested in what you’re doing.

Be prepared to answer questions and have an engaging conversation about your startup. Investors want to see that you have a clear understanding of your business, the problem you’re solving, and how you plan on making money. They also want to know that you’re capable of executing your vision.

Remember, pitch decks are just one part of the overall investment process. If you’re able to create a pitch deck that effectively communicates your idea and leaves investors wanting more, then you’re on the right track!

12 Startup Pitch Deck Examples [+ Template]

A great startup pitch deck is an integral part of launching a business. This deck is presented to prospective investors to convince them to invest and help you grow your startup . The trick to having the best pitch deck possible is to include enough information to explain your goals and methodology without losing your audience’s interest.

Pitch decks are usually in PowerPoint, Apple Keynote, or Google Slides to make them easier to present to potential investors. However, the deck can also have an alternative format like a Word document or even a video. For inspiration, let’s go through some successful startup pitch deck examples and discuss what they got right. 

Pitch Deck Basics

There are some overarching characteristics that make for a great pitch deck. While we’ll go through what a deck typically includes and some relevant business pitch examples, you can pick and choose certain elements as long as your startup pitch deck has the following basic qualities:

• Design-forward: Customers expect a better experience with your product and that’s achieved through better UX and graphic design. Show your team’s design chops with thoughtful deck design and mock-ups.
• Comprehensive: Be prepared to answer any questions from potential investors. Your slides should cover enough so if they check back for reminders after the presentation, they’ll find the most important information.
• Engaging: A startup pitch deck inevitably includes some boring elements. Your job is to keep it exciting and break up information-heavy slides with features like illustrations and block quotes.
• Straightforward: It’s easy to get caught up with sharing every detail, but it’s more important that your potential investors understand your pitch. For more complicated slides and ideas, pare down your pitch to make it easier to understand.

1. Problem Slide

Your pitch deck should open with a key problem — this is the whole justification for your business and why consumers will find it valuable. A common structure for this slide is to bullet pain points and create a story your potential investors can relate to.

The problem slide is the basis for your presentation. Creating a relatable story makes for an engaging presentation that’s easy to follow and understand.

Uber Example

Why it works : Although it’s not the most visually engaging, Uber’s business pitch example clearly explains how Uber solves key issues with traditional cabs. Uber’s deck is broken down into multiple slides to deliver all the necessary information without overwhelming the audience.

2. Solution slide

After presenting the problem, you should follow up directly with a solution. An effective solution slide structure covers current industry solutions and identifies the gaps your startup fills. This slide has a general overview of any proprietary technology, covers basic product features, and includes relevant interface mock-ups to show investors what your product will do for consumers.

Intercom Example

Why it works : Intercom’s solution slide is simple but effective. While some extra design could elevate this slide, the bullet points are easy to understand and effectively explain Intercom’s unique selling proposition (USP) in the SaaS market.

3. Market validation slide

Market validation is especially important to investors because it shows proof that there are people who will purchase your product. This slide should include any relevant statistics for current sales if your startup has launched or competitors’ sales if it hasn’t. Don’t forget to cover basic information about your target market, their purchasing power, and their habits in your industry. This slide is especially important if your prospective investors aren’t familiar with your product or industry.

LinkedIn Example

Why it work s: At 37 pages, LinkedIn’s pitch deck is longer than we’d recommend.  But what it lacks in brevity it makes up for with powerful market validation using clear data from top competitors. It also breaks down barriers to growth and revenue for these competitors and shows how LinkedIn would improve their models.

4. Market size slide

Market size goes hand in hand with market validation. Once you’ve confirmed your target market has enough purchasing power, you need to justify your product’s longevity.

Focus on continued sales. The two most common elements to ensure your startup brings in long-term revenue are:

• A very large market
• A business model built for continuous purchases (e.g., subscription models)

Facebook Example

Why it works: Facebook is the poster child for successful startups. Its market size slides effectively communicate how Facebook’s initial launches succeeded and justify further growth. The slides with market statistics about college students also explain clearly how Facebook will create revenue.

5. Product slide

The product slide is your chance to nail your pitch and sell your vision to investors. This slide should center your value proposition. A popular strategy for this section is to pose a few questions about your industry and show how your product is the answer. Take the time to craft this slide carefully, polishing it up from the copy to design details.

Dropbox Example

Why it works: Dropbox’s product slides are effective because they show how Dropbox truly innovates over other file sharing services. They justify why now is the time to launch and why consumers will choose Dropbox over competitors.

6. Business model slide

The business model slide covers how the startup will run and launch its product for sustainable growth. This section can compare your startup to other businesses or use internal data if the product has launched.

Moz Example

Why it works : While some of these slides can look busy, Moz’s business model was ahead of its time by calling out why organic marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) have untapped potential. This deck does a good job of explaining the business model to investors who might not be SEO savvy.

But wait...there's more!

7. market adoption slide.

It’s important to show some proof that your target market has interest in purchasing your product, especially if there are other competitors in the market. This is a lot easier if your product has already launched because you can include sales data. If your startup is pre-launch, showing potential market adoption can be tricky. In this case, you can use social proof from similar competitors. If you do this, it’s also important to note how your product differs from these competitors, especially if you can resolve a customer’s complaint. If possible, include case studies in the market adoption slide. These show proof that you can use investments to increase the reach of your startup.

Buffer Example

Why it works : Buffer’s market adoption slides show social proof through key statistics outlining Buffer’s success so far. With an extremely high profit margin and growth rate for their user base, Buffer shows off why their product will offer a larger ROI for potential investors.

8. Competition slide

Many investors look at your competition to help contextualize your startup. If an investor has little or no experience in your vertical, showing competitors they’re familiar with gives them real examples of success. This slide should cover the following topics related to your competition:

• Revenue data
• What competitors do well
• What competitors don’t do well
• How your startup bridges product gaps

Mint Example

Why it works : Mint’s competitor slides are effective because they show current competitors along with future projections for these competitors. This slide effectively shows how Mint creates more value for customers over time and uses competitors as inspiration in their defensive strategy.

9. Team slide

A team slide helps investors get to know the minds behind your startup. Include information about founders, leadership, and top existing investors to show why your team is qualified to launch this startup. Any evidence of past successes with your leadership, consultants, or investors is important to include, as it shows new investors that you have relevant experience to launch your startup. If there’s any relevant history about your startup, such as a higher ROI than expected for a former investor, be sure to include this in your pitch deck.

Contently Example

Why it works : While Contently’s team slide has a lot of information, it’s all relevant to potential investors. In addition to founders and investors, Contently includes top employees, proprietary technology, advisors, and the amount they’ve raised so far. This, along with their financial model slide, show potential investors that Contently will make good use of their investment and even make them some profit.

10. Press slide

The press section of your startup pitch deck is a great opportunity to show off any buzz and get your investors excited about your business. Focus on positive reviews or attention related to your product. Stay away from negative press unless you can show you’ve changed those negative opinions. Make sure to keep these slides focused and succinct. It’s easy to get caught up in showing off product buzz, but press slides should always demonstrate potential for a more widespread product adoption.

Snapchat example

Why it works : Snapchat was in a unique position at the time this deck was created, as its press slide has strong social proof. Snapchat calls out popular users, including press and media sources, that are already using the app. The wide variety of users, including household names like MTV, shows how Snapchat is a well-known social media platform.

11. Testimonial slide

Testimonials give investors insight into what existing customers really think about your product. Testimonials can also shed light on the public perception of your product, especially compared to competitors.

Seventy-two percent of consumers only take action after reading positive reviews. You can use this logic with your potential investors, too.

Positive testimonials show that your customers have brand loyalty and that users are satisfied with the product and customer service. This section of the startup pitch deck is only possible for startups that have launched their product.

AirBnB Example

Why it works : Not every pitch deck includes testimonials, especially if the startup hasn’t launched, but it makes sense to include feedback for Airbnb. Showcasing new users makes this slide simple yet effective. It could also benefit from including average Airbnb ratings for stronger evidence of positive reception.

12. Financial model slide

The financial model slide shows how your product creates revenue. For example, if your product is a subscription-based service, has premium features, or other horizontal integration, you’ll explain that model on these slides. Potential investors should walk away from your presentation knowing exactly how your startup creates revenue and understand any plans to ensure a steady stream of income.

Shopify Example

Why it works : Shopify offers a great pitch deck example of when breaking some pitch norms can work in your favor. Although it’s nearly 30 slides, the entire deck is informative and engaging. The financial model slides work well because they show how Shopify and its past investors turned a profit. Not only do they explain their current financial model, but Shopify also covers their plans for future growth to reassure investors they’ll make a profit, too.

What should you avoid putting in a startup pitch deck?

The best pitch deck is completely tailored to your startup. While there’s no hard-and-fast rule about what you shouldn’t include, make sure everything you’re presenting is relevant to potential investors. 

How do I present my startup pitch deck to investors?

It’s almost always better to present a pitch deck live to investors. Designate one member of your leadership team, ideally a founder, to present your deck to investors. 

Following a script can come across as disingenuous, but using notes is OK, so get lots of practice in before you present to investors.

What should a startup pitch deck include?

A typical startup pitch deck template includes the following slides:

• Market validation
• Market size
• Business model
• Market adoption
• Competition
• Testimonials
• Financial model

However, every pitch deck is different, so your final pitch might skip some of these topics or use multiple slides to expand on certain sections.

Built to scale with HubSpot for Startups

It takes some time to put together a startup pitch deck that works, but once you’ve nailed your presentation, you can reuse it for multiple pitches with just a few tweaks to update any data or statistics. HubSpot for Startups helps you track marketing and sales data to make this process easier. New investors can rest easy knowing you’ve got the support of HubSpot’s powerful CRM at your fingertips.

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Home / Blog / Pitch Deck vs. Business Plan: What is the Difference?

Pitch Deck vs. Business Plan: What is the Difference?

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Deciding between a pitch deck and a business plan for your next fundraiser? In reality, both documents play an important part in your fight for the next round. 

• Research shows that a clear, concise pitch deck can increase the chances of securing an initial meeting with investors by up to 72% .
• A business plan reduces internal confusion by 25% by clearly outlining the goals, strategies, and financial projections, leading to a 30% increase in team collaboration .

Both documents require heavy research and are designed to convince investors to back your venture. However, they accomplish it in different ways.

Having raised over $505M in 2023 for startups with our pitch decks and business plans , we’ll walk you through a detailed Pitch deck vs. Business plan comparison and their role in the fundraising game.

What is the pitch deck?

A pitch deck is a 10-20-slide presentation showcasing the potential of your business idea and startup to investors. Briefly and compellingly, it introduces your company, product, market, business model and overall strategy. 

An effective must showcase your market research, traction to date, and a roadmap to where you want to get. No one-sized pitch deck exists, so you can even pitch someone in the elevator .

Think of it as an introductory sales document designed to pique investor interest and encourage further dialogue.

Components of a pitch deck:

• Introduction: Brief overview of your company and its purpose.
• Problem Statement: Clearly define the problem your product or service solves.
• Solution: Describe your product or service and how it addresses the problem.
• Market Opportunity: Showcase the potential market size and target audience.
• Business Model: Explain how your company plans to generate revenue.
• Traction: Highlight any milestones, achievements, or user statistics.
• Market Strategies: Outline your marketing and sales approaches.
• Competitive Analysis: Identify and analyze your competitors.
• Team: Introduce key team members and their roles.
• Financial Projections: Present forecasts for revenue, expenses, and profitability.
• Ask/Investment: Clearly state what you’re seeking from potential investors.

What is a business plan?

A business plan is a 30-100-page document showcasing an in-depth analysis of your business idea to potential investors to convince them to invest. It elaborates on things like:

• Your sales, marketing, and operational plans for growth
• Where your company will be in the next 1,3 or 5 years
• A step-by-step plan of how you’ll get there.

The business plan is the first part of the investor’s due diligence process before finalizing the deal. It lays out more detailed research on your industry and competitors, contains many charts, graphs, and pictures, and is very text-heavy. 

Think of it as a comprehensive blueprint of your venture designed to persuade interested investors to pull the trigger and invest.

Components of a business plan:

• Executive Summary: A brief business overview, goals, and plans.
• Company Description: Details about your business, mission, vision, and structure.
• Market Analysis: Research your industry, market, and competitors.
• Organization and Management: Information about your team, structure, and key personnel.
• Product or Service Line: Description of your offer and its benefits.
• Marketing and Sales: Your strategies for promoting and selling your product or service.
• Funding Request: If you seek funding, outline your financial needs.
• Financial Projections: Projected financial statements, like income statements and balance sheets.
• Appendix: Additional supporting documents, charts, graphs, etc.

What are the differences between a pitch deck and a business plan?

While the business plan and pitch deck give a view of your venture, they serve different goals, reach different audiences, and build the story differently. These distinctions manifest in the length, format, target audiences, and funding stages. 

Length and Format

• Pitch Deck:

Brief and eye-catching 10-20 slides with engaging visuals, like images, charts, and minimal text. Generally highlights critical points, like product or service, target market, business model, and future potential.

• Business Plan:  

Detailed 30-100 page text-heavy document armed with visuals like charts and graphs. It typically emphasizes projected revenue, expenses, and profitability through financial statements and forecasts. The document details strategies for sales, marketing, operations, and human resources, along with a description of team members’ expertise, experience, contributions to the company’s success, etc.

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Targeted Audience

• Pitch Deck: Investors (initial stages)
• Business Plan: Investors (due diligence), internal team

Stages and Objectives

• Pitch Deck: 1. Shines in early stages: Pre-seed, seed, Series A. 2. Captivates investors: Concisely delivers the problem, solution, market, and team.
• Business Plan: 1. Dominates later stages: Series B and beyond. 2. Secures substantial funding: Demonstrates viability and potential return on investment (ROI).

Frequency of use

• Pitch Deck: 1. High Frequency: Used frequently and repeatedly throughout the fundraising process. You might prepare several variations tailored to different investors or stages of funding. Examples: Initial investor meetings, pitch competitions, and conferences seeking investment opportunities.
• Business Plan: 1. Lower Frequency: Typically used once during the later fundraising stages, specifically during due diligence. 2. Focus: Providing detailed information for investors to thoroughly assess your business’s viability.

Pros and cons: Pitch Deck vs. Business Plan

Advantages:

• Comprehensive: This thoroughness is crucial for investors, lenders, and internal stakeholders.
• Strategically complete: Aids decision-making, resource allocation, and risk management.
• Supportive fundraising: Studies suggest that companies with a well-crafted business plan are 18% more likely to secure funding than those without one.

Disadvantages:

• Time-consuming: Requires potential expertise in areas like financial modelling and market research.
• Outdated quickly: Market dynamics and business strategies can evolve rapidly, necessitating regular updates to the plan to maintain its accuracy and relevance.
• It may not be read: Lack of time and poorly structured info can push away the potential investor.
• Concise and engaging: Studies reveal that audiences lose focus after 10-20 minutes of presentations. Pitch delivers a clear and quick message.
• Easy to adapt and share: Adapting the pitch deck for various audiences and situations is simpler due to its brevity.
• This can lead to meetings: Engaging presentations foster positive connections with potential partners and lay the groundwork for long-lasting collaborations.
• Sometimes limited information: By definition, it does not provide the in-depth financial analysis, operational details, and market research needed for comprehensive due diligence.
• Less suitable for later stages: As funding requirements and investor expectations increase, a pitch deck alone may not be sufficient for securing more significant investments.

Which is more important, the pitch deck or the business plan?

There is no one-size answer; in most cases, you need both. The importance of each depends on your industry and fundraising stage. The pitch deck is crucial early on , but investors scrutinise the business plan for details as you progress . 

The pitch deck is vital for visibility. Without it, you may miss opportunities with investors and hinder connections with mentors and partners essential for your startup’s success.

On the other hand, the business plan is crucial to validate everything you’ve outlined in your pitch deck. Investors can quickly spot unprepared founders or unrealistic propositions. While a compelling pitch may secure a meeting, a thorough plan will convince investors to back your venture.

Important: A well-crafted pitch deck often stems from a strong business plan.

When to use a business plan and not a pitch deck

• If you seek debt financing: Banks rely on business plans, emphasizing their importance for loan applications.
• If you fundraise above $500k: Careful planning is crucial for substantial fundraising. Investors will scrutinize your venture, so be thoroughly prepared.
• If you have cooperative ownership planning: A written plan is essential for co-owners to navigate challenges together, staying true to the initial vision while embracing necessary changes.

When to use a pitch deck and not a business plan

• When attracting equity investment: A concise pitch deck is essential to secure funds from venture capitalists, angel investors, or knowledgeable friends and family.
• When looking for networking with potential investors: Crafting a positive initial impression is paramount.
• For pitching opportunities for founders: Explore pitch competitions in the startup community, seizing opportunities for exposure and honing your pitching abilities with a solid pitch deck.
• When seeking co-founders: If you’re looking for cofounders, there is no better way to convey your concept and the value you can bring to the table than through a pitch deck.
• When applying to accelerator programs: A well-crafted pitch deck is typically required. It is a critical asset in the assessment process for entry into the accelerator’s next cohort.

You need both 

Need to grab attention and lock connections? Use a pitch deck. Need to showcase in-depth details and long-term potential? Use a business plan. Both tools are paramount in navigating your fundraising journey effectively.

Want to know how to craft pitch decks that secure investor interest? Check our pitch deck hub to learn all about it straight from the trenches.

CONTENT WRITER

Hey there! I'm Anastasiia, a Content Writer at Waveup. With my marketing expertise and storytelling magic, I turn complex data and industry insights into your startup playbook, making the business world a breeze for you! At Waveup, I work with brilliant folks who make insights a never-ending flow. So, join, read, and enjoy!

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Business Plan vs Pitch Deck: The Differences and When You Need Them

Starting a new venture involves navigating numerous challenges, one of which is effectively communicating your business vision. Two essential tools in this process are the business plan and the pitch deck. While both are crucial, they serve different purposes and are used at different stages of your startup journey. In this article, we'll explore the key differences between business plans and pitch decks, what each includes, the level of detail required, the creation process, and specific use cases. Understanding these distinctions will help you use each tool to your advantage, ensuring you’re well-prepared to impress investors and guide your business to success.

Business Plans vs Pitch Decks - An Overview

When raising capital for your startup, both business plans and pitch decks are essential tools, each serving distinct purposes.

A business plan is a detailed document outlining your business’s objectives, strategies, market analysis, and financial projections. It provides a comprehensive roadmap for your business, guiding long-term strategic decisions and demonstrating viability to stakeholders such as banks and grant providers.

In contrast, a pitch deck is a concise, visually-driven presentation designed to quickly capture the interest of potential investors. It typically includes key highlights of your business, such as the problem you’re solving, your solution, market opportunity, business model, and team. The goal is to secure meetings and generate interest from venture capitalists, angel investors, and during startup competitions.

Both tools are crucial in fundraising, but they are used at different stages and for different audiences.

Business Plan

A business plan is a comprehensive document that outlines your business's objectives, strategies, market analysis, organizational structure, and financial projections. Its primary purpose is to serve as a detailed roadmap for your business, guiding strategic decisions and demonstrating the viability and potential of your venture to various stakeholders.

The business plan is essential for several key reasons:

• Securing Funding : It provides potential investors, banks, and grant providers with an in-depth understanding of your business model, financial forecasts, and strategic plans, helping to secure necessary funding.
• Strategic Planning: It acts as a guide for internal decision-making, helping founders and management teams align on goals and strategies.
• Attracting Talent: A well-articulated business plan can attract co-founders, key hires, and partner s by clearly outlining the business's vision and potential.

Use cases for a business plan include applying for loans, pitching to investors, and guiding internal strategy development. Each of these scenarios relies on the detailed and structured information that a business plan provides, making it an indispensable tool for startup founders.

Related resource: Startup Business Plan

A pitch deck is a concise, visually-driven presentation designed to quickly capture the interest of potential investors. It typically consists of around 10-20 slides that highlight the key aspects of your business, such as the problem you’re solving, your solution, market opportunity, business model, and team.

The primary purpose of a pitch deck is to provide a snapshot of your business that is engaging and easy to understand, aiming to secure meetings and generate interest from potential investors. Unlike the comprehensive nature of a business plan, a pitch deck is meant to be high-level and visually appealing, making it an effective tool for initial presentations.

Use cases for a pitch deck include:

• Investor Meetings: Pitching to venture capitalists and angel investors to secure funding.
• Startup Competitions: Presenting at demo days and competitions to gain exposure and interest.
• Partnership Discussions: Engaging potential partners and stakeholders by providing a clear and compelling overview of your business.

The pitch deck serves several important functions:

• Generating Interest: It is designed to grab the attention of venture capitalists, angel investors, and other stakeholders, encouraging them to seek more detailed information.
• Communicating Vision: The pitch deck helps convey your business idea succinctly, showcasing the problem you’re solving, your solution, and your unique selling points.
• Facilitating Meetings: A compelling pitch deck can lead to follow-up meetings, providing opportunities to delve deeper into your business plan and financials.

Related resource: Building Your Pitch Deck

What is Included in Each One

Understanding the structure and key components of business plans and pitch decks is crucial for effectively using each tool in your fundraising efforts.

A detailed and comprehensive business plan covers elements such as market analysis, financial projections, and strategic planning. In contrast, a pitch deck is concise and visually engaging, highlighting key aspects like the problem you’re solving, your solution, and your business model.

This section will provide an overview of what to include in each, highlighting the differences to help you tailor them to your needs.

A business plan is a detailed and comprehensive document that covers various aspects of your business. Key components typically include :

• Executive Summary: A brief overview of your business, including your mission statement, product or service offering, and basic information about your company’s leadership, employees, and location.
• Company Description: Detailed information about your business, including the problems you’re solving, your target market, and what makes your business unique.
• Market Analysis: An examination of your industry, market size, expected growth, and competitive landscape.
• Organization and Management: An outline of your business’s organizational structure, details about the ownership, and profiles of your management team.
• Products or Services Line: Detailed descriptions of your products or services, including the lifecycle of each product, and how they benefit your customers.
• Marketing and Sales Strategy: Your plan for reaching your target market, including pricing, advertising, and sales strategies.
• Funding Request: If you’re seeking funding, this section outlines your current funding requirements, future funding requirements over the next five years, and how you intend to use the funds you receive.
• Financial Projections: Detailed financial forecasts, including income statements, cash flow statements, and balance sheets for the next three to five years.
• Appendix: An optional section that includes resumes, permits, lease agreements, legal documentation, and other pertinent information.

A pitch deck is a more concise and visual presentation focusing on highlighting your business's key aspects. Key components typically include :

• Title Slide: The name of your business and a tagline or short mission statement.
• Problem Statement: A description of the problem your business aims to solve.
• Solution: An overview of your product or service and how it addresses the problem.
• Market Opportunity: Information on your target market and the potential market size.
• Business Model: An explanation of how your business will make money.
• Traction: Evidence of your business’s progress and momentum, such as sales figures, customer testimonials, or user growth metrics.
• Competition: An analysis of your competitors and your competitive advantages.
• Go-to-Market Strategy: Your plan for attracting and retaining customers.
• Financials: High-level financial projections and key metrics.
• Team: Information about your founding team and key advisors.
• Use of Funds: How you plan to use the investment you’re seeking.
• Closing Slide: A summary of your pitch and a call to action, often including your contact information.

Related resource: Key Slides In Your Pitch Deck

Each of these components plays a crucial role in communicating the essential aspects of your business to different audiences. While the business plan is thorough and detailed, the pitch deck is designed to be engaging and to the point, helping you quickly capture the interest of potential investors.

What Level of Detail is Needed for Each One?

Business plans and pitch decks differ significantly in the level of detail they require. Business plans are comprehensive and detailed, covering strategic projections and in-depth analyses. In contrast, pitch decks are high-level, focusing on engaging visuals and key highlights to quickly capture investor interest.

A business plan requires a high level of detail to comprehensively outline your business’s strategic vision, operational structure, and financial projections. Each component must be thoroughly developed to provide a clear roadmap for the business and demonstrate its potential to stakeholders. Here's a breakdown of the required level of detail for each key component:

• Executive Summary: This section should offer a concise yet comprehensive snapshot of your business, including your mission statement, the products or services you offer, and basic company information such as leadership, employees, and location. While brief, it should be compelling enough to attract further interest.
• Company Description: This part should delve deeply into your business, explaining the problems you're solving, your target market, and what makes your business unique. It should provide a clear picture of your business’s purpose and the value it offers to customers.
• Market Analysis: This section should include in-depth research on your industry, including market size, expected growth, and trends. A detailed competitive analysis is also crucial, highlighting your competitors' strengths and weaknesses and how you plan to differentiate your business.
• Organization and Management: Provide detailed profiles of your management team, including their backgrounds, expertise, and roles within the company. An organizational structure chart can be helpful here, showing how different roles and departments interrelate.
• Products or Services Line: Offer detailed descriptions of your products or services, including their lifecycle, development stages, and benefits to customers. Explain how your offerings meet the needs of your target market and any plans for future development or expansion.
• Marketing and Sales Strategy: This section should outline your strategies for reaching your target market, including pricing models, advertising plans, sales tactics, and distribution channels. Be specific about how you will attract and retain customers, including any partnerships or collaborations.
• Funding Request: If you are seeking funding, clearly outline your current and future funding needs, specifying how much you need, how you plan to use the funds, and any future funding requirements over the next five years. Provide a clear plan for how the funds will help achieve your business goals.
• Financial Projections: Provide detailed financial forecasts, including income statements, cash flow projections, and balance sheets for at least the next three to five years. This section should demonstrate your business’s financial viability and growth potential, with assumptions clearly stated.
• Appendix: Include any additional documents that support your business plan, such as resumes, permits, legal documentation, market research data, and any other relevant materials. The appendix should provide supporting evidence for the claims and projections made in your business plan.

Each of these components should be well-researched and thoroughly explained, offering a clear and detailed picture of your business and its potential. A comprehensive business plan not only helps in securing funding but also guides strategic decision-making and helps attract key partners and talent.

A pitch deck requires a concise yet engaging level of detail to capture the interest of potential investors and stakeholders effectively. Each component should be clear, visually appealing, and focus on the key highlights of your business. Here’s an outline of the necessary components and the level of detail required:

• Title Slide: Include your business name, logo, and a brief tagline or mission statement. This slide should set the tone and provide a quick grasp of your business identity.
• Problem Statement: Clearly and succinctly describe the problem your business aims to solve. Use visuals or anecdotes to illustrate the problem’s significance and relevance to your target market.
• Solution: Provide an overview of your product or service and explain how it addresses the problem. Highlight the unique aspects of your solution and how it stands out from existing alternatives.
• Market Opportunity: Present key information about your target market, including market size, growth potential, and trends. Use charts or graphs to make the data visually compelling and easy to understand.
• Business Model: Explain how your business will make money. Include details on your revenue streams, pricing strategy, and any monetization plans. Keep it straightforward but comprehensive enough to show viability.
• Traction: Highlight your business’s progress and milestones. This could include sales figures, user growth, partnerships, or any significant achievements. Use visuals like charts or graphs to showcase your momentum.
• Competition: Provide a brief analysis of your competitors and articulate your competitive advantages. Use a comparison chart to highlight how your business outperforms or differentiates from others in the market.
• Go-to-Market Strategy: Outline your plan for attracting and retaining customers. Include marketing and sales strategies, distribution channels, and any partnerships that will help you reach your target market effectively.
• Financials: Summarize your key financial projections and metrics. Include revenue forecasts, profit margins, and break-even analysis. Use simple charts or graphs to make the data accessible and impactful.
• Team: Introduce your founding team and key advisors. Highlight their relevant experience and roles within the company. Use photos and brief bios to humanize your team and build credibility.
• Use of Funds: Explain how you plan to use the investment you’re seeking. Provide a clear and specific breakdown of how the funds will be allocated to drive growth and achieve your business goals.
• Closing Slide: Summarize your pitch and include a call to action. Provide your contact information and invite investors to follow up for more detailed discussions.

Each component should be crafted to deliver maximum impact with minimal text, using visuals to convey key points effectively. The goal is to engage your audience, provide a compelling snapshot of your business, and secure further interest or meetings.

What Does It Take to Create Each One?

Creating a business plan and a pitch deck requires different approaches due to their distinct design, data, and storytelling requirements. Understanding the process for building each will help you allocate the necessary resources and time effectively.

Building a business plan is a detailed and collaborative effort that involves:

• Extensive Research: In-depth market analysis, competitive landscape assessment, and financial forecasting.
• Cross-Department Collaboration: Input from finance, marketing, operations, and management teams to ensure accuracy and comprehensiveness.
• Detailed Documentation: Crafting a thorough narrative with strategic projections and detailed analyses.

The process is time-intensive, typically taking several weeks to a few months, depending on the business complexity and data availability.

Creating a pitch deck is a more streamlined process that emphasizes:

• High-Level Research: Gathering essential data on market size, competition, and key financial metrics.
• Visual Design: Collaborating with designers to create engaging and visually appealing slides or using templates that make designing easier such as canva or pitch .
• Concise Storytelling: Developing a compelling, succinct narrative highlighting the business’s value proposition and growth potential.

This process is quicker, usually taking a few days to a couple of weeks, depending on the need for iterations and design work. Understanding these differences ensures you allocate the right resources and time for each document, aligning with their specific purposes and audiences.

Use Cases for Business Plans and Pitch Decks

Understanding when to use a business plan versus a pitch deck is crucial for effectively communicating your business vision and securing stakeholder support. Here are specific situations where each document would be most effective.

• Securing Bank Loans: A detailed business plan is essential when applying for a bank loan . It provides lenders with comprehensive information about your business model, financial projections, and market analysis, demonstrating your ability to repay the loan and manage financial responsibilities effectively.
• Internal Strategic Planning: A business plan guides internal decision-making and strategic planning . It helps align the management team on long-term goals, operational strategies, and resource allocation, ensuring everyone is working towards the same objectives.
• Attracting Key Hires and Partners: A well-structured business plan can attract top talent and potential business partners by clearly outlining the business’s vision, growth potential, and strategic direction. It provides a detailed understanding of the company’s mission and future prospects, making it an attractive opportunity for skilled professionals and collaborators.
• Investor Meetings: A pitch deck is perfect for pitching to venture capitalists and angel investors. Its concise, visually engaging format quickly captures the interest of potential investors, providing an overview of your business, the problem you’re solving, and your market opportunity, leading to follow-up meetings and deeper discussions.
• Startup Competitions: During startup competitions and demo days, a pitch deck is essential. It succinctly presents your business idea, traction, and competitive edge, helping you stand out in a crowded field and attract potential investors or partners who attend these events.
• Initial Partnership Discussions: When initiating discussions with potential partners, a pitch deck effectively communicates your business’s value proposition and strategic fit. It offers a compelling snapshot of your business, encouraging partners to explore collaboration opportunities further.

By understanding these use cases, you can strategically utilize business plans and pitch decks to engage different audiences and achieve your business objectives effectively.

Tailor Your Business Plan and Pitch Decks to Your Needs with Visible

Both business plans and pitch decks are essential tools for startup founders, each serving distinct purposes and requiring different levels of detail. A business plan provides a comprehensive roadmap for strategic planning and securing funding, while a pitch deck is a concise, visually engaging presentation designed to capture investor interest quickly.

Share your pitch deck confidently with Visible, a purpose-built platform for fundraising. Our pitch deck sharing tool is completely integrated with our fundraising CRM and investor updates platform. Founders can also leverage their brand by hosting decks from their own domain and highlighting brand colors.

Try Visible free for 14 days and start strengthening your investor connections.

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How to pitch your startup, 1. introduction.

• 2. Elevator Pitch
• 3. 1-Minute Pitch
• 4. Pitching to Investors
• 5. Guidelines

6. Organization

• 7. Presentation Tips
• 8. Example Decks
• 9. Download Templates

tl;dr Pitch Deck Templates

• Elevator Pitch Template
• One-Minute Pitch Template
• Simple Pitch Deck Template   (To edit and use, click “File” and then “Make a Copy”)
• Long Template  
• Angel/VC Template  

If you’re like most founders, you probably think about your startup 24/7. You wake up in the morning brainstorming product features, and you fall asleep at night contemplating marketing campaigns. You can’t remember the last movie you saw at the theater; your idea of a fun, Saturday night is collaborating with developers overseas. And stalking VCs on LinkedIn has become a favorite past-time. Passion, hardwork and a healthy amount of obsession are essential ingredients to entrepreneurial success. However, it’s not uncommon for founders to become hyper-focused on initial ideas at the expense of an important fact:

A startup founder’s ultimate success is dependent on others buying into his or her vision.

Translation: Your progress is contingent upon your ability to pitch the value of who you are, what you’re doing and why it matters. Reaching important milestones like raising venture capital, sourcing top talent and acquiring new customers all require the same skill — telling a story that makes someone say, “Heck, yeah!” Sometimes you have 30 minutes to make that happen; other times you have 30 seconds. Regardless, your job is to clearly communicate why a given audience should care about your business.

If you are a startup looking to get to traction and funding, check out the Founder Institute pre-seed accelerator program .

One of your most powerful tools in achieving this objective is the pitch deck. Early-stage founders can use templates to create visual presentations that provide brief overviews of business value propositions, market opportunities and metrics. At the Founder Institute , we see dozens of decks every week. The majority of them are completely forgettable because someone overlooked a few essential ingredients to storytelling success.

The purpose of a presentation deck is to enable entrepreneurs to effectively tell the story of their business,” says Bill Gurley, general partner at Benchmark Capital . “In many ways it’s like a structured scientific proof. You want to walk the listener through an argument as to why this is going to be an amazing business.

The reality? Phenomenal pitches aren’t thrown together in a weekend — they are thoughtfully contemplated, tested and refined. In this guide, we’ll make a case for why founders should master both The Elevator Pitch and The 1-Minute Pitch before tackling decks. We’ll also provide guidelines for constructing narratives, customizing pitch deck templates and communicating with potential investors. These are many of the same techniques Founder Institute alumni have used to procure $1.8BN+ in funding. Finally, we’ll conclude with some examples of real decks utilized by globally recognized startups. After reading this guide, you will know exactly what it takes to create a compelling deck, give a memorable presentation and stand out from the crowd. Let’s get started... 

Three Types of Startup Pitches

Think back to elementary school: Did your foray into your first language begin with a 1,200-page copy of War and Peace ? No, you started by learning simple words. Similarly, you shouldn’t expect to construct “the perfect” pitch deck right away. Instead, begin by constructing the simplest description of your business possible: The Elevator Pitch.

2. The Elevator Pitch Template

As a startup founder, you will meet hundreds of people at various meetings, events and conferences. You will also, routinely, introduce yourself to complete strangers by email. In such situations, you have seconds to peak someone’s curiosity. And the best way to do that is a compelling Elevator Pitch.

This one-sentence statement explains what you do, who you serve and why it matters in simple language. As the name implies, the summary can quickly be recited to a stranger on an elevator ride.

Founder Institute CEO and Co-founder Adeo Ressi has developed an awesome Elevator Pitch template dubbed “ Startup Madlibs .”

• The  defined offering  must be short, simple and capable of being understood by everyone, like "a website", "a mobile application", "hardware" or "desktop software."
• The  defined audience  is the initial group of people that you will market your offering to. In the case of consumer applications, it is usually a demographic, such as "women age 25 to 35 years old." In the case of business applications, it is usually a job function at a type of corporation, such as "system administrators at medium sized technology businesses."
• Now that you have an offering helping an audience, you need to  solve a problem.  The problem needs to be something that everyone understands, such as "reduce the time collecting bill payments" or "engage in an immersive entertainment experience."
• The final component, the  secret sauce , adds your unique approach to solving the problem and demonstrates a mastery of the market. Some examples are "by sending automated email alerts based on analysis of highest response times" or "with virtual worlds constructed in reaction to the movements of the players."

OK, let’s look at a couple of examples…

Mediocre Elevator Pitch Example:

My company Socialista , Is developing a revolutionary, social utility To help female consumers Find deals online faster .

What’s wrong with this pitch?

• The offering is vague: A ‘social utility” could be a phone company. The pitch should read “ecommerce website.” 
• The adjectives are empty: This person may think their business is revolutionary, but it’s an over-inflated claim. Let the numbers speak for themselves! 
• The audience is vague: It could be more clearly defined (e.g. female consumers between the ages of 18 and 25).
• The problem isn’t obvious: Why can’t the target consumer use search engines to find deals online? Why is this platform better than her current options?

Including these details implies the person has done their homework, knows their stuff and has a viable business idea.

Improved Elevator Pitch Example:

My company Socialista , Is developing an ecommerce website To help female consumers between the ages of 18-25 Shop for hip, baby products at wholesale prices , With automated ordering of diapers and other staples . As you can see, the Elevator Pitch format is deceptively simple. The key to standing out is (a) being super specific, and (b) emphasizing your startup’s “secret sauce.” In this case, the founder’s unique differentiator is providing a fashionable solution at an unusually affordable price. Mastering this exercise is extremely helpful in refining Unique Value Propositions.

3. The One-Minute Pitch Template

Once you’ve articulated your Elevator Pitch, you are ready to move onto the One-Minute Pitch. Here you can add several key details to your Elevator Pitch, including:

• The value of the market your business is in.
• Your competition, and how you differentiate from them. 
• The current state of your business or product. 
• Your Ask (how the person/ people you are pitching can help you). 

Check out the easy-to-use "One Minute Pitch Template" from the Founder Institute below: 

4. Preparing to Pitch Investors

Before you begin creating your pitch deck, it’s important to consider the perspective of potential investors. Top VCs see and hear dozens of pitches per week, both in-person and via email. Luminary Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) hears from around 3,000 startups each year. How many of those company’s procure investments? Only 15 of them. The current VC landscape is showing bigger deals spread amongst fewer startups. Despite funding reaching its highest levels since 2000 , seed-stage investments consisted of only 25 percent of total deals made in 2018. Translation: The competition is tough.

Pre-requisites for Pitching to Investors

As Mike Suprovici (Founder Institute EIR) lays out in his  Startup Guide: How to Raise the First Round of Funding for Your Startup , before you even begin to approach investors, you need the following:

A strong startup idea that is vetted and backed by solid market research.  See this  startup idea guide  from the Founder Institute.

A prototype, a patent, or a proof of concept for the final idea.

A simple and scalable  startup financial model  that shows at least $10M in revenue after 3 years.  See this  revenue forecasting template  from Aaron Patzer, Founder of Mint.com and FI Mentor.

A strong 10 to 15 page presentation that meets investors' expectations. We will discuss this in the section below.

An incorporated entity with a smart capitalization table ("Cap table").  See this  simple cap table  from Venture Hacks.

The ability to quit your job and live for six months on savings while you conclude the financing and launch the business.

Another factor to consider is what kind of investor you are approaching. Consider the stage of your own company, before trying to pitch to certain investors. Do you meet their pre-requisites? If you are raising your first round of funding, then you are likely still at a pre-angel or angel investment stage. As a result, you should NOT try to pitch venture capitalists.

What Investors Want to See in a Pitch

If you are ready to pitch angels or venture capitalists, it's critical to understand what those investors are looking for. In order to stand out, your pitch must include both (a) the specific informational components investors are seeking, and (b) a memorable story that illustrates a compelling opportunity. As Jasmine Foroutan, CEO and Founder of Pitch Genius , says, investors want more than rote slideshows:

The biggest challenge of making a memorable deck is building a storyline that echoes outside of the pitch deck. This means, building a storyline that is not only easy for investors to remember, but also a storyline that’s easy for them to repeat and regurgitate to other potential investors.

Investors make decisions based on return and risk: How big of a return could they receive? And what might prevent them from receiving that return? Most VCs want a 10-20x return. 

As a founder, your job is to convince investors your startup offers the greatest potential return, with the least amount of risk — in comparison to the others on their list. Generally speaking, investors will evaluate risk in three main areas:

• Market Risk: Are you addressing a large, growing market?
• Product Risk: Do you have a sustainable competitive advantages?
• Execution Risk: Can your team “pull it off?” 

What Makes a Startup "Fundable"?

During one of Naval Ravikant's (Founder of AngelList) talks at the Founder Institute, he described  'The Anatomy of a Fundable Startup' , which you can watch below:

Similarly, when Aaron Patzer (Founder of Mint.com) described his  Pitching Secrets  to the Founder Institute, he outlined four main questions investors will ask themselves whever they evaluate a startup pitch:

• Does it solve a problem?
• Does it solve that problem in a big market?
• Is it something that has a competitive or sustainable advantage?
• Can you make money or make a profit?

Address those four questions, and you will have a much higher chance of attracting funding from professional investors.

5. Pitch Deck Guidelines

Think of your deck like a visual business plan. Your objective is to succinctly illustrate your marketplace knowledge, business model and qualifications for execution. A standard deck consists of 10 to 14 slides . The most common mistake made by newbie founders? Providing too much detail, too soon. Jenny Lefcourt, General Partner at Freestyle Capital, cautions early-stage founders against making this error :

What's really important is to not go into the weeds of all the details because what you’re trying to do is give them enough information that they want more information. Your goal at meeting No. 1 is to get people interested enough that they want meeting No. 2.

• Avoid excessive text. 
• Use large fonts that are easy to read. 
• Include colorful charts, statistics and graphics. 
• Label each slide (e.g. problem, solution, team). 

Don’t:

• Include unsubstantiated growth projections.
• Describe extraneous hiring details.
• Use tons of bullet points.
• Inflate your capabilities. 

Make Two Decks

Many founders are surprised to learn they need two decks: (1) a detailed version that can be shared with investors via email, and (2) a simplified version that can be elaborated upon in person. It’s not uncommon for investors to request to see a deck before agreeing to meet. For this reason, your “reading” version should include enough detail to stand alone. Conversely, a standard deck should be streamlined to ensure investors spend more time listening and less time reading. Most of the presentations available for online viewing showcase “listening” decks. We recommend beginning with the construction of the “reading” deck, which can then be edited for pitch presentations.

Is there a RIGHT way to organize a pitch deck? The answer is both yes and no. In terms of information provided, there are certain points you absolutely must cover. However, you have creative freedom when organizing and presenting your slides. Here are the four most common types of decks :

• The Problem-Solution Deck
• The Vision-Opportunity Deck
• The Team Deck
• The Traction Deck

The most commonly used pitch deck template is the Problem-Solution Deck, which is ideal for founders with especially unique solutions to widespread problems. 

All four frameworks contain the same informational points, organized in different ways. A variety of templates exist online and can be modified to meet your needs. However, don’t be afraid to venture outside of existing formats, so long as you're including necessary information.

The biggest misconception founders have about pitch decks is that there’s a simple formula for building a perfect pitch, and that’s by replicating other successful pitch decks,” says Foroutan. “Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. How will startups ever stand out to investors if everyone is using the same pitch to persuade them?

The most compelling elements of your business plan, your unique value proposition (UVP) and your intended audience should all inform how you structure your deck.

With that said, the Problem-Solution Pitch Deck Template is a great place to start. In this section, we’ll walk through all of the elements included in the standard deck: 

The Problem-Solution Deck Format:

Announce your big idea — the one thing you do better than anyone else. You have 10 seconds to engage your audience. Include:

• Name of Company
• CEO First & Last Name
• CEO Email (must be the CEO’s direct email address)
• CEO Phone number
• A simple image (reinforce the idea without distraction) 

2. Summary 

Summarize the highlights of your business opportunity, emphasizing minimization of market, product and execution risk. Include:

• Metrics that prove traction. 
• Special advantages your startup has. 
• Summary of investment size you are seeking.

Describe the problem you solve, who you solve it for and the reasons why your target customer are unsatisfied with current solutions. Include:

• Title: Problem
• One sentence description of the problem (10 words max).
• Sub-description of the problem (3 bullet points max).

4. Solution

Describe your solution and the major benefits it entails. Are current solutions slow, expensive or difficult to use? Are your solutions faster, cheaper and easier to use? Do customers care? Include:

• Title: Solution
• One sentence description of the solution (10 words max).
• Sub-description of the solution (3 bullet points max).

Make your product more tangible by illustrating how it works in three simple steps. Utilize screenshots, graphics and/or video. Skip the demo. Depending on your idea, this might be the ideal place to showcase the filing status of important patents. Include:

• Title: Product
• Product Screenshot
• Multiple Slides (if necessary)

NOTE : The order of slides 6, 7, 8, 9 can be rearranged to fit your particular narrative.

6. Business Model

Illustrate your primary revenue model. Generally, investors prefer active revenue streams to passive revenue streams. They also, particularly, like recurring revenue streams like monthly and annual subscriptions. Note: Companies that make money via advertising revenue are the exceptions – not the rule. Include:

• Title: Business Model
• Proof your market is willing and able to pay. 
• Use a quote if you haven’t launched yet.

7. Market Opportunity

Illustrate how much money you could, theoretically, make if you dominate your target market. Many investors like to see both a top-down and a bottom-up analysis. Although bottom-up is more difficult to calculate, including it will increase your credibility. Here’s an article on how to calculate it .  Include:

• Title: Market
• Total Addressable Market (TAM): All the people who could use your product or service. eg: All auto detail customers in the US.
• Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM): The subset of your TAM who are likely to use a product like your current product. eg: All mobile auto detail customers in the US.
• Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM): The subset of your SAM that you can reasonably obtain in the next 3-5 years. Aka your realistic market share. eg: 10-20% of all mobile auto detail customers in the US.

8. Competition

This might be the most important slide of the entire presentation. However, many founders struggle to clearly differentiate their products and services from the competition. Your offering must be SO compelling that users enthusiastically switch from existing solutions. In this slide, your objective is to provide 3-4 reasons why your solutions is superior to both direct and indirect competitors in the marketplace.

Warning : Don't make the mistake of saying you have no competitors. Investors will assume your idea isn’t worth pursuing.

Of course, if you’re pioneering a new technology, your competition will be its traditional counterpart. Nonetheless, your job is to clearly compare the differences between the status quo and your game-changing solution. 

You have two options regarding layout: The"Gartner Magic Quadrant" shown below or the “Competitive Grid” shown above.

Here your objective is to demonstrate your knowledge of customer acquisition, customer retention and product innovation. Investors expect you to know a few key metrics:

• Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC): What's your fully loaded cost of acquiring a paying customer? Ex. $100
• Lifetime Value of Customer (LTV): How much will someone pay your startup before they leave? Ex. $4,800
• Payback Period: How long does it take to cover acquisition costs? Ex: $100/$100/mo = 1 month. 
• Generating an LTV that is a strong multiple of CAC is a prerequisite for profitability. Of course, don’t forget to consider the cost of revenue[m] and other operating expenses, such as product development and customer service. 

10. Traction

This is another important slide that showcases customers love your product and are happy to pay for it. The Traction Slide should seek to mitigate the three types of risk: Market risk, product risk and execution risk. It should suggest that your startup can replicate initial success at scale, decrease future acquisition costs and increase profitability.

Use key metrics[o] to illustrate traction, highlight trends and rates of change. An ideal scenario for investors, for example, might be customer and revenue doubling monthly coupled with declining customer acquisition costs. If you have yet to launch, use this slide to illustrate major milestones in product development, key hires and funding.

11. Financials

How much money do you expect to make within the next 3 to 5 years? Do your best to estimate projected revenue, costs and expenses based on hitting your funding goals. Include:

• Title: Financials. 
• EBIT (Earnings Before Interest and Tax) 
• Percentages alongside numbers for gross margin etc. 

Your Team Slide should mitigate investor concerns about execution. VCs love to see team members who have previously worked with successful startups, similar technologies and in similar markets. Check off as many of those boxes as you can. Note that your Team slide should include every important member of your extended team. This should include founders, key employees, advisors and investors (if any).

Creating an advisory board is a very simple way to add industry expertise to your "team" and is something that I strongly recommend For example, being able to drop a line like "We have the CMO of the largest real estate brokerage in the world on our advisory board" really boosts your credibility if your are focusing on a real estate opportunity.

A second and equally important benefit of advisors is that they can quickly help you refine your business and product vision themselves and connect you to people they know who can do the same. You can also use advisors to add significant technology and startup experience and expertise to your team.

13. Funding

Finally, it’s time to ask for the money you need. Include:

• Title: Funding
• Amount you are raising
• Financial objectives (i.e. reach $2mm ARR in 12 months)

14. Summary

After your presentation finale, end on a copy of your Summary Slide in the background. At this time, you will be fielding remaining questions that have yet to be answered.

15. Appendix

Though not mandatory, some founders include an Appendix with supporting information positive PR, customer testimonials, technological details and/or in-depth financial information.

Remember: Creating a pitch deck isn’t a “one-time exercise.” Practice your pitch often in front of peers, advisors, and mentors. The clearer your messaging becomes, the faster you will close deals.

7. How to Ace Your Presentation

Here are some of  Ressi’s best pitch presentation tips:

• Keep it under 10 minutes: Be respectful of your audience’s time, and summarize your ideas into a brief presentation. 
• Tell a story: Don’t just talk numbers —  take your audience on a journey  of why this business matters.
• Have a clear UVP: Investors often hear dozens of presentations a week. Stand out with a real unique value proposition. 
• Show your passion: Don’t be afraid to let investors see your excitement over your idea.
• Anticipate questions: Though it may not seem like it, getting interrupted is a good thing; it shows your audience is listening and cares enough to voice their concerns. Think through answers to potential questions ahead of time. 

Investor Pet Peeves

Investors listen to a ton of pitches, so it is only natural for them to see (and be slightly irritated) by common mistakes.

One of the biggest pet peeves of Manu Kumar, of K9 Ventures , is when presenters say they will answer a question later: 

You have to follow the flow,’” says Kumar. “When somebody asks you a question, that’s the right time to address the question. Even if it means you have to jump ahead or jump back.

Over the years, we’ve spoken with several VCs who echo this sentiment — entrepreneurs must demonstrate flexibility, spontaneity and willingness to “jump off” script. You may be eager to talk about your team because it’s in the next slide. However, the investor sitting in front of you may care more about customer acquisition costs. Which is why practicing your pitch in low-stakes situations is SO important. The more familiar you become with addressing unexpected interruptions, the more confidently you will handle diversions in meetings that matters.

Adeo Ressi (CEO of the Founder Institute) has something that frustrates him even more: 

One of my biggest pet peeves is when founders pitch me a business, and they don’t clearly define who their customer is,” says Ressi. “If you don’t know The Who , it’s very hard for me to understand The What or The How .

See more investor pet peeves from funding experts Manu Kumar of  K9 Ventures , James Cham of  Bloomberg Beta , Adeo Ressi of the  Founder Institute , and Alex Gurevich of  Javelin Venture Partners  below. 

The bottom-line : Delivering “the perfect pitch” takes practice. It’s normal to feel nervous before speaking to a room full of strangers. However, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Founders who wanting to expedite progress should consider joining an intensive accelerator program.

8. Successful Pitch Examples

Below are some examples of decks and presentations — from both big and small names — that have resulted in funding. Notice the common elements we’ve discussed woven throughout the decks. And take note of any presentation strategies that might be advantageous to your startup:

Pitch Deck Examples:

Founder : Aaron Patzer Funding : $31.8M in 5 rounds, acquired by Intuit

Airbnb 

Founders : Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk Funding : $4.4B in 13 rounds (as of March 2019)

Pitch Presentation Examples

Should you study the pitch presentations of legends like Steve Jobs, Marc Benioff and Elon Musk? Absolutely. However, it’s often helpful to watch entrepreneurs who are less removed from your current stage of business. Below are some pitch presentations from up-and-coming Founder Institute Alumni:

1. Pethub 

Pethub is an award-winning software company helping pet owners manage their pets’ lives online. PetHub ID tags are officially in-use by over 250 communities and 20 states in the U.S as their government or shelter issued ID tag, and 98% of PetHub recovered pets are reunited with family without ever entering a shelter. The company has raised several million dollars in funding and is on pace to track and protect over 1 million animals by 2021. Pethub is also a Seattle FI alum, founded by Tom Arnold .

2. Spaceishare

SpaceiShare , a Toronto FI company founded by Sarah Selhi , is a marketplace that allows people to offer their empty physical spaces as storage for people who need the room. They secured a sizable deal on on Dragon's Den, and have been featured across Canadian press.

And here is Sarah's presentation on Dragon's Den, where she delivers a modified pitch and fields a very different set of questions: 

Bridgr , a Montreal FI company founded by Amira Boutouchent , is an online platform that helps small and medium-sized manufacturing companies find and collaborate with validated and qualified independent experts to solve their operations issues, allowing them to grow quickly without the need for expensive and time-consuming consultancies.

Climber is a Lisbon FI company founded by Mário Mouraz . They build revenue management software that takes data from external sources, such as weather, air traffic, online shopping, and claims regarding a hotel’s reputation. They cross analyze all of that with information from the hotel user, in order to automatically calculate what to sell and how much to sell it for.

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What is a Pitch Deck? How to Create + Tools and Templates

2 min. read

Updated April 9, 2024

A well-crafted pitch deck is an essential tool when pursuing business funding . It helps visually communicate why your business is valuable and should serve as the perfect backdrop to your elevator pitch.

This guide will cover how to create a great pitch deck, provide a library of real-world examples, and explore potential tools for you to test out. Are you ready to articulate your business idea in a way that resonates with your audience?

Let’s help you create a powerful and persuasive pitch deck.

• What is a pitch deck?

A pitch deck, also known as a slide deck or start-up deck, is a presentation that provides a brief but informative overview of your business. It should cover the key points of your business plan , the products and services you provide, high-level financial projections, and funding needs.

Your pitch deck should work well on its own as a visual document, but it will primarily be used as a tool to tell the story of your business.

How to create a compelling pitch deck

Not sure where to start with your pitch deck? Check out our curated selection of pitch deck tools, presentation templates, and resources to kickstart the process.

What to include in your pitch deck

Here are the eleven slides that you must include to create a compelling pitch deck that works well alongside your elevator pitch.

How to present your business plan

While a visual pitch deck is necessary when pitching, it can also be valuable to just show off your business plan. Here’s how to turn your plan into a convincing presentation.

Best pitch deck creator tools

There are a lot of tools and software out there dedicated to helping entrepreneurs create captivating pitch decks. Skip the research and check out this list of our favorite options.

7 pitch deck examples worth reviewing

Check out the real pitch decks used by Uber, Facebook, Airbnb, DoorDash, Peloton, and more. Plus learn why these pitch deck examples are so good.

Pitch deck tools and templates

Simplify the pitch deck creation process with a free template, a library of pitch examples, and a useful pitch creation tool.

Free investor pitch deck template

Visualize your business pitch and wow investors with this free pitch deck template.

Download Template

Create an investor-ready pitch and plan with LivePlan

With one tool you can craft and share your business plan, pitch, and important financial forecasts. No complex spreadsheets or PowerPoint slides necessary.

Kody Wirth is a content writer and SEO specialist for Palo Alto Software—the creator's of Bplans and LivePlan. He has 3+ years experience covering small business topics and runs a part-time content writing service in his spare time.

Table of Contents

• How to create a pitch deck
• Tools and templates

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How to Create a Pitch Deck (and the 10 Slides You Need)

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In the high-stakes world of startups, a pitch deck presentation is often the deciding factor for securing investment, whether in high-pressure situations like Shark Tank or pre-seed pitching rounds. With limited time to make a first impression, the quality of your pitch deck is crucial in leading to that all-important follow-up meeting with investors or VCs.

In this article, we’ll guide you through how to create a pitch deck and the ten essential slides you need. We’ll also explain what makes a good pitch deck (including examples), the 10/20/30 rule, and how to avoid common mistakes.

Success in entrepreneurship isn’t just about hard work, luck, and timing. It’s also about successfully convincing others to invest in your vision, whether you’re seeking funding, advice, mentorship, or partnerships. A great pitch deck will be your essential tool in persuading investors. Let’s get started!

What is a Pitch Deck?

A pitch deck is a slideshow presentation that succinctly conveys your business idea, market opportunity, and value proposition. Startup founders and entrepreneurs commonly use them to present their business ideas, products, or services, also known as a business or investor deck. It is necessary in securing funding, attracting partnerships, and closing deals.

With a concise format of 10 to 20 slides, this visual tool effectively conveys a business idea and its potential to help entrepreneurs connect with investors, clients, or partners. Suppose your pitch catches the interest of potential investors. In that case, there will likely be an in-depth next meeting (i.e., the start of the actual pitching process).

💡 The most common formats for pitch decks are PowerPoint slides, Google Slides, or Apple Keynote presentations.

Purpose of a Pitch Deck

The purpose of a pitch deck is to clearly and quickly communicate your business’s potential. Used in fundraising pitches, idea support, and forming strategic partnerships, it provides a visual snapshot of your business idea and its market viability.

Pitch decks are not only used by startups but also in a variety of other settings. The structure of your slides should enable potential investors to grasp your business idea’s potential quickly.

Types of Pitch Decks:

• Branding or marketing plan
• Fundraising
• Film & TV

The 10-20-30 Rule for Slideshows

The 10-20-30 rule, coined by venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki, offers a structured approach to creating effective PowerPoint pitch decks. This rule is a favorite among startups but applies to all types of presentations. It includes:

• Keeping to just 10 slides.
• Limiting the presentation to 20 minutes.
• Ensuring a font size of at least 30 points.

However, sticking to 10 slides isn’t always the optimal approach for everyone. As David from NextView VC reminds us, it’s crucial to present in a manner that feels authentic to you. Treat pitch deck templates as flexible starting points, and tailor them to highlight the uniqueness of your startup.

What should be in a pitch deck

A pitch deck should concisely outline your business idea, market, strategy, finances, team, and funding needs in an engaging story. You should use between 10 and 20 slides depending on your needs and audience.

In the next section, we’ll guide you through creating each slide.

The 10 most important slides in an investor deck:

• Business overview: A brief introduction to the business, including the mission and vision.
• Problem statement: Identify the problem or need in the market the business intends to solve.
• Solution slide: The product or service offered by the business as a solution to the identified problem.
• Market size and analysis: Information about the target market and industry, including size, growth potential, and customer demographics.
• Product and business model: How the business plans to make money, including the product and pricing strategy.
• Go-to-market plan: The approach to promoting the product or service and acquiring customers.
• Competitors: A look at the competitive landscape and how the business differentiates itself from competitors.
• Financials: Financial projections and current financial status.
• Team: Information about the key team members, their roles, and their experience.
• Ask: The specific funding request and how it will be used to grow the business.

Now that we’ve covered the basics, we’ll move on to how to create a pitch deck.

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How to create a pitch deck

We’ll take a step-by-step approach to making the essential 10 slides in a pitch deck. It will cover the most critical aspects of your business idea and pitch presentation. You may add more slides as you go, but let’s start by looking at each of these 10 slides, their purpose, and what information should be included.

Slide 1: Business overview

The first slide of your pitch deck will set the tone for the rest of the presentation. The business overview (title slide) should briefly capture the core of your idea and stand out to investors.

• Include your logo.
• title slide
• Name of your idea, business, or startup.
• Summarize your concept into a catchy headline.

Slide 2: Problem

Use this slide to lay the groundwork of your pitch by focusing on the problems or pressing needs that your business addresses. Highlight the market gap and illustrate why it’s an important opportunity.

• Present the problem your business solves in the form of a problem statement.
• Emphasize its relevance to your audience.
• Back up your points with solid data like market statistics or instances of current inefficiencies.

Slide 3: Solution

The solution (or value proposition) slide should address each problem mentioned in the previous slide. There could be many ways to solve a problem, so clarify how your solution benefits your target segment.

• The value proposition of your product or service.
• What sets it apart from competitors.

Slide 4: Market size

This slide should provide a clear picture of the market analysis and landscape based on your research. Illustrate the scale of the market you’re targeting or part of, demonstrating growth prospects and business opportunities. Key points to include:

• Break down the market opportunity into TAM, SAM, and SOM.
• Note any important market trends.
• Use visual aids like charts or graphs to effectively depict market size and trends.

Slide 5: Product & business model

Summarize your product and business model in this slide to show how you will make money, scale, and be profitable.

• Highlight your product’s main features or services.
• Add visuals like screenshots or images for clarity.
• Detail your revenue streams, cost structure, and pricing strategy.

Be ready to explain any challenges within your business model and your solutions.

Slide 6: Go-to-market strategy

The go-to-market (GTM) slide outlines your strategy for entering the market and acquiring new customers. Explain how you will distribute your product or service and reach your target audience.

• Outline each phase of your GTM strategy.
• Define your ideal customer or buyer persona and how you provide value to them.
• Explain your sales and marketing approaches to reach customers.

Having a good idea or product isn’t enough to convince investors. They need to know if you have a viable, thought-out strategy to reach and serve the target market.

Slide 7: Competitive analysis

Demonstrate your understanding of the market and the competition in this slide by providing data and market research. Offer data-driven research to map out the competitive landscape, including:

• Identification of major competitors and alternatives.
• Specify your unique selling proposition (USP) and competitive advantage.
• Strategy and positioning against competitors.

Be straightforward in this slide and reassure investors that you are aware of your competition and have a plan to achieve and maintain a competitive edge. You could mention potential challenges, risks, or disruptors.

Slide 8: Team

Many investors often consider the team behind a startup as one of the most critical factors in their decision-making process. A study done on over 21,000 startup founders suggests that the founder’s personality – or the combined personalities of the founding team – is paramount to entrepreneurial success.

• Include all founders, management, and advisors.
• Roles and responsibilities.
• Highlight key skills and relevant experience.
• Mention any meaningful connections.

The team slide has to instill confidence in potential investors that this is the right team for the job, even if you are a solo founder.

Slide 9: Financials

This is a critical slide where investors may spend the most time reading to get a glimpse into the business idea’s financial feasibility and potential return. Describe how you plan to generate revenue and your pricing strategy. Each startup will show different financial figures based on their stage.

Basic financial data:

• Income statement
• Sales forecast
• Expenses and burn rate
• Profitability
• Market size (Total Addressable Market, Serviceable Available Market, Serviceable Obtainable Market)
• Projected revenue growth for at least three years.

Other KPIs you may include:

• Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
• LTV/CAC ratio (indicates how sustainable the business model is)
• Customer growth

Coming up with these figures demonstrates your financial acumen and your understanding of the key metrics that drive business success.

Slide 10: Ask

The last slide should wrap up the pitch with a snapshot of your current standing, any accomplishments, a timeline, and the use of funds.

• The current state of affairs (growth, market share).
• State the amount of funding needed and how you plan to use it.

Investors want to know if your startup/idea is worth investing in, so show them evidence of progress, past successes, or the potential for future success.

What makes a good pitch deck?

A good pitch deck gets your point across to investors and captures their attention. Successful pitch decks are clear, focused, and persuasive. Many investor pitch decks follow a similar structure because they give investors a snapshot of a business’s investment potential.

These are traits of a good pitch deck:

✅ Concise and clear, without fluff or distracting details.

✅ Focused on telling the story of the startup/idea and its potential.

✅ Structured with a logical flow. Each slide supports the overall narrative.

✅ Persuasive , backed by data, research, and appropriate graphs and charts.

💡 Save time by using an AI pitch deck presentation maker like SlidesAI

Best pitch deck examples

Here are some of our favorite pitch deck presentations. The best pitch decks balance detailed information with simplicity. Take a look at these pitch deck examples across different stages of funding:

Airbnb pitch deck (Pre-seed)

LottieLab pitch deck (Seed)

Copy.AI pitch deck (Series A)

Wanderlist pitch deck (Series B)

Crunchbase pitch deck (Late stage)

💡 Check out more free pitch deck templates here .

Top 3 mistakes to avoid with your pitch deck

These common mistakes can diminish the impact of your presentation. Strive for a balance between thorough information and simplicity for maximum impact.

Mistake 1: Overemphasizing aesthetics

Overdesigning your slide deck can detract from your core message while pitching. In most cases, it is safe to leave out PowerPoint animations and excessive graphics. Use brand colors if possible; any image, graph, or chart you include should directly support your narrative.

💡 Pro tip: Maintain a consistent visual theme and leave out flashy design elements.

Mistake 2: Overloading information

It’s natural to want to share a lot of information on each slide, but doing so can make it harder for your audience to tell what’s important. VCs hear hundreds of pitches each year – you need more clarity in your pitch to catch their interest within your allocated time. Focus on the key information and overall structure of the pitch deck presentation.

💡 Pro tip: Prioritize clarity and conciseness to make a lasting impact.

Mistake 3: Lack of personalization

Pitch deck templates are a great starting point, but remember to tailor your pitch and content to your audience. Investors differ in their interests and priorities. Understanding what your audience value can significantly improve your pitch’s impact.

💡 Pro tip: Find out what resonates with your audience and include or address them in your deck.

• No design skills required
• 3 presentations/month free
• Don’t need to learn a new software

A thoughtfully prepared pitch deck is essential for securing investment. View your pitch deck as a brief yet compelling introduction to your startup’s potential, aiming to secure further discussions and, ultimately, funding. By adhering to the 10-slide structure recommended in this article, you can effectively convey your business vision, introduce your team, emphasize your market edge, and outline your financial forecasts.

Organize your slides to ensure your business concept is easily understood. Be succinct and clear, and align your content with what investors typically seek. Steer clear of common pitfalls like cramming slides with information or not customizing your deck to align with investor interests. Wishing you success!

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a pitch deck the same as a business plan.

A pitch deck and a business plan are not the same. While a pitch deck visually presents key aspects of your business idea, a business plan is a comprehensive written document that outlines all aspects of your business. A pitch deck can summarize your business plan but cannot replace it.

What happens after a successful first pitch?

Pitch deck guides often focus on the initial meeting with venture capitalists, but that’s just the start. Investment decisions involve multiple meetings, due diligence, negotiations, and paperwork. As NextView VC’s David Beisel puts it, “The purpose of all venture capital meetings is to get another meeting.” Read more about what to expect after a successful first pitch .

What about other slides, like the traction slide?

Traction slides are to showcase proof of any progress, achievements, and market acceptance. For early-stage startups, including pre-seed, traction might not necessarily mean revenue. It can be any evidence that validates your business idea and market demand, such as user sign-ups.

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37 Legendary Pitch Decks | Pitch Deck Examples That Won Investors’ Hearts

A great pitch deck covers key points through visuals and bullet points and usually has a competition slide, a problem slide, and a solution slide to explain your offering and the market.

Additionally, a business model slide and a team slide (if your business is developed enough to present these) can turn a good deck into a great startup pitch deck.

Don’t forget, a simple pitch deck is a good pitch deck—and you’re about to learn how to nail it.

In this guide, we’ll share:

• Examples of 37 successful pitch decks
• Takeaways that you can apply when creating your own startup pitch deck
• Editable templates of 10 pitch decks that you can use for free
• Tips on how to create your own pitch deck

Looking for a winning pitch deck template ASAP to present in front of potential investors?   Try our free template created in collaboration with HighSpark – an agency that has helped more than 500 startups raise cumulatively over $80 million in funding. 

Here is the list of 37 of the best startup pitch deck examples that we will go through:

• ZenPayRoll (Now Gusto)
• Wealthsimple
• AppVirality
• Shape Integrated Software
• Ooomf (now Crew)
• Sequoia Capital

These startup pitch deck examples were created by top brands in tech. At the time, they were all small startups (seed stage companies) looking to raise money or venture capital through potential investors and grow their businesses. Sound familiar?!

We hope that their business idea and investor pitch decks will inspire you (and of course, potential investors).

If you are more of a visual learner than a reader type, you can watch a video summary of the first 10 startup pitch deck examples mentioned in this blog post:

Alternatively, if you’re ready to create your own pitch deck, we’ve added some startup pitch deck examples and pitch deck templates to the bottom of this article. You can go straight to them by clicking here . Or get access to Piktochart’s online design tool by signing up for a free account and choosing a presentation template to get started easily.

From behemoths like Facebook and YouTube to superstars like Buffer, together these startups have raised millions of dollars and are now worth billions!

It’s time to see how they did it.

37 Legendary Startup Pitch Deck Examples

1. facebook pitch deck.

Here’s a fun fact: Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist, and entrepreneur, was the first outside investor in Facebook back in 2004. That’s when Mark Zuckerberg first set out to turn his dorm room project into a lasting business. Zuckerberg received $500,000 from Peter Thiel.

Facebook’s pitch deck was more of a media kit  of sorts. It was containing the company’s value proposition, key metrics, and marketing services that were used to sell ads to potential clients.

Favorite takeaway : The focus of the startup pitch deck was based on solid numbers such as user engagement, traffic, and growth trajectory.

2. Airbnb pitch deck

Airbnb is a platform that allows people to list, find, and rent lodging.

This company is one of the greatest startup success stories of our time.

The now famous Airbnb pitch deck has become one of the best pitch decks for inspiring entrepreneurs around the world.

Favorite takeaway: The intro. It’s all about hooking your audience. You need to describe your business using as few words as possible. Imagine telling a 5-year-old what your business is about. If you can’t do that, it’s time to put some time into nailing it down.

When Uber hit the scene, they fundamentally reimagined urban transportation. Their pitch deck tells this audacious story perfectly. Simple yet impactful, it illustrates the problem of expensive taxis and car services, then introduces Uber as the affordable, tech-driven solution.

They use stark data points to highlight the financial opportunity, a vital touch for potential investors.

As you create your pitch, remember Uber’s two key strengths: painting a clear problem-solution scenario and using compelling data to underscore their market potential. This strategy not only shows understanding of their market but also communicates their transformative vision effectively.

Favorite takeaway : The deck is clean and minimalist. The flow is easy to follow, and you get a clear idea of what’s the problem they’re trying to solve, and how they solve it.

4. Buffer pitch deck

Buffer is a social media scheduling platform that helps you schedule content for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

The almighty startup pitch deck that helped Buffer to raise half a million dollars gained popularity by becoming one of the first pitch decks openly shared online. The founder decided to put it up to help other startups to raise funds.

Favorite takeaway: Similar to Facebook, the deck was based on solid numbers from Buffer’s users (e.g., 800 users, $150,000 annual revenue run rate, etc.)

5. Square pitch deck

Square is a company that allows merchants to accept mobile credit card payments via a dongle.

Favorite takeaway : Social proof! It doesn’t hurt to promote the management team if they’ve been with Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, PayPal, and more. It shows that your management team’s experience is an armor to the company. This detailed startup pitch deck outlines Square’s business model and a simple financial model that portrays its annual revenue and five-year growth rate.

6. LinkedIn pitch deck

Founded in 2002, LinkedIn is the top business-oriented social networking platform.

The company’s pitch talks a great deal about company values, the power of networking, and how it’s different from other social networks out there.

Favorite takeaway : The deck also provides an extensive analogy to showcase to investors what LinkedIn is. For example, it talks about “Web 1.0” vs. “Web 2.0”: Alta Vista was “Search 1.0”, and Google was “Search 2.0”. The deck talks about how LinkedIn is “Networking for Businesses 2.0”.

7. Mint pitch deck

Mint is a personal financial services tool that helps people track their spending and find ways to save money.

This startup pitch deck example was used in a competition and was never used for raising money, but it’s still a powerful deck that startups can learn from.

Favorite takeaway : This simple deck provides a clear value proposition to customers and investors. The creators of this deck also understood that one of the key concerns of an investor is the exit mechanism of his or her investments. I love how the deck highlights a number of exit strategy options.

8. Dropbox pitch deck

Drew Houston was sitting on a bus from Boston to New York, and realized he’d forgotten his USB drive (again). Out of the frustration sparked innovation. What if there was a simpler way to store data that didn’t need to be in a physical format?

This simple inconvenience led to the creation of a service that would revolutionize file storage and sharing for millions.

Founded in 2007 by Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, Dropbox quickly became a game-changer in cloud storage. The company’s core service allows users to store, sync, and share files across devices seamlessly. With over 700 million registered users from 180 countries, Dropbox has grown from a simple file-sharing tool to a comprehensive collaboration platform.

Dropbox’s 2007 pitch deck, which secured a $1.2 million seed round, stands out for its clarity and engaging approach. The deck’s straightforward design, with large text and a clean layout, makes complex information easily digestible. It effectively tells a story, connecting investors to the common pain points of file sharing and storage.

Two aspects of the pitch deck particularly shine:

• Problem-solution narrative: the deck clearly outlines everyday file-sharing issues before presenting Dropbox as the elegant solution. This storytelling approach helps investors envision life without digital storage headaches.
• Competitive edge visualization: Using a simple tick-and-cross system, Dropbox effectively illustrates its superiority over competitors. This visual comparison instantly communicates the product’s unique value proposition.

Favorite takeaway : Keep it simple and relatable. Dropbox’s pitch deck succeeds by addressing common problems with clear, jargon-free language. For entrepreneurs crafting their own pitch decks, remember that your audience may not be tech experts. Explain your solution in terms anyone can understand and appreciate.

Imagine if customer service wasn’t a headache and endlessly long hold calls but a streamlined solution that was a win-win for all parties? Founded in 2013 by Mathilde Collin and Laurent Perrin, Front has revolutionized customer communication, transforming it from a necessary evil into a strategic advantage for businesses worldwide.

At its core, Front is a customer communication platform that blends the simplicity of email with the power of a CRM.

Front’s pitch deck struck a chord with venture capitalists, securing over $79 million in funding. But what made this deck so compelling?

First, the design. Front’s deck is a masterclass in visual storytelling. Clean lines and minimalist design make complex concepts digestible at a glance.

Second, the narrative. Front’s deck doesn’t just present facts; it weaves a story. It opens with a clear statement of market problems, then seamlessly transitions to Front’s solution. It’s not just telling; it’s showing – and investors were clearly listening.

But the real showstopper? Traction and growth. Front’s deck uses plot graphs and charts effectively to showcase its impressive trajectory. It’s like watching a rocket launch in slow motion – you can’t help but be impressed by the upward momentum.

Favorite takeaway : Keep it visual. Front’s deck proves that a picture is worth a thousand words – and possibly millions in funding. When crafting your pitch, think like a designer. How can you transform complex data into easily digestible visuals? Remember, your goal is to make investors say “Aha!” not “Huh?”

10. Mixpanel pitch deck

Mixpanel is an advanced analytics platform for mobile and the web. They not only measure page views but also analyze the actions people take. This is the series-B startup pitch deck for Mixpanel that helped them raise over $65 million.

Favorite takeaway : This pitch deck example started off with a problem: people guessing their analytics. It followed up by providing its solution to that problem and, ultimately, its competitive advantage. One of the best pitch decks, this is a great example of showing the problem and solution.

11. Moz pitch deck

Moz started out as an SEO company but has pivoted to support marketers across all inbound marketing strategies.

This is the series-B startup pitch deck for Moz which they used to raise over $18 million. If you’re an established startup, this is a great example of an investor pitch deck, and you can follow this guide. The pitch deck is packed with information about the company since it was founded five years prior to this pitch.

Favorite takeaway : Because the company had already been in operation for five years, they were able to present an accurate estimated revenue, revenue run rate, average customer lifetime value, cost of paid acquisition, etc.

12. Buzzfeed pitch deck

We all have a love-and-hate relationship with Buzzfeed, don’t we? I’m sure you’ve stumbled on their pages or watched their videos before. As of today, BuzzFeed has managed to raise over $240 million in investor capital (another great example of an investor pitch deck).

Favorite takeaway : SOCIAL PROOF! It doesn’t hurt to start a pitch deck with big numbers the company has, like the millions of users visiting the website on a monthly basis and quotations from large organizations such as CNN.

13. YouTube pitch deck

YouTube was acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.6 billion. Like Facebook, this company doesn’t require any introduction. Unfortunately, this is not the original deck. This is YouTube’s pitch deck to Sequoia Capital (one of the most established VC investors who’s often regarded as one of the industry’s best), which was released through a legal proceeding.

Favorite takeaway : The company wanted to be the primary outlet for video content, and it succeeded in doing just that. It goes to show that if you know what your product can do, are able to show its potential, and build on the momentum gained through early investments to create that, then you can achieve its potential. If you’re aiming to build an investor pitch deck to land a VC like Sequoia Capital, this presentation slide deck is a great template for you!

14. Manpacks pitch deck

Manpacks is a platform that delivers men’s essentials such as underwear, razors, grooming, and other products.

The company raised $500,000 with this pitch deck.

Favorite takeaway : This deck stands out! They clearly understand who they are, and they stayed that way throughout the entire presentation. The startup pitch deck is filled with a fun tone that helps explain the product well.

15. Foursquare pitch deck

Foursquare is a mobile platform that helps you find the best places to go in your area.

Favorite takeaway : This pitch deck does a great job using screenshots of social proof that the app already has from its users sharing tweets of them being the ‘mayor’ of a particular area.

16. Flowtab pitch deck

Flowtab was an app that allowed people to order drinks quickly at a crowded bar. Despite shutting down, the founders still made an effort to help other startups.

Favorite takeaway : Simplicity. This pitch deck example does well explaining critical information like the problem, the solution, their business model, and traction. You can’t really go wrong with this pitch deck.

17. Dwolla pitch deck

Dwolla is a payment solution that allows users to send, receive, and request funds from other users. This 18-slide startup pitch deck landed the company $16.5 million.

Favorite takeaway : Most startups are founded because of a problem they faced, but not many people tell their story well through their pitch decks. In their slide deck, Dwolla shared a great story of how the founder paid $50,000 a year in credit card fees and then created a solution for never doing it again.

18. ZenPayRoll (Now Gusto) pitch deck

Gusto (previously ZenPayroll) is a cloud-based solution tool for small businesses to pay employees.

The company raised $6 million with this pitch deck.

Favorite takeaway : This isn’t just a startup pitch deck. It is a template that you can use and replicate easily by filling in the blanks.

19. Bliss pitch deck

Bliss provides metrics for coders and allows them to collaborate easily.

The company raised over $400,000 using Angel List.

Favorite takeaway : The pitch deck was well composed with a clear understanding of the product and the investors they were pitching to. This is one of the best pitch decks to use if you know your target market.

20. Adpushup pitch deck

Adpushup allows companies to maximize ad revenues through advanced A/B testing. They raised more than $632,000 in investments.

Favorite takeaway : This slide deck proves that going back to the basics works. This pitch deck has basic principles like a great introduction, an outline of problems, potential solutions, market opportunities, products, case studies, milestones, traction, and a future plan.

21. Wealthsimple pitch deck

Wealthsimple is Canada’s first online investment manager. They raised more than $2 million in seed funding with this slide deck.

Favorite takeaway : The startup pitch deck is sweet and short but effective. Our favorite part is the transformation of the industry, which is laid out in a table format.

22. AppVirality pitch deck

AppVirality allows app developers to grow their platforms using growth method techniques proven by other startups.

Favorite takeaway : Our favorite takeaway is how the flow of AppVirality’s pitch deck goes through the problem, the proven solution, and how it works within their app to their target market in multiple slides.

23. Shape Integrated Software pitch deck

Shape Integrated Software is budget management software that helps PPC analysts manage various budgets across different channels.

Favorite takeaway : When you have the traction to back your startup, use it. Shape clearly took advantage of it and presented it clearly in their pitch deck .

24. Podozi pitch deck

Podozi is an online e-commerce platform based in Nigeria.

Favorite takeaway : Most startup pitch decks work well when they’re short and sweet, in multiple slides, like Podozi’s . The best takeaway is the working partnership with large brands that this platform already has.

25. Fittr pitch deck

Fittr is a platform that designs custom workouts tailored to equipment, access, time management, and goals.

The company raised $2 million in 2020 thanks to their initial pitch .

Favorite takeaway : As a user of this platform, we love the investment goals and the purpose of what the company is planning to use it for.

26. Swipes pitch deck

Swipes is a task manager app to help its users increase their productivity. Swipes has secured $2.04 million over three funding rounds, the first thanks to this slide deck .

Favorite takeaway : One of their pages used social proof of quotations from The Next Web and Lifehacker. You can’t go wrong with that.

27. GoCanvas pitch deck

GoCanvas (previously known as Canvas) replaces paper-based processes with affordable and easy-to-use mobile apps and forms. They raised $9 million with these decks.

Favorite takeaway :  Instead of saying what they do, the second slide in their pitch deck shows how their startup helps businesses. No words are needed.

28. Ooomf (now Crew) pitch deck

Crew (formerly Ooomf & then PickCrew) is a freelancer marketplace that connects mobile and web developers with projects or work. This deck was used to raise over $2 million dollars.

Favorite takeaway : Well-designed with an easy-to-understand flow.

29. Cubeit pitch deck

Cubeit is a mobile application that allows users to aggregate content from anywhere. Cubeit used this 13-slide deck to raise seed funding before they even had a finished product.

Favorite takeaway : A strong introduction will get investors to pay attention. Their deck starts out with a clear message, which was that “owning more devices doesn’t make your life easier”. I can’t help but pay attention to how this company will help.

30.  Castle pitch deck

Castle was a startup that let rental owners put their properties on autopilot. This was the deck Castle used to raise $270,000 for their startup.

Favorite takeaway : Great design and easy to digest.

31.  Sequoia Capital pitch deck

Sequoia Capital is one of the leading investment firms in Silicon Valley. This deck is a template they recommend following.

Favorite takeaway : It’s like having the keys to the kingdom. You don’t have to guess what this investment giant is looking for. They tell you straight away.

32. Peloton pitch deck

It’s 2012, and John Foley is frantically searching for his misplaced gym shoes. As he rushes out the door, late for his boutique fitness class, an idea strikes him. What if he could bring that high-energy, instructor-led experience right into people’s homes? This eureka moment birthed Peloton, a company that would revolutionize the fitness industry.

Peloton isn’t just about stationary bikes or treadmills. It’s a tech-savvy fitness ecosystem that marries cutting-edge equipment with live-streamed and on-demand classes. The company’s genius lies in its ability to create a sense of community and competition, even when you’re sweating it out in your living room. With internet-connected touch screens and real-time performance metrics, Peloton transforms solitary workouts into shared experiences.

Despite its current success, Peloton’s journey wasn’t always a smooth ride. The company’s initial pitch of a $2,000 internet-connected exercise bike raised more than a few skeptical eyebrows among investors. But Foley and his team pedaled on, eventually securing $1.9 billion in funding through various rounds.

Peloton’s pitch deck , particularly its Series-F round that raised a whopping $550 million, is a masterclass in visual storytelling. Two aspects stand out:

• Brand identity: The deck kicks off with a bold, magnetic cover slide that immediately captures attention. It follows up with a clever “Who We Are? & What We Are Not?” slide, effectively communicating Peloton’s unique features and establishing its brand identity.
• Target Audience Clarity: Peloton doesn’t beat around the bush when identifying its ideal customer. The deck clearly outlines its target demographic: high net worth, married individuals already spending over $150 monthly on fitness. This laser focus demonstrates Peloton’s understanding of its market and value proposition.

Favorite takeaway : Define who you are and who you’re not. Peloton’s pitch deck excels at differentiating the brand from “gimmicky” fitness alternatives. This clear positioning helps potential investors and customers understand exactly what makes your startup unique.

33. WeWork pitch deck

WeWork’s pitch deck beautifully encapsulates its community-driven approach to shared workspaces.

They use visually appealing slides that mirror their innovative, modern brand. Their pitch deck deftly articulates the benefits of shared workspaces in today’s economy, setting the stage for their unique value proposition.

Favorite takeaway : what we do, who we do it for, why we do it; the deck walks you through their company vision with smart visuals and copy. We loved how they generated urgency by highlighting how co-working spaces were a fast-growing trend and investors could miss out on a profitable investment if they didn’t act quickly.

34. MatterMark pitch deck

MatterMark’s pitch deck is a testament to the power of storytelling. utilizing clean visuals to aid comprehension and coupled with succinct copy to keep the narrative engaging. The 30-slide deck earned the platform $6.5 million in seed A funding.

Favorite takeaway : Strong visual storytelling through the use of charts and graphs. In just a few moments, you can see where the majority of their revenue comes from compared to their other revenue streams.

35. Tinder pitch deck

We live in a world where finding a potential partner is as simple as swiping right, all thanks to Tinder. Founded in 2012 by Sean Rad, Justin Mateen, and Jonathan Badeen, Tinder quickly became the go-to app for millennials looking for love – or just a casual fling.

Tinder’s core service is straightforward yet game-changing. Users swipe right on profiles they like and left on those they don’t. If two people swipe right on each other, it’s a match! This simple mechanic transformed the often-daunting world of online dating into an engaging, almost game-like experience.

The pitch deck that secured Tinder’s initial funding is a masterclass in simplicity and effectiveness. It cuts through the noise, presenting a clear problem and an elegant solution. The deck begins with a captivating introduction that outlines Tinder’s mission to simplify dating. It then dives into the challenges of traditional online dating, positioning Tinder’s swipe-based interface as the innovative solution.

What stands out in Tinder’s pitch deck? First, the visuals. The deck uses screenshots and product demonstrations to showcase the app’s unique features and user experience. It’s not just telling investors about the product – it’s showing them how it works.

Second, the deck shines in its market analysis. It provides a detailed breakdown of the online dating market size and potential, highlighting the growing trend of mobile app usage for dating. This data-driven approach gives investors confidence in Tinder’s growth potential.

Favorite takeaway: Keep it simple, stupid! Tinder’s pitch deck proves that you don’t need fancy jargon or complicated graphs to impress investors. A clear problem statement, an innovative solution, and solid market analysis can be more powerful than a hundred slides of buzzwords.

Entrepreneurs, take note: Tinder’s success wasn’t just about the idea – it was about execution. The pitch deck introduced a strong founding team with expertise in technology and social networking, showing investors that Tinder had the skills to turn its vision into reality.

36. LaunchRock pitch deck

LaunchRock allows users to create landing pages and quickly get their startups known through social media, even before the launch of their full site.

Favorite takeaway : As a more creatively designed pitch deck example, this pitch deck had only 15 slides but showed how the product works and the different ways it can be used. They also utilize an analogy similar to what LinkedIn had in their decks.

37. MapMe pitch deck

MapMe allows users to create universally accessible (i.e., on smartphones, tablets, and computers) maps of anywhere they want with no coding required.

This startup deck was used to raise $1 million in seed funding.

Social proof almost always works. The deck showed that the startup had over 20,000 unique visitors, 18,000 monthly alerts, and12 minutes average sessions on the site.

Favorite takeaway : The pitch deck has fewer than 13 slides but provides investors with knowledge of the traction the site got going viral on social media and its go-to-market strategy.

10 Pitch Deck Templates for You to Try

The following pitch decks are free templates available in Piktochart that you can use. This makes it easy to work on your slides without having to worry about design. We took care of that for you.

If you don’t have an account yet, just sign up for a free Piktochart account here and then click on one of the templates below.

To learn how the online pitch deck creator works, watch this on-demand demo .

1. Investment Pitch Deck Template With HighSpark

2. Finance Pitch Deck Template

3. Business Pitch Deck Template

4. Startup Pitch Deck Examples

5. Tech Pitch Deck Examples

6. Business Keynote Template 

7. Product Pitch Deck Template

8. Product Pitch Deck Template

9. App Product Presentation Template

10. Product Website Pitch Deck Template

Summary of Pitch Deck Template Takeaways

To sum up, a strong startup pitch deck not only serves to reinforce your brand to the target audience or investors, but shows your business plan and unique offering through the slides presented; using a problem slide, a solution slide, and a traction slide including concise bullet points. 

The best startup pitch deck also shows off your company’s personality, through the inclusion of a team slide or similar in the next few slides, to be presented after your business plan is clearly outlined.

As your company grows, you’ll probably start thinking about the next stage of growth. You can use these successful pitch decks can as the foundation to make an investor deck for your next round of financing.

Look at the takeaways from these startup pitch decks as a guide to help you in your quest to raise funds and venture capital for your own startup for an investment round.

Here are some of the key takeaways from our pitch deck examples:

• Pitch decks don’t have to be formal or beautiful.
• A great pitch deck will provide an impactful intro or slogan.
• Keep your deck short (less than 20 pages).
• Use analogies to back up the points that you’re making.

After going through so many startup pitch deck examples, we recommend that to make your pitch presentation stand out you should:

• Start with a strong intro/vision.
• Show problems and offer solutions.
• Identify market opportunities.
• Showcase products/services clearly.
• Digest your business model
• Highlight financials
• Add social proof/case studies.
• Differentiate from competition.
• Show an experienced management team.

Designing a strong pitch deck could turn your business idea into a reality after convincing investors to provide support financial support to your project.

If you’re looking for additional information, DocSend  shared lessons  they got learning from 200 startups who raised $360 million from their first pitch deck.

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What is a Pitch Deck? Examples, Tips, and Templates

Businesses need adequate financing at every point in time for all their processes to run smoothly . However, most of the funding that a business needs to maximize its growth does not often come from business profits, personal coffers, or financial assistance from families and friends.

That is why you need to convey your ideas to potential sponsors. These sponsors or investors invest their money into your business with the expectation of a positive yield. The funding helps materialize whatever future business plans you have.

You will not get investors to put their money into your business if you do not have a solid business plan. Instead of just conveying your ideas in a drab manner; you have to convince financiers that your plans and projections are worth investing inside. Make them feel excited about the partnership.

There are several steps you need to take to get financiers to fund your business. All the steps and tips you need to know about creating a winning pitch deck will be discussed in this article. The pitch deck is the tool you use to capture the interest of potential investors.

In this article, you will learn everything about pitch deck from its definition to insightful pitch deck examples you can learn from. You will also learn about what is included in a pitch deck presentation, the do’s and don'ts of pitch decks, and how to create a pitch deck in three simple ways.

Let’s get started.

A pitch deck is a concise presentation (in the form of slides) that business owners create to boost the growth of their establishments. It refers to a collection of slides to express an overview of business plans . The display gives clients a wrap-up of business plans, products and services, and operations.

Pitch deck, also known as investor pitch deck , helps prospective sponsors to learn more about your business. The presentation in slides makes it more fun, and the clients won't go through the stress of reading generic texts.

Many business owners or sales executives make the mistake of thinking that the primary goal of the pitch deck is to acquire finance. The primary goal is not to acquire finance but to intrigue them and make them fix a time for an official partnership meeting. Acquiring finance is the end goal.

Getting financing is not a one-step procedure. It involves a series of steps in which the pitch deck presentation is the first. Of course, you have to give valid reasons why the investors should entrust their money to your business.

The pitch deck presentation is an effective business communication tool for meetings with potential clients, sponsors, and investors . This way, you can have an audio-visual appointment, resulting in a better understanding of the motive with fewer talks.

You can either host your pitch deck presentations in a physical or virtual space. If you choose the virtual space, there are tons of conference call services and web and video conferencing platforms you can choose from. They include RingCentral, Zoom, Zoho Meeting, ClickMeeting, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and other RingCentral alternatives .

Slides are what help you convey the compelling story of your business to your clients or investors . You need to use slides to help you achieve the desired results. Software packages like PowerPoint, Visme, Keynote, Prezi can help you craft a convincing presentation.

To gain the attention of your target audience, you can design two different pitch decks . The first will contain more text. The second will concentrate on visuals. People are always attracted to visual information; this will enable them to focus more on what you have to offer.

What’s Included in a Pitch Deck Presentation?

The pitch deck is a conversion tool to get your business funded. However, the sad reality is that some companies can create a pitch deck presentation and still not get sponsors. Why?

For your pitch deck to have a high conversion rate, it must have the following qualities.

• Easy to implement

A good pitch deck must not have more than 19 slides. Apart from being a general rule of thumb for pitch deck presentations, having more than 19 slides can make your presentation boring and uneasy for investors to follow through.

However, there are good pitch deck presentations that have more than 19 slides. Ideally, you should work towards finding that sweet point slide length where you have enough space to drive interest in your idea and do not bore your audience.

The information in every slide must be compelling and contain no fluffs and fillers . Ensure the information is easy to act on when studied.

There are so many opinions on the internet and in the business world about what the ideal pitch deck must contain. Simply from looking at examples of successful startup pitch decks, it is easy to see patterns on what a successful pitch deck must absolutely contain.

Here are the 10 compulsory key slides that every business and organization should have in their pitch deck presentation , irrespective of their industry, target audience , or offer.

Let’s take a look at these 10 key slides in detail.

Slide 1: Introduction

The first slide of your pitch deck is the most crucial of all your slides . For a presentation to have a high conversion rate, there must be a brief intro at the beginning to hint at what the whole thing centers on.

This slide is a crucial one; it is what determines the state of mind of the client. Are they getting excited? Are they already fed up? Do they want to know more?

The introduction is your chance to give a great first impression. If you fail to do it right here, you can lose the investor. Prioritize making the first slide as powerful as possible. Many investors or financiers are impatient and use the first few slides to judge your business.

Ensure you keep the first slide or introduction slide short and sweet. It is the slide where you can tell people about who you are and the reason why you are here.

You can also use the introduction slide to communicate the value proposition of your business. Ideally, your value proposition should be a single phrase or sentence long.

Examples of the perfect business value proposition include:

“We Make Happy Meals for Infants.”

“The Smartest Way to Get Around” – Uber

“The Experience IS the Product” – Apple iPhone

“Be More Productive at Work with Less Effort” – Slack

When you use a good value proposition, your audience will be eager to listen to the rest of your presentation.

How to Make Your Introduction Catchy

• Make Your Introduction Simple, Short, and Engaging: The introduction slide is where you introduce yourself, your business, and the reason why you are talking to the audience. Don't say unnecessary things here because you will probably bore the reader and set a bad template for the rest of the presentation. Make sure your expressions are as simple as possible and avoid complex grammar. Of course, you won't have them look up the dictionary every minute to get your point. Make your tone conversational too.
• Briefly Talk about Your Business: Communicate what your business is about in simple sentences. Business owners feel they get sponsors interested by saying more than they should. The truth is that, at this stage, they want to get a glimpse of what you do. For instance, if you cook meals and deliver to the aged people, you can tell them, ‘We make meals and deliver fast to the aged in their homes.’ With that simple sentence, you have communicated that you can deliver meals as fast as possible to the aged (the ones that can't cook themselves) in homes.
• Propose the Value of Your Business. You can present your business with a high value by making a valid comparison with a popular company. For example, if you sell email marketing services for small businesses , you can make comparisons with established email marketing software services such as HubSpot, MailChimp, GetResponse, Convertkit, AWeber, and MailChimp alternatives .
• Provide Ways the Investors Can Reach Out. This vital point shows that you are anticipating a positive response after they go through the slides. Update your contact information, like your phone number and your email , so that investors can reach out and fix a meeting. If possible, give your phone number to build strong personal relationships.

At the end of your introduction, the audience should know:

• You and Your Business
• Your Mission
• Ways to Reach Out to You

Everything about your intro should be top-notch and quality. The texts should be well organized and clear, avoiding the use of complex grammars. If you have to introduce visuals at any point, it should be a high-resolution image. The logo of the company must be legible and presentable too.

Slide 2: The Problem

The purpose of meeting with your investors is to solve a problem that finance can solve. Why must a pitch deck have a problem slide?

Investors fund businesses because they see a problem and feel they can find a solution to it. Entrepreneurship, at large, is all about solving problems. It would help if you had your laid-out plans on dealing with the problem, and that is what you will display in your slides when meeting the sponsors.

If your super business idea does not solve any actual problem, your pitch deck presentation is going to be a huge disaster.

In the problem slide, you highlight the market's problems and the relevance of your solution to their welfare. You should do your market research to find out this problem or gap that your target audience faces and the market is not addressing.

A good problem slide will reflect two or three problems your audience faces that your product or service solves. It does this without being long and boring.

If your business idea does not solve the problem, then you should not source for funds yet. Financing can only work out when acted on good and yieldable plans. You should find a problem affecting your target audience, draft a strategy that can solve the problem, and make plans known to the financier.

A good problem slide will highlight numerous problems that your product can solve. Avoid being too verbose while explaining your offer. Ensure you keep your texts centered on the issues affecting your target audience. This way, the clients don't get confused while trying to understand your point.

The problem slide is to explain what, why, and how you and your team will achieve the results. The problem must be a pressing need that the market currently lacks the solution to draw their attention or an improvement on the existing solution.

For example, some older people can't run around the busy cities to get food to eat. Some are too old to get into the kitchen and prepare something to eat; others are even bedridden without any human help. As a catering establishment, that is a problem that you can identify and bring up ideas to solve.

One thing you should be very careful about is the length of the texts on each slide. Learn to convey your ideas with fewer words.

While introducing the problem slide, it is advisable to make your audience emotionally attached to your story. That emotional connection increases the flow from you, the speaker, to the audience. It makes the rest of the presentation relatable.

Ensure you do not let out the solution to the problem entirely in this slide. I will discuss that in the next slide.

Slide 3: The Solution

After going through the problem slide, there must be an agreement between you and your audience that there is a problem to solve. This slide is where you make known your solutions to the problem. Providing immediate solutions to the issue shows how prepared you are for the presentation.

While stating the solutions, explain the strategies you and your team will utilize in making the plan work. Convince them that their contribution will hasten the whole process and generate desired results with little time.

Try as much as possible to make your solutions realistic and achievable. If your solution is a concrete product, introduce it during the presentation, let them hold and feel it. Nothing drives home your point than a visible test or trial.

Make your solution slide as brief and straightforward as possible. Long texts bore readers, especially the ones you are trying to convince into buying your idea.

For instance, a solution to the scenario I painted in the previous slide is something like this: You are to convince the investors that delivering the food to them at their doorstep is one of the best ways to help. Tell them how you plan to partner with Uber and other logistic companies to provide the food as fast as possible when they make orders. Tell them how this can encourage longevity (by reducing the stress of running around to get food).

In this case, you highlighted a problem and provided an immediate solution. You are also able to show the importance of your offer to the target audience.

You can summarize your intentions in a sentence boldly written and identifiable . Then, you can go on with a detailed explanation (brief one).

A good way of convincing your clients to buy your idea is to provide numerous solutions to the problems. Pick the best option and state why you chose that option. It shows the client that you have done thorough market research, and you have the best solution to that problem.

Instead of hammering on the uniqueness of your solutions, describe the proficiency of what you have and why you believe it is the best thing to do. The truth is that almost all possible solutions to the problem have been heard before. What makes the difference is how you implement yours.

Avoid monopolizing the solutions you have. In essence, avoid the phrase ‘we are the only ones capable of doing this.’ The investors you are talking to have probably related with countless businesses before yours, which also offered similar solutions to the common problem.

Your goal is to show the unique steps in providing your solution and why yours is beyond normalcy.

Slide 4: The Market Size and Opportunity

The slide that comes after the solution slide is the market size slide. The market size of your establishment determines if you win the heart of your financiers. If the size of your market is small and there are no huge opportunities there, you will struggle to attract quality investors.

Many investors don't want to partner with small-scale businesses because they feel that their gain would be small and the risk too high for such a small return. The primary aim of getting funding from investors is to use their money to earn more. These potential investors want a business that can multiply their contributions 10x within a space of 6-7 years.

If the market size of your business is highly appreciable, it would interest investors to fund you. Do your research on the potential of market growth in your field and back it up with correct numbers where necessary.

A good market size slide will map out the market growth of the business over the years of operation. You can also hint at your business plans for the future and how you intend to achieve them.

Make your potential sponsors see the proficiency of your product . Like every human, investors are moved when there are testimonies to back up their plans and proposals. Show them how you have been able to grow your project over the years and how it has affected your market's growth.

A good market size slide will tell the investors that you are the person for the job. With a productive market size slide, you will show investors opportunities associated with the plans, the options you have made use of, and the ones you are utilizing at the moment.

If your business is a new one and you barely have data to create a market slide, it might be challenging to produce a reasonable market size slide; but there is a solution.

What you need to do is to study other businesses in your niche . Create analogies from their market and introduce your ideas alongside them.

An excellent example of a company that used this strategy is Uber. While creating a pitch deck, they illustrated the market size of their competitor, the taxi market. However, they introduced the service they wanted to render to the masses, which is slightly different from the ones in existence.

The strategy worked and Uber got investors which helped it with funds it used to become a worldwide brand. Today, Uber is dominating every other private establishment in the transportation sector.

Slide 5: The Product or Service

The product or service slide is where you show off the product you sell or the service you offer. This slide is similar to the solution slide.

In this slide, you take the extra step of talking about what will provide the solution to the foreseen problem. Some pitch decks combine the two (the solution and the product or service slide) in one or even talk about one and leave out the other to avoid repetition.

If it is a physical product, include beautiful and high-resolution images of your product in the slide. If it is a multi-functional product, you can upload different angles of the photos of your product, showing the functions.

For complex products that you can fully explain their function in a 3D display, you can highlight a cutaway view and explain the essential parts. If your product is an application or an online website with tools, you can add screenshots of the app's usage or the website. The screenshots can highlight the unique and outstanding features of the app.

For example, if your product is a website builder for small businesses like Wix and Squarespace , you can take screenshots of how it builds high-quality business websites.

If it is a domain registrar such as Bluehost, GoDaddy, SiteGround, and other Bluehost alternatives , you can repeat the same process as above. Take screenshots of how it provides quality web hosting services for users and include them in the product or service slide. These are brilliant examples of you showing what you have to offer.

Your presentation in this slide should show that your product is competitive enough to challenge the big leagues of your market. In essence, your slide should tell how your product works, how it looks, and the satisfaction attached to its use.

If it's a physical product, you can bring it to the presentation for the audience to feel it. For businesses that offer services, you can upload photos of your workers while at work. For instance, if you head a logistics company, you can upload photos of your riders making deliveries to your client's homes.

As an add-on, you can do a video of the Display the video on your slide. Don't make long videos; a maximum of 60 seconds length is okay. Remember that you are still trying to convince them to fund your business model.

Slide 6: Traction

Everything that has to do with financial investments needs assurance. Investors want to relax their minds that they are not losing their money to some random Ponzi scheme. One of the slides that help reinforce their confidence in your business model is the traction slide.

The traction slide is where you show the investors everything about the growth of your business over the years. It is also where you show evidence that your business will be more successful.

You would be dealing primarily with numbers in the traction slide . Let them know the number of sales you have made and how massive your profits have been on an annual basis.

Tell them about the minor and major goals you have achieved and the ones you plan to accomplish in the coming years. This information will convince the investors that they are on the right track . It will also help them decide to release their funds to be a part of the bigger picture.

Most business owners represent their numerical values on a chart. The chart enables them to display a lot with a small space. What they could have created a long table of numerous rows and columns for, can be done easily with a simple bar chart or histogram chart.

Clients can get a quicker grasp of the business or startup’s current achievements with charts as opposed to tables. Show the essential figures when creating the slide.

The traction slide is an important one to include in your pitch deck presentation. To the financiers, it reduces the doubts they have about your business. They want to see proof that your business is worth investing in . They want to see evidence that your business model canvas is highly profitable.

Be mindful of the texts on this slide, the use of numbers can be a trap to stuff your slide. Conciseness is vital irrespective of whatever you are presenting.

Investors and financiers want to see the assurance that they are getting a high return on investment.

Slide 7: The Team

The team slide is to introduce your team to the investors. A famous saying goes, ‘show me your friend, and I will tell you who you are' .

These financiers want to see the people you are working with. They want to know the drive of these people, their commitment, passion, and why they are essential to your business. The team slide builds confidence in your team members.

This slide will be a bit comprehensive because you will have to introduce each key member according to their roles. Under each member's identity, state the member's achievements, educational background, the quota he/she has contributed, the work experience, and the titles.

You can also explain why they are vital to your mission and business plans. Also, talk about their virtues and the positive effect on your business is essential.

Ensure the information about your team members is in short sentences. Don't elaborate unnecessarily. You are to attract your audience's attention, not tell them the life stories of people.

Keep the display cohesive, list according to the rankings from top to bottom. It makes the slide easy to comprehend. Highlight the specific thing (maybe the title) about a member in a conspicuous color.

Photos will make your slide enjoyable. Add the pictures of your members along with their descriptions. You can also categorize the illustrations based on department. It narrows down the search for a member on the slide.

If a client has to refer back to a member's description, he/she can go straight to the section the member is in, if they have been appropriately categorized. It will be better than running your eyes around a large screen looking for a name.

The descriptions on the slide should be limited to the core members only. Externals and advisors should be left out. The team slide can introduce a few things about the founders of the business and the common goals they share. Some financiers care to know how the whole thing started.

Slide 8: Competition

There is hardly a business without competitors or rivals. Whatever idea you have to solve a problem, other people also have that same idea to solve that same problem. Competition occurs when both businesses try to convince the same target audience to buy into their concept.

The competition slide is to show the clients who your current rivals in the game are. List all your competitors for the audience to know you have done good research on your part. Describe how good they are and what they don't handle well.

Tell them how the competitors have been performing over the years and why you are different from them. Inform them about what made your business grow so big to compete with your top rivals.

From your speculations, tell them your position in the market among your competitors. It can wow the clients and increase their interest in your business model.

You can top up the information on the slide with the things you offer that your competitors don't. It gives you an edge on winning the heart of potential investors. Even the features you commonly offer with your rivals; show them how uniquely you do yours and how it has influenced your business growth.

Avoid painting your rivals badly in any way. Do not use the opportunity to tell lies about your competitors. If your investors find out you are telling lies in your presentation, you have ruined any chance of acquiring the needed financial support.

Bringing your competitors down doesn't take you up, instead, it shows you as too ambitious to possible investors. You have to watch the tone you use in this slide. Avoid sounding condescending; it is imperative.

You can introduce unique graphs to compare the products of you and your competitors in your presentation.

Slide 9: Financials

The financial slide is one of the few slides clients spend most of their time on. You have to make the most of it to give them another reason to fund your business plans. The financial slide will include your financial projections, cash flow statements, balance sheet and income statement , and other important information.

Just like the traction slide shows everything you have acquired over the years, this slide shows your business' future growth plan. Use this slide to show them what your company should achieve in the next three years (unless asked otherwise) using your business plans.

Tell them about your financial projections, business models, operations, and others in detail. The past achievements are proof that they can partner with you. Use it to prepare their minds on what they are to expect from your business in the future

You should also make use of bar and pie charts, histograms, etc. here. It makes your expressions compact and defined. Don't just create charts with plain-colored arcs and bars. Make the charts colorful, it gives more meaning and beauty to the slide.

Colors make charts and pictorial representations easily understandable and conspicuous. Colorful charts make your presentation attractive, unlike a long spreadsheet full of figures and numerical signs.

The information you provide in this slide is changeable as you move on. It is almost impossible to accurately determine where the business will be in the next five years. But financiers expect you to map out a business plan and have what it takes to achieve what you have outlined. That is what the idea of pitch deck presentation is all about.

You can also share your plans on how you want to channel the distribution of money provided and how you intend to reach your target income goals.

The financial slide can hint the investors on the strength of your company and how long your relevance in the market will be. If you just started your company, you can skip this slide and include just the traction slide.

Be realistic with your information, don't cook up unrealistic things to impress the audience. You might not be able to hit the point you want to during the given time if you do not manage your time well. Being realistic will make you not far away from what you envisioned.

Slide 10: Investment and Use of Funds

The previous slides have been about you introducing your business as an entrepreneur. This slide is where you tell the financiers what you need from them.

You must make sure this slide answers the questions:

• How much do you need?
• How do you want to use the funds?
• What do you want to achieve with the funds?.

There are a lot of ways to go about this, however, not all are effective. A lot of entrepreneurs get it wrong on this slide. Don't just ask for a certain amount of money, state what you want to use the money. Highlight your financial plan for them to know what their money is funding.

When you back up your requests with valid reasons, it builds their trust and confidence in you. Also, they would take your plans more seriously.

Ensure you are specific with your requests; let your clients know exactly what you want. Don't waste time by going through corners, be direct. It gives the investors an impression that you have done your calculations and analysis very well. Also, it tells them that you didn't just come to call any amount of money because you feel you have convinced them.

Make your requests real. Don't ruin all you have planned by aiming higher than you need. Remember, they have heard your plans and projections. They can tell if you are trying to be over-demanding.

Most entrepreneurs with successful pitch decks used a pie chart or bar chart to state the distribution of money. This way, investors have an insight into the execution of funds.

Let the investors know your expectations when you are funded. Tell them the heights you will reach. They have to see if they are capable of adding more money in the future.

These are the essential slides you need in your pitch deck presentation. Some specific businesses might require extra slides to introduce new things . Ensure there is cohesion among your slides, that is, one slide should lead to the next.

The next section will expose you to the things you should do and the ones you should avoid when creating your slides or presenting the contents on the pitch deck.

Do’s and Don’ts of Pitch Decks

While trying to create a perfect pitch deck presentation, there are some things you have to embrace and other things you have to avoid.

Do’s When Presenting

1. engage your audience.

While passing your information, engage your clients with narratives to express the problem, your solution to it, and how you want to go about it. Tell them how your plans will affect them.

Don't just read out everything like you are reading an English comprehension passage in front of a class. Ensure you carry the audience along as you explain the information on each slide.

Engaging the audience will get them to focus on you and follow the presentation from the start to the end. Also, engagement builds interests. They get more interested when they understand every bit of what you say.

Imagine you have to read this article without having examples to buttress my point? It can be daunting and tiresome. Tell short related stories in between your presentation to keep the conversation alive.

2. Strike a Balance Between Elaboration and Conciseness

As important as your content is, so is the way you present it to your audience. The style of presentation had made some entrepreneurs lose out on significant investments , even when they had the best plans and business models in possession.

How do your slides appear when creating your presentation? Do you over-deliver or under-deliver? Do you give out more or less than you should?

You need to strike a balance between saying too much and explaining yourself better. Don't cite instances unnecessarily.

If you have expressed yourself well on a slide, move on to the next slide without wasting much time. However, if you feel a narrative will do better in communicating your points, make it short, cohesive and relevant.

Don'ts When Presenting

1. don't base your presentation on pure statistics.

A presentation full of statistics will look like an account officer reading the company's financial report to the managing director. Can you imagine how boring that is? Yes, it is tiring.

Back up every stat you provide with a coherent narrative. Don't just focus on the statistics hoping that you are amusing the investors with 6-7 figures on the chart. Of course, you are, but narratives and life examples make it better.

Many people believe that you only need to engage your audience on slide one during the introduction. The truth is that you need to engage throughout the presentation, from the intro to the conclusion.

Statistics are vital but are not the only significant feature of a pitch deck presentation.

2. Don't Stare At the Slides While Presenting

Staring at the slides while presenting is a bad posture and shows a lack of confidence. Ensure your presentation is a conversational one , don't just stay glued to the slides while presenting. It is an inappropriate posture or body language for someone trying to win the heart of a group of people.

While presenting, move your eyes from the slides to the audience and vice versa at regular intervals . Doing this ensures that you engage them as your pitch deck presentation runs. Turning every minute to read from the slides can reduce the tempo and also bore the listeners.

When you address them without staring at the slides, it builds your confidence and reassures the audience that you know what you are saying . Also, it can clear doubts of improper preparation beforehand.

These financiers can also read what is on the slides. The essence of the presentation is for you to engage them.

Do’s When Designing Your Slides

1. reduce the texts on each slide.

When creating a pitch deck presentation, it is not advisable to choke your slides with texts . Make sure you can pass across the necessary information with little texts. Use lots of visuals like pictures, charts, screenshots, and short clips, to explain your plans in detail . Remember, long texts bore readers.

Likewise, while designing, strike a balance between elaboration and conciseness. It will help you a lot in engaging your audience throughout the presentation.

Also, use large font sizes and visible colors on the palette. It reduces the texts on each slide and makes your work legible.

2. Use Bullets to Introduce Critical Points

An excellent way to avoid stuffing your audience with texts is by bulletin. Use bullets on your slides, it organizes your work.

Don't just pack paragraphs together on the slides to present. In slides where you have to list things for your audience, don't separate them with commas. Instead, separate them with bullets to reduce the texts and give your workspace.

Stuffy slides are complex for the audience to comprehend. Your presentation has a short time frame, you wouldn't want to spend the whole time reading out long and boring paragraphs to the audience.

Cut them short with bullet points and make your presentation more enjoyable for you and your audience.

3. Add Your Contact Info

Imagine you meet a long-lost friend, exchange pleasantries, and fix a date to meet again, but you do not exchange contact details. There is a high possibility that you might not see each other for a long time and that the meeting will not hold. It is the same scenario when you don't include your contact details in your presentation.

Ensure you add your contact information at the end of the presentation slides so that your clients can always reach out after that meeting. Some clients probably have to bother with questions after the presentation; they need your contact info to reach out.

Furthermore, you can add a photo of yourself before the contact information. It gives your business a ‘face' that financiers can look up to when they need certain information.

One last thing, whatever contact details you use in your pitch deck presentation must be available all the time. Investors can quickly lose interest when they can not get a response on time, considering that you have competitors.

Don’ts When Designing Your Slides

1. avoid adding too many team associates.

In the team slide, where you have to introduce your team, introduce only the core members. Adding too many members can fill up the whole screen and leave the audience perplexed.

As you introduce your business plans and various backup data supporting your business idea, investors also want to know the main person captaining the ship.

Too many team members can make the mistake one for the other, especially when you have to add photos of each member alongside its description. For precision, the core members should not be more than seven. Anything above that is excessive.

How to Create a Pitch Deck in 3 Simple Steps

Knowing what a pitch deck presentation should entail is not enough, you need to know how to put them together.

Creating a pitch deck is easy if you have the necessary tools and templates. You can use free or paid pitch deck presentation templates to get one done quickly.

Some websites offer to create pitch decks for users such as Visme . Your pitch deck will be ready in a few minutes. Save yourself the stress of creating slides from scratch, you can pick from the templates available on the application. These templates are ready-made to suit different interests.

If you don't want to use a pitch deck website tool, you can create your slides from scratch. It can take your time, but you are sure to have what you want.

Another option is to hire the services of a freelance graphic designer in the event you do not have the graphic design skills needed to design killer pitch deck presentation slides. You can find these freelance graphic designers on freelance job websites such as Upwork, Fiverr, Guru, and Freelancer.

Here are the three steps you need to create the best pitch deck that appeals to investors and financiers.

Step 1: Choose a Pitch Deck Template

Templates are ready-made copies that you can use instead of creating from your pitch deck from scratch. There are lots of Pitch deck tools such as Google Slides, Visme, Canva, and Slidebean that help users create and design pitch decks. These tools provide tons of useful templates for users.

The first thing you need to do is to pick a template from the hundreds at your disposal. Avoid picking a template because you like it, you have to look for the one that suits your business model and contents. That is why there are different templates for different types of businesses.

In some cases, you might not find a perfect template for your business. The next best thing you can do is pick the closest you can get and modify it.

If you are not using a pitch deck tool, you can create your pitch deck presentation slides from scratch . You can use any graphic design software or the simple Microsoft PowerPoint to create your pitch deck from scratch.

Step 2: Customize your Pitch Deck Story

When you choose the template that fits into your business model, you can edit and customize it for better results. The template you pick is probably not the exact thing you want; that's why the edit option is available.

Most pitch deck software has editing tools to help you reshape your template to your actual desire. These tools are so diverse that you probably won't use them all before creating something attractive.

You can change anything you want to fit your style. Some apps even have the drag-and-drop function to ease your editing. With these tools, someone without foreknowledge of editing or presentation can even create something beautiful.

You can change font sizes and styles, texts and background colors, images and themes, and motion style of slides. You can add bitmap images from external sources to make the boring texts lively to read.

Furthermore, you can add animations, links, short video clips, and many more to beautify each slide. You can add, remove, replace, or rearrange slides the way you want.

This whole process won't take up a lot of your time if you use the right tools. It is immensely beneficial for you to do everything necessary to put out a perfect body of work. The pitch deck layout contributes to your chances of securing the funds.

Step 3: Download and Share with Investors

After customizing your pitch deck to a perfect taste, you can download it to your device. You can even share it online across different media using a link.

Pitch deck applications offer you a wealth of format options for download. You can download your pitch deck as an image to display the slides, side by side. Also, you can download it as a PDF format, or better still, as a PowerPoint file.

Another thing you can do with the finished pitch deck is that you can create a private link to share the pitch deck with specific people via mail.

There is the option of uploading it on the web to be available for people on search results on Google and other search engines. You can also put the presentation on the company's official website for the core members to access.

Insightful Pitch Deck Examples You Can Learn From

The process of creating a good pitch deck can be tiring. You need the inspiration to help you escape that dreadful fear stage and hit the right entrepreneurial mindset . Will my pitch deck presentation be a success or a failure?

There is no better way to escape the imposter syndrome that every entrepreneur faces than to get inspiration from companies who had successful pitch deck presentations. What is better than reverse-engineering the pitch deck presentation that successful companies like Facebook, CoinBase, Square, Uber, and Airbnb used to attract investors?

Here are some insightful pitch deck examples you can learn from.

Amount Raised: $500,000

Buffer is one of those awesome pitch decks that although does not hold much visual appeal but still won the hearts of investors. How did they achieve this? They had the captivating numbers to capture the mind of financiers.

Amount Raised: Seed – $3,000,000

Cubeit is an app that helps users to get unique content from anywhere . The company developed a simple, short, and compelling story for a pitch deck presentation. The presentation got them about $3 million from clients, and that was how they got to where they are today.

3. Contently

Amount Raised: $9,000,000 | 2014

Contently is an American technology company that is based in New York City. They create software that helps companies and brands connect to freelance writers, videographers, editors, graphic designers, social media marketers, etc.

This widely-known company created a pitch deck to show investors what plans they have for the future. They got an amount of $9 million from financiers.

4. Frontapp

Amount Raised: $10,000,000 | 2016

Frontapp is a company that handles the communication channels of its users. They manage their social media accounts, live chats, SMS, email address, etc. They created a pitch deck and focused on the critical numbers that are crucial to the business at that point. The pitch deck generated a sum of $10 million, and the rest is history.

Amount Raised: $600,000 | 2009

Airbnb is a digital marketplace for people to discover places for different purposes. They can book these places through their mobile phones, tablets, computers, etc. It could be a suite for relaxation, a penthouse for vacation, or a room to spend the night.

The platform connects people across over 180 countries. Airbnb, as we know it today, was once a group of people with ideas and no funds. They tried a pitch deck and made over $500,000 from investors.

Amount Raised: 14 rounds – $11.5 bill

Uber is a global transportation company that conveys users from their current location to their choice of destination with the help of online orders. It has its headquarters in California, United States of America.

The online cab company has undoubtedly made transportation easy over the years of operation. Not many people could jump into traffic all day. Uber saw this and decided to make things easy. They made a pitch deck from the start and raised close to $12 billion. Today, Uber operates in over 600 cities in the world.

7. Crew (fromely Ooomf)

Amount Raised: $10,000,000 | 2015

Crew is another technology company that connects individuals and agencies with freelance designers, content creators, media accounts managers , etc. Crew has worked with big companies like Eventbrite, Tinder, Dropbox, etc.

Crew's founder used a simple but powerful pitch deck to communicate his ideas to the public. He didn't have to say too much, went straight to the point, and raised $10 million.

Amount Raised: Series D – $335,000,000

WeWork is an American company that is headquartered in New York City. The company provides workspaces for freelancers, entrepreneurs, small and large-scale businesses, enterprises , etc. It was founded in the year 2010.

They have been able to develop lots of workspaces and still want to build more. During the start, they created a pitch deck, showing the right things investors needed to see. Today, they are dominating their market.

Amount Raised: $30,000,000

Dwolla is an American e-commerce company that provides a medium for online payments and mobile payments. It was founded in 2008. Dwolla helps users to send and receive funds from each other. It is located in Iowa.

Despite the massive and tight competition in the online payment system world, Dwolla still holds its stance. They are not the most successful, but they could attract financiers to the online payments industry with captivating ideas. They raised about $30 million from investors.

10. The Daily Hundred

Amount Raised: $1,000,000

The Daily Hundred is an app that gives businesses the chance to compensate customers by encouraging product endorsements and micro-level brand advertisements. It produced this alluring pitch deck that not many investors could ignore.

This pitch deck covered everything about the business, from the past operations to the plans. They made $1 million from the presentation that year.

11. Mixpanel

Amount Raised: $65,000,000 | 2014

Mixpanel is an advanced platform available on the web and mobiles. They help businesses and enterprises grow by making them understand their users. Also, the company uses its products to track people's behavior.

They created their pitch deck by focusing the contents on incredible numbers. Mixpanel also showed investors the reasons why they are different from their competitors in the game. Note, they didn't shame their rivals; they only highlighted some differences between them in their favor.

12. LinkedIn

Amount Raised: $10,000,000 | 2004

Virtually everyone operating a mobile must have heard of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a networking app where people get business connections, seek jobs, recruit remote workers, and find clients .

This app also helps businesses to expand networks across countries. It was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in California. Over the years, users have been able to acquire knowledge and skills and even get business opportunities. LinkedIn was able to raise about $10 million from investors.

13. Foursquare

Amount Raised: $1,350,000 | 2009

Foursquare is a search-and-discover mobile app that satisfies user's quest to find visiting places . They provide personalized search results for users.

What the mobile application does is to recommend close places that you can see based on your current location. Also, they scan your browsing history data and orders to give you a clear choice. Interesting, isn't it? The operation is not an easy-to-explain one. For their pitch deck, they focused on explaining how the app renders its services.

14. Ad pushup

Amount Raised: Angel Round – $635,000

Ad pushup specializes in optimizing people's websites to increase the views rate and conversion rate of Ads. They also maximize the number of clicks without disturbing the visitors' user experience.

The company focused on the traction slide in their pitch deck presentation. This traction slide was peculiar to what they were introducing to their audience. They raised about $600k from financiers. You can impress your audience with great numbers.

15. WealthSimple

Amount Raised: Seed – $1,900,000

WealthSimple is a new kind of financial counselor that is brilliant, diplomatic, human, and affordable. They help users eliminate the guesswork from future investments. With this, users are on the right track financially.

The company also helps users achieve new financial goals. They are one of the premiers of digital financial advising . Also, WealthSimple has been able to explain the concept of the application to people (in a layman’s way) with the help of a pitch deck.

16. Manpacks

Manpacks is a digital service that delivers men's accessories, including grooming products, underwear , etc. These products are from popular brands like Gillette, PACT, Champion, Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton, etc.

The company was able to get some traction over the years due to its friendly customer service experience. This method won the hearts of many investors, and they raised $500,000.

17. Snapchat

Amount Raised: Series C – $50,000,000

Snapchat is everywhere today. Almost everyone has the Snapchat app on their mobile. The app allows users to make videos and pictures with different filters and themes. It operates as a social media application.

When Snapchat came, despite the social media apps dominating the market like Facebook and Twitter, Snapchat could still create its space from that world with its unique features. Snapchat proved its ability to dominate a part of social life by understanding the market. They raised $50 million from a pitch deck presentation.

Amount Raised: $120,000

Podozi is a beauty tech that helps users find the right beauty products for people of different colors . It is an online e-commerce platform based in Nigeria. The platform helps customers discover authentic and reliable beauty brands from all over the world. Also, customers enjoy new shopping experiences all the time.

During the pitch deck presentation, they acquired many photos of their target audience (women of color) to show them. It made it easy for the audience to understand their intentions in no time, and they got funded from different sources.

Podozi showed their target audience the working partnership they already had with big brands in their pitch deck presentation. It helped them attract funds from investors.

Amount Raised: Venture – $79,000,000

Linio is like a business directory. It is an e-commerce company that offers various products online, ranging from gadgets and electronics to personal accessories .

The company was founded in 2012 in Mexico. Today, they work in Venezuela, Peru, Colombia, etc. Linio connects online retail services to the South-American markets.

20. Kompyte

Kompyte is an intelligence website tool designed to reply to strategies used by its users' rivals . The tool aims to study the techniques that competitors use and quickly respond to them.

Using high-resolution photos, Kompyte explained the concept of their services smoothly and shortly. In this case, visuals did the most work here.

21. Launchrock

Amount Raised: $800,000

Launchrock is a digital platform that allows users to create advertisement pages for their products and services with special tools . It helps its users compensate other people for advertising their products through different social media networks and email.

It was launched in 2011 in Philadelphia, United States of America. Launchrock used a short and straightforward pitch deck for its fundraising activities.

Amount Raised: Angel Round – $270,000

Castle helps landlords and landladies to manage their rental homes. It finds tenants, secures the rent dues, and oversees the affairs of the houses, helping reduce the burdens of property owners. The software was able to develop a solution that is quite different from what is dominating the market over the years. It enabled them to seize the attention of the audience right from the pitch deck presentation.

23. Intercom

Amount Raised: $600,000

Intercom is an American software company that provides a messaging channel for business. It is a platform that makes it easier for businesses to communicate with their new and existing customers personally.

You can use the platform to communicate through different social media accounts and email addresses. This famous company did not start big, the owners could craft a top-notch pitch deck that assisted the fundraising.

Amount Raised: $20,000,000

Pendo is a company that provides a digital platform for businesses and organizations to upgrade the product usage experience .

With this platform, companies can track customers' reviews and impressions, get feedback and provide solutions to their problems, all within one application.

Pendo created a pitch deck and raised $20 million! The pitch deck painted a future that is unavoidable for everyone and provided the necessary solution to the problems in the market.

Amount Raised: $4,230,000 till date – deck used to raise $200,000

Mandaê is a mobile app that helps Brazilians ship their goods. The company collaborates with postal services and other exclusive transporters that are not available for everybody (an add-on for Brazilians).

They created a powerful pitch deck that introduced the perfect solutions to inevitable problems, a strong team ready to solve the issues, and great numbers to back up their plans. They raised about $200,000 from prospective investors and materialized the beautiful plans they had.

26. Gaia Design

Amount Raised: $2,850,000

Gaia Design, a Mexican online store, sells beautiful furniture and home accessories at considerable prices . They make quality products that are available for every Mexican household.

The pitch deck might seem challenging to understand due to language barriers, but you can learn a lot from the pitch deck layout. Gaia Design was able to categorize the information into slides without stuffing each of them. Their target audience understood the messages, and they got funded with above $2.6 million.

Startup Pitch Decks FAQ

The length of your pitch deck presentation is one question that business owners regularly ask. There is no rule guiding the size. But with the wealth of past experiences available on the internet, it is advisable to make your pitch deck as short as possible.  The minimum number of slides you should have is 10, while the maximum number is 20. You can exceed the maximum of 20 but it has to be because it is worth it.  Depending on the type of business you operate, the number of slides you want to use for your pitch deck will vary from another. Business owners with the assistant of professionals determine what each slide contains. Ideally, the pitch deck should be as brief as possible to avoid unnecessary information. Although you want to maintain a few slides on your pitch deck, you must be very careful not to stuff each slide with contents. If 13 slides can explain everything about your business without stuffing the slides, go ahead to use 13. You don't need to shrink the number of slides at the expense of the overall organization. Also, irrespective of the number of slides you have, your presentation should not be more than 18-20 minutes. It would be best if you did everything needed within that time frame. If the audience wants you to stretch it, then it is okay.

What makes an effective pitch deck are a compelling story, conciseness, conversational tone, and engaging slides.  You must be brief with the contents of the slides and the presentation. Your aim for a pitch deck presentation is to introduce your business models and projections to financiers and get them interested in funding your ideas. Avoid boring them with information that is not needed at the moment. While presenting, you must be able to tell a convincing narrative. It is what determines if the audience will yield to your requests. Your ultimate goal is to convince your audience to fund your business . You do this by showing them all the benefits associated with it. It makes the difference between you and other entrepreneurs. Your tone while addressing the audience should be conversational. Don't read out the contents on the slide like someone reading out a novel. Remember, you are trying to convince people. You must carry them along while explaining what you have on the slides. Keep your slides engaging, one slide must link to the next. It makes your presentation organized and understandable.

The cost of buying a pitch deck depends on the professional approach. The prices of different pitch deck templates vary depending on the quality.  Hiring a designer to build a pitch deck for you will also cost you some money. The more experienced the designer, the more it will cost. You can opt to build a pitch deck yourself using free or paid pitch deck templates from websites such as Visme, it is fast and cheap that way. However, it might not be as perfect as what a professional graphic designer will create. Before buying a pitch deck, do your research first. Compare the range of prices from different individuals and agencies.  According to SlideGenuis , the cost of a pitch deck can be split into three categories: the low-end pitch deck, mid-range presentation design, and the upper-end presentation services. The low-end pitch deck costs between $1,000 to $3,000 and is suitable for those who want to revamp their existing pitch deck or create from scratch at a cheap price. At this price range, you can expect to get the bare quality.  The mid-range presentation design costs between $3,000 to $10,000 and the upper end presentation services cost $10,000 to $50,000. There is a huge difference between these two categories, the upper-end presentation services give you better appeal and a more refined corporate identity. Although you can hire freelancer designs from Upwork and Fiverr at a much lower price, you will hardly find pitch deck experts but just designers who can do a good job. Since your pitch deck is not just any design but one that has the potential to bring lots of capital for your business, investing in quality pitch deck services is worth it.

The financials in your pitch deck should include your present performances, plans, and projections. You can employ the use of bar and pie charts, histograms, tables, and other charts in a slide.  Your pitch deck should show the predictable monthly or annual gross and net profits. Show financials where the models you are proposing worked out as planned. Also, you can include your cash flow statement and financial projections.

Ready to Communicate Your Business Idea in Your Pitch Deck?

The pitch deck presentation is one of the best ways to introduce your business plans to potential investors. Over the years, many startups have used pitch decks to get funds from financiers for their businesses.

Many of these companies have grown to become giants in their fields. They are hardly recognizable from the companies that they were when they presented the pitch deck. Some good examples are Facebook, Square, Uber, WeWork, Airbnb, and Snapchat.

After reading this article, you are just about set to communicate your business idea into a pitch deck. The only factor delaying that is your action.

Perhaps you have tried communicating your business idea in your pitch deck with little success before. With the advantage of knowing the do’s, don’ts, and best practices of a pitch deck, what is included in the pitch deck, and insightful examples you can get inspiration from, you stand a better chance of securing the funding you need.

A pitch deck is a vital tool for getting funding from investors. How you create a pitch deck, the designs you use are just as important as the message you want to convey. Use high-quality and professional pitch deck designs even if it is going to cost you more.

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Martin luenendonk.

Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.

This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.

16 Powerful Pitch Deck Examples to Inspire your Startup

Comes with built-in workflows that create focus and routine.

When it comes to pitch decks, variety is the spice of life. There are many ways to create a successful startup pitch deck that convinces potential investors, partners, or customers to engage with your business. It all depends on the story of how and what problem your business plan solves and why someone should invest in you. No matter your choice, keep it engaging, visual, concise, and to the point. 

Here you will find the best variety to help you craft your pitch deck.

Powerful Pitch Deck Examples to Inspire your Startup 

Currently, staying ahead in the startup race is paramount. Launching a business requires strategic execution and startup pitch decks examples and templates can be a convenient starting point and beneficial guide. Successful pitches lead to funding, partnerships, new customers, and growth opportunities. 

Startups can effectively communicate their vision and strategy with a well-crafted pitch deck. This increases their chances of securing investment.

Key Elements of a Successful Pitch Deck

A successful pitch deck needs to be professional, well-designed, comprehensive, engaging, and straightforward. All pitch decks should include the following elements:

Problem and solution slides

Open your deck with a problem slide, which is the basis of your presentation and the whole justification for your business. Use bullet points and a relatable, easy-to-follow narrative to engage your audience, including potential investors. 

Follow the problem slide by presenting the solution. Expand on what makes your solution unique, existing industry solutions, and specific gaps that your business will fill.  Intercom’s solution slide is a great example of showcasing the selling proposition (USP) in the SaaS market through easy, self-explanatory bullet points.

Market opportunity and validation slides

Your market opportunity and validation slides should prove to potential investors that your product or service will be purchased. Include basic information about your target market, their purchasing power, and their habits in your industry. 

For instance, LinkedIn’s market validation slide has clear data from top competitors and breaks down barriers to growth and revenue for these competitors. It shows potential investors how their company would improve on those models.

Business model and financial projections

Business model slides cover how your startup will run and launch its product or service for sustainable growth. To better support this, compare your startup to other businesses or use internal data of your product, if available. 

In your financial model slide, clearly show how your product or service will create revenue and any plans to guarantee a steady income. If you offer a subscription-based service with premium features, explain these models.

Team and traction

Team slides introduce the members and brains behind your startup. Include the information about founders, leadership, and top existing investors. Add anything that showcases your experience and will generate confidence in your ability to launch this startup.

Contently’s team slide, though extensive, covers top employees, proprietary technology, advisors, and the amount raised so far. This is all relevant information to potential investors. This shows them, along their financial model slide, that their investment will be used wisely and profit will be made. Check the pitch here .

In your traction slide, show how your business currently performing. Include current sales, growth, valuable partnerships, endorsements, pre-orders, or data from a pilot study outlining current consumer interest.

Competitive landscape

Include a slide that  gives context to potential investors about your competition. Include information about revenue data, what competitors do well and what they do not, and how your startup bridges product gaps.

16 Inspiring Pitch Deck Examples

Check the following 16 startup pitch deck examples to inspire yourself to create your own.  These are among the best pitch decks ever! Many other 

Airbnb pitch deck is one of the most searched references. It raised a $500K Angel Round in investor funding. It is a classic 10-slide investor deck template. The takeaways are its focus on the company's unique value proposition and growth potential. Check the pitch here .

The Uber pitch deck is 25 slides. You learn how this company solves key issues with traditional cabs. The information is given in chunks on multiple slides to avoid overwhelming their audience. This great pitch deck emphasizes the importance of believing in your product.

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s co-founder and chairman, released his series B pitch deck with advice for other entrepreneurs on how to build it. This pitch raised $10 million. Check the pitch here . 

Sequoia Capital

Sequoia Capital is renowned for its investment reputation. In this pitch deck template, every slide has a purpose. The highlights are the ideas, the clarity of their thinking, and the scope of ambition.

The original Facebook pitch deck included a value proposition, key metrics, and online marketing services.  Their first pitch deck used a quote from the Stanford Daily student newspaper that evidenced the product was already gaining media coverage and being used in its initial market. Check the pitch here .

Intercom’s pitch presentation exemplifies how to communicate your business vision, product strategy, and growth prospects to potential investors. In their market strategy, their target audience was stated clearly: SaaS providers. This first pitch deck raised $600K. Check the pitch here .

In the Buffer pitch deck, the traction slide is the focal point. It was the critical one for ensuring funding. In it, the problem, the solution, and the numbers on the current status of the company were given. This is the competitive advantage of this deck.

Mattermark pitch led to its $6.5 million series-A funding in 2014. To present the problem, a flowing arrow diagram to visualize the outcome was used. The use of different types of graphs is what makes this a great pitch deck.  

Moz’s pitch deck explains this company’s business model very well for non-SEO savvy investors. At that time, Moz was novel for stating the unexploited potential of organic marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). Check the pitch here .

Mint’s competitor slides are the centerpiece of this pitch deck. They show current competitors along with future projections for these competitors. Competitors are used as an inspiration in their defensive strategy.   

Youtube’s pitch deck was used in 2005. It was a straightforward 10-slide pitch deck to go up in front of Sequoia Capital for fundraising. The company raised $3.5M in Series A that year.

Snapchat’s pitch raised $50 million in 2013.  The press slide had strong social proof, which at that time was very innovative. Check the pitch here .

The original Tinder pitch presentation raised $50 million in its seed stage in 2016. The deck explained how the app connected single people in proximity to one another, but only allowed messaging when both parties mutually liked one another’s profile. It even included a plan for monetizing the app, with in-app purchases to access more than the first few free matches.

The Foursquare pitch deck focused on the pain point of local search and why this company was the solution. It was explicitly stated that no competitors were explicitly focused on the consumer problem Foursquare was solving. This is what makes it so effective. 

Front’s pitch deck raised $65 million. It is an 11-slide-deck that opens with a mic drop. Shopify, Airbnb, and Hulu rely on Front to scale customer communication. 

The WeWork pitch deck raised $42.8 million in 2014. It was created to convince investors and users of the opportunity in the coworking space. The pitch presentation highlighted their market leadership in the industry.

Best Practices for Creating your Pitch Deck

Here are some best practices for creating your pitch deck:

• Make your pitch deck template design-forward. Less is more. To save time and resources, you can use an AI deck creator such as Typeset which will format your slides for you. 
• Tell your story. Include the most important information on your slides such as the problem you are solving, your solution, your business model, and your team. Include milestones, if any available. Be comprehensive but also provide a narrative that is easy to follow—and remember. Good storytelling goes a long way in making your company stand out to potential investors. 
• Highlight your market strategy and opportunity. 
• Keep your startup pitch deck as exciting as possible. To do so, break down the information and add illustrations and block quotes.

Tools and Resources for Pitch Deck Creation

There are many tools and templates available for creating your pitch deck. Many of these platforms will provide a pitch deck template to help you get started. 

AI slide deck creators, like Typeset, are a great solution if you lack the design expertise or time to create a deck in Google Slides, Canva, or PowerPoint. 

These tools, depending on your level of design abilities, are also a good place to create your deck. 

Figma, Adobe Illustrator, and InDesign are also a good design option for those who have a higher level of design experience.

Pitch Deck FAQs

What is a pitch deck.

A pitch deck is a short presentation to attract potential investors for your startup business plan. Pitch decks are also known as marketing decks or startup pitch decks.

What should be included in a pitch deck?

A typical startup pitch deck template includes the following slides:

• Market validation
• Market size
• Business model
• Market adoption
• Competition
• Testimonials
• Financial model

Depending on your needs, you may skip or expand on these slides.

How can Typeset help in creating a pitch deck?

Typeset’s AI-powered presentation tool simplifies the creation of pitch decks by providing one-click intuitive formatting, consistent global themes, and adaptable content layouts. You can easily create and embed charts and personalize presentations to suit various scenarios, all by just typing your ideas and letting the AI handle the design.

Are there any pitch deck templates available in Typeset?

Yes, Typeset offers a variety of pitch deck templates that you can customize to fit your business needs. These templates are designed to help you create a professional and cohesive presentation quickly and easily.

Can I personalize my pitch deck for different audiences using Typeset?

Absolutely. Typeset allows you to personalize presentations for any scenario, whether it's an onboarding presentation, training session, sales pitch deck, or board meeting update. Just type your ideas, and the AI slide tool will handle the design and formatting to suit your audience.

Is there a learning curve for using Typeset’s AI-powered presentation tool?

Typeset is designed to be user-friendly , allowing you to start typing your content and let the AI handle the design. This makes it easy for anyone, regardless of design expertise, to create professional-looking presentations.

Discover how seamless and impactful your presentations can be with Typeset. Start creating your pitch deck today and get immediate results. Click here to start designing

Read more information from Typeset about new products and features, case studies, and the benefits of using an AI design engine to generate better content faster.

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If you are looking for other options, including the leading AI design tools, this article will review the best alternatives to Canva. Many of these offer better functionality in some aspects that could provide a better, more effective design solution.

There are many ways to create a successful startup pitch deck that convinces potential investors, partners, or customers to engage with your business.

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How to Create a Pitch Deck for Investors [Templates + Design Tips]

Written by: Masooma Memon

A pitch deck is a presentation that entrepreneurs and startups founders use to highlight their business, intrigue investors and potentially raise funding to grow their company.

Because it plays a useful role in telling effective visual stories, you can’t undermine the role a solid pitch deck plays in convincing investors.

But the question is: how do you create a pitch deck that actually wins investors?

Let’s answer that for you in this piece. We’ll look at:

• What a pitch deck is and why you need one
• What slides to include in your pitch deck and what documents to bundle it with
• The secrets to creating a winning investor presentation including design tips to follow

Let’s jump in.

Here's a short selection of 8 easy-to-edit investor pitch deck slides you can edit, share and download with Visme. View more below:

If you're ready to create your pitch deck, head over to our presentation software and put together a powerful investor deck in minutes. Use ready-to-go templates inspired from real-life startups, add your branding and more.

Table of Contents

What is a pitch deck, slides your pitch deck should include, important documents to include with your pitch, pitch deck best practices & design tips.

First, a quick recap: a pitch deck — aka an investor or startup pitch deck — is a presentation that you create to give investors a quick overview of your business and its growth potential.

Think of it as the vehicle that transports your business idea’s value proposition and potential from your mind to your audience’s minds.

The aim? To make it to the next meeting, secure funding, get someone to join your team or anything else depending on who you’re presenting to.

You can create a pitch deck using any presentation software. But if you want your pitch deck to stand out, you need to make sure it doesn't look like any other PowerPoint presentation.

When Do You Need a Pitch Deck?

You need a pitch deck whenever you need to pitch your business to anyone.

This could be anyone from a venture capitalist to someone you think will make a great co-founder. It could also be the astute-looking panel of judges in a startup pitching competition.

Whoever you’re presenting to, you need a pitch deck to succinctly and powerfully convey your ideas and request.

Sure, you can also explain your idea verbally. But that’s an ineffective way of presenting your business idea considering you could either underdeliver or overdeliver the needed information.

A pitch deck lets you use visuals like images, graphics, screenshots and videos that help convey your message better and leave a lasting impact in the minds of your audience.

For example, you can share your financial projections and showcase your mobile app more effectively with a pitch deck presentation than verbally or without visual aids.

With that, let's look at what to include in an effective pitch deck.

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The key to a successful pitch deck is to make sure you cover your basics and include all the slides your investors want to see.

Typically, good pitch decks include anywhere around 10 slides. This isn’t a set-in-stone rule though, and you can go above or below this number depending on the slides you need.

Or, you can experiment with an infographic-style pitch deck — similar to Piccsy’s infographic pitch deck .

But, a general rule of thumb is to keep your presentation deck short.

The reason? When you're fighting for your audience’s attention, a 30-slide long presentation never helps. In contrast, a short and powerful presentation is always a winner.

That said, here’s a brief pitch deck outline of the important slides you need.

The title is the first slide that shows in your pitch deck. So, you can call it your impression-building slide that sets the scene for your business ideas.

Pay attention to the visual elements (colors, fonts and any images) since they set the overall mood — more on this in a bit.

Also, it’s best to be minimal here. Meaning: your name and your business’s name are enough. You can also add a short and snappy tagline if you have one.

2. Introduction

The introduction slide is where you introduce yourself to build credibility. The shorter the intro, the better since you want to focus on the business idea, not yourself.

You can also use this slide to communicate your unique selling point (USP) or value proposition, like in the example above. Or, describe what your business is and what it does quickly.

Up till now, the title and intro slides were a mere formality. The problem slide, however, is where you start building your story.

Use whatever visual cues you need to showcase your problem in the best possible way. You can start with a story that puts your investors in your customers' shoes, like in the example below:

You’ll want to make sure you communicate your target buyer’s problem effectively. Fail here and it’s likely you won’t be able to convince your audience of your product’s need.

Also, you can always start your presentation with the problem and skip the introduction. There are no hard and fast rules — use whatever works to get investors’ attention and make your case.

4. Solution

Once you've presented the problem, it's time to follow up with a viable solution — your service or product.

You can introduce the solution in any number of ways — share your product MVP or a list of the features you offer; whatever makes a convincing case.

If it makes sense, throw in another slide here that shares product features.

But, in your presentation, focus more on the benefits each feature offers instead of the feature itself. Approach this slide in a way that it relates to the problem stated and shows how your business idea can solve it instead of just promoting your product.

That said, it’s best you don’t present a laundry list of features. Keep them to the top 3-4 features of your product or service.

The human brain can only hold seven — give or take two — things in their working memory at a time.

So focusing on a handful of features is your best bet to ensure your audience doesn’t forget your business idea.

Put simply, remember: less is more.

You can also combine your problem and solution slides and present all the information in one slide — this can help your audience connect the dots and see how your solution fits into context.

5. Market Size, Opportunity and Trends

Sure, there’s an itch that your product can scratch. But is it an itch worth scratching?

Put another way: is there a market for those interested in scratching the itch? Answer that in this slide.

You can show the market size with the help of numbers, or use data visualization like a pie chart or bar graph to make your point.

Another way to go about this slide is to focus on the market trends and why it's the right time for your business to come into the picture. You can show this with the help of a timeline that visualizes the evolution of consumer behavior, for example.

The point is, showcase the need for your product. But instead of plainly sharing your findings or numbers, use visual aids like graphs, bar charts, surveys and more to make your point.

Visuals present data in a visually appealing format, therefore, making it easy to understand and digest.

6. Product Comparison

If your product has competitors, you’ll want to pull up a product comparison slide to make a visually engaging case for how your product compares to others.

This way, you won’t lose your audience’s attention while effectively positioning your product as the hero the market needs.

SaaS businesses find product comparison slides especially useful for comparing features and pricing. But you can also use product comparisons for other businesses, such as real estate.

7. Testimonials

Adding customer testimonials brings social proof to the table — a great way to impress your audience, increase trust and further build on the need for your product or service.

Don’t have anyone saying nice words about your product (yet)? No problem.

You can still use this slide to feature complaining customer reviews on your competitors. Make sure the reviews you curate all point out to the same problem that your product will help solve.

If you already have more than one person involved in your company at this point, you’ll also need a slide that introduces your team.

Your team slide can also show potential investors, or folks you’re convincing to join you and the brilliant minds who are working with you on your idea as advisors.

9. Traction

In this slide, show investors what you have achieved till now. If you already have a growing user base, you can visually show it with the help of a line graph.

If you don't have any traction at this point, don't worry about this slide. Focus on highlighting your business idea and its potential as much as you can.

10. Financials

This slide features your business idea’s financial projections. You can present this in the form of a table, or use data visualization to make the information easier to digest.

In this slide, include data on how you’ll charge people, how you concluded that’d pay the amount and how the plan will help you hit your financial milestones.

11. Sales & Marketing Strategy

Interested investors will also want to know the plan you have to reach the goals and financial projections you’ve highlighted — this is where your sales and marketing strategy comes in.

To this end, use a flowchart, a graphic list of steps, timeline or any other visual to summarize your sales and marketing plan. You can also use bullets with icons to showcase key tactics.

12. Call-to-Action

Finally, you’ll need a slide that makes the ask.

You don’t need anything fancy here. If you’ve told a compelling story, your audience will be happy to get in touch, splash out money or take whatever step you want them to.

Don’t forget to add your contact details to this slide.

With what to add to your presentation deck out of the way, let’s look at the documents you need with it to make a strong and compelling case:

1. Cover Letter

Your cover letter shares a 1-2-page long persuasive story that sets the stage for your business idea.

Think of it as an icebreaker that convinces investors or anyone else who is your target audience to view your business idea.

Here's a cover letter template you can use for your own investor pitch:

If you're looking for cover letter designs, head over to our template library and check out our full collection of cover letter templates to find one you like.

2. Elevator Pitch Statement

All of us know the always-wanted-but-much-dreaded one-page pitch that summarizes a business idea.

Essentially, an elevator statement shouldn’t read longer than 20-30 seconds — the time it takes to ride an elevator.

And, to ensure you win your audience’s attention, be sure to make this pitch memorable, to the point and interesting.

3. Business Plan

A business plan includes the A to Z of how you plan to put your business on its feet.

Meaning: you need a detailed marketing plan, sales strategy, competitors analysis, financial plan, risk analysis — just about anything you’ll do when you win funds.

Here's a business plan template you can use to get a head start:

Looking for more templates and design options? Check out our complete collection of business plan templates — fully designed and ready-to-go.

4. Financial Report

If the finances blueprint in your business plan isn’t in-depth enough, you’ll need a separate model.

The plan? Thoroughly explain how you’ll use the investment. And, how you plan to generate profits while factoring in market trends, customer pocket and economic drivers among other things.

Here's a financial report template you can use:

If you’re in a later stage of your startup, provide an up-to-date look at your metrics including an outline of how you’ve used up finances so far.

Providing a data-driven model like this shows you’re well-positioned to responsibly use investors’ money and drive profits.

The slides above are a must-have for a successful pitch deck. But to take your presentation to the next level, there are some best practices and design tips you should keep in mind.

Let's get into the meat and potatoes of how to create a pitch deck so that you have a winner at your hands:

1. Leverage storytelling techniques

Good stories stick.

They’re persuasive.

And, they tug at your audience’s emotions to encourage them to decide in your favor — yes, we make decisions mostly based on emotions with some logic backing it.

Try any of these storytelling formulas for your presentation:

The before-after-bridge formula.

Start with describing a world with a specific problem (before). Go on to share a world without the problem (after). Now, introduce your business idea (the bridge).

The PAS formula.

This stands for Problem, Agitate and Solution.

And it goes like this: describe a problem (read: your target buyer’s problem), develop the problem and offer a solution to it (your product or service).

TED talk presenter Nancy Duarte’s formula for great talks.

It involves zooming back and forth between what is (the status quo) and what could be (the future that could be). Then, pack in the climax with your business idea (the bliss).

Whichever storytelling framework you work with, make sure you structure your presentation well for a smooth flow.

Here's a video to help you learn more about presentation structures:

2. Focus on Benefits, Not Features

The more you emphasize the benefits of your business idea, the more effective your pitch will be.

Back in 2007, Dropbox succeeded at raising $1.7 billion in funding . It also got backing from investors like JP Morgan.

And how did they do it? By focusing on the benefits of their idea. To this end, they talked about revolutionizing how people store and share data.

So you know what to do, right? Delve into the benefits; how your product will make its customers’ life easy.

3. Show, Don’t Tell

Whenever possible, give people reasons to invest in your idea by showing how it works.

Take a look at Tinder's pitch deck example :

Tinder earned $50 million + in funding in just three rounds with this deck.

How? By showing what their business idea will do.

They start with a relatable story. Then they ‘show’ the solution by featuring their app in their presentation.

You can steal this idea too. Use wireframes, a minimum viable product, even mockup screenshots — anything that helps people visualize the solution you’re offering.

And in case you’re wondering why this works, know that by showing, you’re tapping into your audience’s imagination to get them to say yes. This is the same reason why storytelling is so effective in persuading people .

4. Make Your Pitch Deck Look Professional

Using a DIY design tool like Visme can help with this even if your designing chops aren't all that polished. It will make your pitch deck look different from other presentations that look more or less the same when designed in PowerPoint.

Company Pitch Deck

Housing Pitch Deck

App Pitch Deck

Retail Store Pitch Deck

Product Pitch Deck

Adventure Pitch Deck

Create your pitch deck View more templates

To top that, you can use presentation templates to save your time. Because, realistically speaking, you only need to customize the template to your needs. With our Dynamic Fields feature , you can automatically capture key information like personal and company information across your slides.

Even as you use an amazing tool to create your presentation, keep the following presentation design tips in mind:

Don’t clutter your slides.

We’ve already said this before: use as few slides as you can.

But while you’re at it, make sure each slide is minimally designed to leave a lasting impression.

Because, here’s the thing: clutter fails to grasp your audience’s attention. And, the last thing you want is an investor scratching their head, trying to breathe sense into the mess that your slides are.

To create breathable, clutter-free slides: use only visuals that you need — no unnecessary icons or graphics.

Make sure every design element earns its keep by serving a purpose.

Use legible fonts.

Steer clear of a font that demands your audience to squint to read your message.

Instead, work with easily readable presentation fonts like Verdana, Georgia, Montserrat and more.

Make sure the font size is no less than 24 points.

Lastly, stick with 2-3 fonts at most. More fonts will only create distractions and undermine your design’s cleanliness.

Work with good color contrasts.

It’s best to work on your business’s brand identity as early as you can.

The reason? It helps you leave a memorable impression on your audience.

If you’re in the very early stages of pitching your idea though, you might not be focused on it until you get investment rolling. In which case, we recommend you take the time to carefully choose colors for your presentation.

Essentially, colors leave a psychological impact on your viewers. For instance, red communicates passion. Blue inspires trust. Yellow stands for optimism and so on.

This means you can’t randomly play with any color for your presentation slides.

To increase your odds of leaving a lasting impression, study color psychology before finalizing your deck’s color scheme.

Also, make sure you work with a color contrast that’s legible. This ensures the deck is easy to understand.

5. Craft Compelling Pitch Deck Copy

With your design nailed, work on your copy.

The aim is simple: keep your copy simple, succinct and to the point.

A presentation deck is no place to be wordy. Instead, limit to 6-8 lines per slide — roughly 30 words per slide.

You can also try the 5 x 5 x 5 rule of writing presentation copy:

• 5 lines of text per slide with
• 5 words per line and placing only
• 5 lines of text-heavy slides in a row

Or, you can experiment with the 2/4/8 rule that says:

• Change to a new slide after every 2 minutes with
• 4 bullet points per slide and no more than
• 8 words per bullet point

No matter which method you choose to write your presentation copy, the core is the same: limit your text.

To do so, start with writing your copy without worrying about word count. Then go on to edit ruthlessly. Prune words that are too technical or contribute fluff.

Get rid of jargon too — use simple words instead so your audience doesn’t have to stress to keep up with your message.

Plus, avoid abbreviations and rewrite sentences to shorten them.

6. Practice Your Presentation Delivery

Lastly, it’s important you present with confidence. This is key to hitting your funding goals.

Make sure you practice everything — what you’ll say, how you’ll say it (your tone) and how you’ll time your speech and the slides.

You’ll also want to practice speaking at a steady pace. If you go too slow, you risk boring your audience.

On the flip side, going too fast, a common presentation mistake , often means you won’t be able to drive home your message.

And, as you practice: get rid of the ‘umms’ and ‘ahs.’ Keep your presentation delivery natural, even conversational. But never read off from your presentation — it’s a huge audience turn-off .

Not to mention, try to maintain eye contact (despite the fact that it can be overwhelming). Having a hard time doing that? Look at your crowd’s foreheads.

Create a Pitch Deck That Wins Over Investors

And that’s all folks. We’re hopeful you’re feeling confident about how to create a pitch deck.

Remember: it’s all about your target buyers and how your business can help them.

So, focus on the benefits and the problem your product will solve. Tell a relatable story around it. And finally, present it with confidence.

Don’t forget to create a visually convincing presentation deck. If you want a head start, sign up for Visme and start creating an attention-grabbing investor pitch deck now.

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About the Author

Masooma Memon is a pizza-loving freelance writer by day and a novel nerd by night. She crafts research-backed, actionable blog posts for SaaS and marketing brands who aim to employ quality content to educate and engage with their audience.

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The Entrepreneur's Arsenal: Pitch Deck vs. Business Plan

Learn the differences between a business plan and a pitch deck and when to use each one. Discover the pros and cons of both and how to create a winning pitch deck or compelling business plan.

November 20, 2023

Pitch deck vs. business plan: which one do you need for your business, and when? As a businessman or entrepreneur, do you sometimes wonder why your potential investors aren't responding after you've sent them a long and detailed business plan or a catchy pitch deck? This could be due to the minimal information provided in the pitch deck or the lengthy, boring, and irrelevant details in the business plan that repelled them from reaching back to you. However, you should also know how to send pitch decks to investors. Therefore, it's crucial for an entrepreneur to understand which approach is best for their venture. Before seeking out investors, one should be very well aware of the difference between a pitch deck and a business plan. Luckily, we have all the information you need. Check out our resource on how to send a pitch deck to investors.

Pitch Deck vs Business Plan

What are pitch decks and business plans, and how do you write them? Let’s find out.

A business plan identifies, describes, and analyzes a business opportunity and/or an existing business. It focuses on the technical, financial, and economic viability of the idea, and explains in detail the plans your company has for the next 1, 3, and 5 years. This document is used as a reference point by potential investors when deciding whether or not to invest in your company. Furthermore, it's frequently used in a due diligence step in the funding process. A pitch deck, on the other hand, is a much more summarized version of a business plan that aims to excite investors about a company, to set up a second meeting and the possibility of an investment discussion. It is a pitch presentation used by business owners or entrepreneurs to give potential investors, like venture capitalists or angel investors, a concise but informative overview of their startup or company. Investors can use it to see where your business stands and where it is going, and decide whether they want to support it in getting there. It is purposefully sent to potential investors in order to set up a face-to-face meeting or used as a visual aid during a live presentation to potential investors.

Included Information

A business plan contains the research you have conducted on your industry and competitors as well as your company's operational, marketing, and sales strategies. It also includes financial analysis, growth, success projections, and a road map of where your business will be in the future and how it will get there. These nine sections are combined in a traditional business plan design in one way or another:

• Executive summary
• Business description
• Market research
• Operational plan and management
• Service or line of goods
• Sales and marketing
• Money request
• Financial estimates

If you want a professional business plan, it is highly recommended to use a business plan consultant. On the other hand, a pitch deck usually covers the following sections:

• Introduction
• Target market
• Marketing and sales strategy
• Pitch Deck Competition Slide
• Funding request
• Financial Strength

You can find all the details in our Pitch Deck Outline article. Another element of information that should be included in a pitch deck is how much money the company intends to raise, for what amount of equity, and how the money will be spent. Therefore, it must contain expected financials and a pre-money company valuation. You can also include a timeline of significant events in the company's history, which will help convince investors to approve the funding.

The business plan is a lengthy, in-depth document that typically has 10–100 pages and is created in Word. It is primarily text-based. On the other hand, the pitch deck's length ranges between 10 and 20 pages and is produced using PowerPoint with the intention of using visual aids such as pictures, graphs, tables to convey as much of the critical information as quickly as possible.

Situations Where a Business Plan Is Needed

• Obtaining Debt Financing from Conventional Banks: If you want to obtain any type of loan from a bank, you will need to submit a business plan, as they still review them.
• Company Having Multiple Co-Founders and Co-Owners: A business plan is quite helpful in managing a bigger board of seniors in the company. It ensures that everyone sticks to the company's core values and carries out the intended plans to achieve long-term goals. This should be a dynamic document that is continually updated as circumstances warrant.
• Fundraising over $500K: If you are raising a large amount of cash, you better have a strategy in place for how you are going to use it. Be ready for due diligence from investors.

For an in-depth guide on startup business models , click here.

Situations Where a Pitch Deck is Needed

• Meeting or Starting a Conversation with an Investor: A pitch deck is a conversation starter that encourages investors to get in touch with you. You can email a PDF file or send a printed copy to start building a relationship with investors.
• Pitching in a Competition: The startup community organizes many pitch competitions and events that provide business founders the opportunity to practice pitching their business and gain exposure. In these competitions, a pitch deck is a must-have document that effectively communicates the startup plan.
• Seeking Equity Funding: If you are seeking funding from venture capitalists, angel investors, or knowledgeable friends and family, you need a clear pitch deck.

What to Write First - Business Plan vs Pitch Deck?

At the initial phase of a business, a fundamental document called a business plan is written. This plan is updated as the business develops and as needs and goals change over time. The lengthy document can serve a variety of purposes, including internal use within the company or in banks that still require business plans for loan applications today. Additionally, the business plan document can be very useful in creating a compelling pitch deck. In the eyes of professionals, the pitch deck is considered a child of the business plan. Having a prepared business plan makes it much easier to get depth and length in your plans, which eventually results in more clarity and strong points that you could include in a pitch deck. Research is already completed when writing a business plan, which allows the pitch deck to focus on composing the already-existing information in such a manner that encourages the investor to approve the funding you need.

The Pros and Cons of a Business Plan vs. a Pitch Deck

Both business plans and pitch decks have their advantages and disadvantages. Let's take a closer look at the pros and cons of each.

Business Plan Pros

• Comprehensive: A business plan is a comprehensive document that covers all aspects of your business, from your market research to your financial projections. It may be helpful to seek assistance from a financial modelling agency when creating your financial projections.. It provides potential investors with a detailed understanding of your business and its potential for success.
• Strategic: A business plan helps you to think strategically about your business. By analyzing your industry, your competitors, and your own strengths and weaknesses, you can create a plan that maximizes your chances of success.
• Useful for fundraising: A well-written business plan can be an effective tool for raising funds from investors. It provides potential investors with the information they need to make an informed decision about whether to invest in your business.

Business Plan Cons

• Time-consuming: Writing a comprehensive business plan can be a time-consuming process. It requires a significant amount of research, analysis, and writing.
• Outdated quickly: Business plans can quickly become outdated as your business evolves and circumstances change. This means that you may need to update your business plan regularly to ensure that it remains relevant.
• May not be read: Some investors may not have the time or patience to read a lengthy business plan. This means that your hard work may go to waste if your plan is not read by the right people.

Pitch Deck Pros

• Concise: A pitch deck is a concise document that provides potential investors with a quick overview of your business. It is designed to be easy to read and understand, which makes it more likely that it will be read by potential investors.
• Engaging: A well-designed pitch deck can be an engaging and memorable way to present your business to potential investors. It can help you to stand out from the competition and make a strong impression.
• Can lead to meetings: A pitch deck is often used to secure meetings with potential investors. If your pitch deck is well-received, it can lead to a face-to-face meeting where you can provide more detailed information about your business.

Pitch Deck Cons

• Limited information: A pitch deck provides only a limited amount of information about your business. This means that potential investors may not have a complete understanding of your business and its potential.
• Not suitable for all businesses: A pitch deck is not suitable for all businesses. If your business is complex or requires a significant amount of explanation, a pitch deck may not be sufficient.
• Not as useful for fundraising: While a pitch deck can be used to secure meetings with potential investors, it may not be as effective as a business plan for actually raising funds.

Ultimately, the decision to use a business plan or a pitch deck will depend on the specific needs of your business and the goals you hope to achieve. It's important to understand the pros and cons of each and use them appropriately to effectively communicate your ideas to potential investors.

How to Create a Winning Pitch Deck

Creating a pitch deck that stands out can be a challenging task, but it's essential if you want to attract investors to your business. Here are some tips to help you create a winning pitch deck:

1. Start with a Strong Introduction

Your introduction slide should grab investors' attention and make them want to learn more about your company. Use a catchy tagline, a powerful image, or a compelling statistic to draw them in.

2. Focus on the Problem You're Solving

Your pitch deck should explain the problem you're solving and why it matters. Use real-world examples and statistics to illustrate the problem and show why it's important.

3. Explain Your Solution

After you've described the problem, explain how your product or service solves it. Be clear and concise, and focus on the benefits of your solution.

4. Show Traction

Investors want to see that your company is gaining traction and making progress. Include data on customer acquisition, revenue, and growth to show that your business is on the right track.

5. Describe Your Marketing and Sales Strategy

Your pitch deck should explain how you plan to market and sell your product or service, including specifics on your target market, your marketing channels, your sales process, and any startup market research services you may use to gain insights into your target audience and industry.

6. Highlight Your Competitive Advantage

Investors want to know what sets your business apart from the competition. Explain your competitive advantage and show how it gives you an edge in the market.

7. Be Realistic About Financial Projections

Your pitch deck should include financial projections, but they should be realistic. Don't exaggerate your projections or make unrealistic promises. Instead, focus on achievable goals and realistic timelines.

8. Keep It Simple and Visual

Your pitch deck should be simple and easy to follow. Use visuals, such as graphs, charts, and images, to convey your message and make your presentation more engaging.

9. Practice, Practice, Practice

Finally, practice your pitch deck until you're comfortable delivering it. Practice in front of friends, family, or colleagues, and ask for feedback. Refine your presentation until it's polished and persuasive.

By following these tips, you can create a winning pitch deck that will help you attract investors and grow your business. Remember to start with a strong introduction, focus on the problem you're solving, explain your solution, show traction, describe your marketing and sales strategy, highlight your competitive advantage, be realistic about financial projections, keep it simple and visual, and practice, practice, practice.

Tips for Writing a Compelling Business Plan

Writing a business plan can be a daunting task, but it's an essential step in securing funding for your business. Here are some tips to help you write a compelling business plan:

1. Know Your Audience

Before you start writing your business plan, it's essential to know your audience. Who will be reading your plan? What are their goals and objectives? What information do they need to make a decision? By understanding your audience, you can tailor your plan to their needs and increase your chances of success.

2. Keep It Concise

While a business plan is a detailed document, it's essential to keep it concise. Avoid using jargon or technical terms that your audience may not understand. Instead, use short sentences and simple language to convey your message. Use bullet points and headings to break up the text and make it easier to read.

3. Focus on Your Unique Value Proposition

Your unique value proposition is what sets your business apart from the competition. It's essential to focus on this in your business plan. Explain why your product or service is better than what's already available in the market. Show how you plan to differentiate yourself and capture market share.

4. Be Realistic

When writing your business plan, it's essential to be realistic. Don't exaggerate your projections or make unrealistic promises. Instead, focus on achievable goals and realistic timelines. Provide evidence to back up your claims and show that you've done your research.

5. Include Financial Projections

Financial projections are a crucial part of any business plan. They show how you plan to make money and when you expect to become profitable. Include projected income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements. Be sure to explain your assumptions and include a sensitivity analysis to show how your projections could change under different scenarios.

6. Get Feedback

Before submitting your business plan, get feedback from others. Ask friends, family, or colleagues to review your plan and provide feedback. Consider working with a business coach or mentor who can provide guidance and support.

By following these tips, you can write a compelling business plan that will help you secure funding and grow your business. Remember to tailor your plan to your audience, keep it concise, focus on your unique value proposition, be realistic, include financial projections, and get feedback.

Key Components of a Business Plan and a Pitch Deck

A business plan and pitch deck have different components that are essential to the success of your company. Here are the key components of each:

Business Plan

• Executive Summary: This section provides an overview of your entire business plan. It should be concise and highlight key points about your company, such as the problem you're solving, your target market, and your competitive advantage.
• Business Description: This section describes your company in more detail, including your mission, vision, and values. It also includes information about your team, your product or service, your target market, and your business model.
• Market Analysis: This section analyzes your industry and your competitors. It includes information about your target market, your competition, your marketing strategy, and your sales strategy.
• Operational Plan and Management: This section explains how your company will operate on a day-to-day basis. It includes information about your organizational structure, your management team, and your operational processes.
• Service or Line of Goods: This section describes your product or service in detail. It includes information about the features and benefits of your product or service, as well as any intellectual property you've developed.
• Sales and Marketing: This section explains how you plan to sell your product or service. It includes information about your sales strategy, your marketing strategy, and your pricing strategy.
• Money Request: This section explains how much money you're raising and how you plan to use it. It includes information about your funding needs, your use of funds, and your financial projections.
• Financial Estimates: This section includes your financial statements, such as your income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. It also includes any other financial information that investors may need to make a decision.

• Introduction: This slide includes your company name, logo, and tagline. It's the first thing investors will see, so it should be attention-grabbing.
• Problem: This slide explains the problem your company is solving. It should be concise and clearly explain why your product or service is needed in the market.
• Target Market: This slide describes your target market. It should include information about your ideal customer, such as their demographics, psychographics, and buying behavior.
• Solution: This slide explains how your product or service solves the problem you identified earlier. It should be concise and clearly explain the benefits of your product or service.
• Traction: This slide describes any traction your company has gained so far. It should include information about your customer acquisition, revenue, and growth.
• Marketing and Sales Strategy: This slide explains how you plan to market and sell your product or service. It should include information about your marketing channels, your sales process, and your pricing strategy.
• Competition: This slide describes your competition. It should include information about your competitors' strengths and weaknesses, as well as how your product or service is different.
• Funding Request: This slide explains how much money you're raising and how you plan to use it. It should be concise and clearly explain why you need the money.
• Financial Strength: This slide includes your financial projections. It should include your revenue, expenses, and profit margins.
• Team: This slide describes your team. It should include information about your management team, your advisors, and any other key team members.

Keep in mind that these are just the basic components of a business plan and pitch deck. Depending on your industry and your company's unique needs, you may need to include additional information.

Both a pitch deck and a business plan are essential tools for entrepreneurs seeking funding for their ventures. While a business plan provides a comprehensive overview of a company's operations and financial projections, a pitch deck is a more concise and visually appealing document that seeks to excite potential investors about a company's potential. Understanding the differences and appropriate use cases for each document can greatly increase an entrepreneur's chances of securing funding and growing their business. By following the tips outlined in this article, entrepreneurs can create compelling pitch decks and business plans that effectively communicate their vision and attract potential investors.

Key Takeaways

A business plan analyzes a business opportunity and/or an existing business, while a pitch deck aims to excite investors about a company and set up a meeting for an investment discussion.

A business plan is a lengthy, text-based document, while a pitch deck is a concise document that uses visuals to convey critical information as quickly as possible.

A business plan is helpful for obtaining debt financing from conventional banks, managing a bigger board of seniors in the company, and fundraising over $500k, while a pitch deck is useful for starting a conversation with an investor, pitching in a competition, and seeking equity funding.

A business plan is comprehensive and strategic, while a pitch deck is concise and engaging.

Both business plans and pitch decks have their advantages and disadvantages, so it's essential to understand the pros and cons of each and use them appropriately to communicate your ideas effectively.

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30 Inspiring Examples of the Best Pitch Decks + Templates

Renderforest Staff

02 Sep 2023

13 min read  

2022 unfolded new rules for startups who chase raising investments.

Global stats showed us VC time spent reviewing pitch decks dropped by 24% compared to 2021 . Converted to minutes – investors are ready to spend less than 3 minutes ( 2:42, on average ) on your submitted pitch deck samples now.

We can almost hear the faint echo of Scooby-Doo’s “ Ruh Roh! ” from the startup scene.

But worry not. Renderforest knows the reliable formula for creating a winning pitch deck – even if you have only 2:42 minutes to present the whole thing.

In this thorough guide, we’ve collected everything you need to nail that pitch deck – from the ABCs to the actual examples of winning decks and templates .

We cover…

• the best pitch decks of all time and their recipe for success, 
• unbreakable rules for creating the best investor pitch decks,
• stellar pitch deck templates from Renderforest that make deck creation easy as pie. 

Keep scrolling down for more!

Anatomy of an Effective Pitch Deck for Startups

Investor and serial entrepreneur Alejandro Cremades claims around 10 slides are enough for a winning investor pitch deck . Among these, the three most crucial slides that investors usually pay attention to are Financials, Team, and Competition – the core aspects that help them understand your startup’s potential for success.

This can be considered the raw ingredients of a successful pitch deck. However, your recipe might have different proportions and additives depending on the round of financing you’re raising, the sector you’re pitching in, the size of your business, and the current market trends.

Here’s how you should approach the process to find out what to include in the deck to match your specific needs.

Understanding the Purpose

Switch off your marketing hat and put on the investor one. Ask yourself: “ What’s in it for them? “, “ Would I be impressed with this idea as an investor? “

If you feel your initial pitch deck structure can leave investors on the fence, and if the hook is not strong enough, it’s time to rework the structure and add more relevant details that will make them feel invested.

There’s a formula that works in 99.9% of cases. It’s called being concise, relevant, and clear .

You should cut to the chase and transfer the most important information with a few words.

• What’s the problem your startup is trying to solve? ( Think twice, triple, or more to be absolutely confident the problem touches a wider audience )
• How is your startup going to solve this problem? ( Ensure it’s not a “We think that’s going to work” type of solution but rather a “This is how we are going to do it” approach )
• Spice up your declarative statements with numbers . ( Nothing personal, but if numbers don’t back up your statements – your statements won’t back you up )

To recapitulate, find that hook, that point that will make investors believe in the potential of your startup and the necessity of your product. Then formulate it in the clearest way possible.

Here’s how AirBnB once did it .

Structuring Your Pitch Deck

As said before, the best pitch decks rotate around 10 slides. Usually, the must-haves include the following.

• Introduction
• Problem and solution (can be merged or separate)
• Numbers, Figures, Statistics
• Competitive Analysis
• Market Analysis
• Financial Projections
• Team Profile
• Conclusion/Thank You Page/Contact

Structure your pitch deck now

The business world considers these to be the key elements for a successful pitch deck, as by including them all, you cover the entire story of your startup. So, while you can modify your brand deck structure according to your needs, take advantage of everything crucial.

On top of that, feel free to restructure your order of slides if it helps you to make a better flow. 

For example, if you’re raising money for a product already on the market, it might be better to start with your product and team info instead of the problem. On the contrary, if you’re pre-launch, it is better to start with the problem and focus on your product afterward, as investors need to understand why your solution is necessary and how you will solve the problem before they even learn what the solution is.

Design Principles and Best Practices

Because human brains are wired to process visuals faster than text, visuals are considered to be 50 times more memorable than textual content . So, your key figures and core messaging should be presented as infographics, charts, diagrams, and illustrations to capture the necessary attention.

We won’t go into much detail about styling pitch deck visuals here, as you already have a huge library of pitch deck templates by Renderforest already designed according to the best practices of corporate design.

Instead, here are some tips on which colors and fonts work best based on the most effective pitch deck examples.

White, gray, and blue are considered to be one of the most suitable color palettes for corporate-style presentations . Best pitch decks use these colors as a background and accentuate the key points with bright or dark accents, as these neutral tones are associated in human brains with reliability, trust, intelligence, balance and other positive features.

Scientists have found the highest correlation between Times New Roman and Helvetica fonts and the formal, legible perception of the text . And the font psychology says Sans Serif fonts such as Square, Humanist, Grotesque, Geometric and similar are very suitable for modern devices . These fonts associate with clean-looking, clear, and efficient content. Meanwhile, San Serif fonts’ letters require less space and are better displayed on desktop and mobile screens.

These rules are not set in stone, but the best pitch decks follow them, so it’s recommended to keep them in mind.

Find Your Ready-to-Use Pitch Deck Template Below!

If you’re sitting in front of an empty slide trying to figure out how to structure your pitch deck, we suggest you close it and try a more efficient way.

Renderforest offers you a wide range of corporate-style pitch deck templates for any sector and purpose. If you can harness the power of pre-designed templates inspired by the best pitch decks, why not try?

Our introduction to the startup pitch deck article can help you to understand how Renderforest can assist you in creating a successful presentation tailored for a specific investor or accelerator.

You can also review other helpful resources like our Startup Pitch Deck Intro or another Pitch Deck Introduction .

Meanwhile, we share the ready-to-use templates below to create the best startup pitch decks with zero design or coding knowledge.

Just choose the template you like , customize it , and export it in one click from Renderfores t to use it for any purpose.

Best Startup Pitch Decks

Here’s a classic version of the startup pitch template with a minimalistic design with a white background and turquoise-green accent. This pitch deck pack features 24 scenes you can filter to collect the needed slides.

The font color is dark blue – the ideal color for presentation titles and subtitles, as it is associated with intelligence and trust. Scenes include minimum visuals, yet the arrangement of elements and the font choice is completely eye-catching, leaving you enough space to focus on the content.

There are all standard pages that the best agency pitch decks are expected to have – competitor analysis, team, user feedback, service popularity with numbers, etc. So, this could be a great choice if you need to create a comprehensive yet classic and minimalistic presentation. You will have no shortage of slides to present your entire story. Meanwhile, slides are not visually heavy, so you can be sure the audience won’t get overwhelmed with information.

A minimalistic cover with dark blue background features the project title and a short description. If your company is established and has already made some noise, you can add the company logo here. If you need to showcase anything more, you can upload it on the cover – the overall formal impression will remain intact.

Corporate Pitch Deck

If you need a more customizable pitch deck template that gives you more creative opportunities, this is your best choice. This pitch deck corporate presentation includes 235 scenes ( no typo, the number is real ) for companies with a lot to share or those needing a huge pool of design ideas to mix elements until they come up with the best look.

This pitch template is more dynamic in terms of colors – white background, green and purple accents – a combination that works perfectly for creative industries. This color blend catches the eye and adds some playfulness to the formal corporate look.

The pack includes different styles of pitch deck examples to choose from. There are text-heavy slides, image-heavy pages, and more balanced, minimalistic designs that leave space to relax the eyes of the viewers.

As the best pitch decks are about the right balance between text and visuals, you’ll have plenty of choices here to create the perfect look for your presentation.

The cover is very minimalistic – plain white background and the company title. This simplicity can make an even bigger statement about your startup.

Professional Pitch Deck

Need a more pastel-colored, creative investor pitch deck that features soft colors and is not afraid to have many team members’ photos? This professional pitch deck includes 120 scenes with a light pink and blue pastel color palette that works great for creative industries and startups.

Thanks to a milder design, this pitch deck template is attractive to the audience but still keeps the professionalism and trustworthiness of a corporate presentation. However, though the common rules of formal approach are kept, these brand decks will better suit companies in creative industries or services closer to consumer psychology.

Why? Because pink usually speaks about playfulness, nurturing, and romantic feelings, and these are hardly the feelings you want to evoke if your startup, let’s say, is in the AI industry. However, if you are in the fashion industry, for example, this pitch presentation will work perfectly!

120 scenes are more than enough to collect your desired pitch deck structure. And with the cover design options focusing on the startup’s team photos, you can emphasize the human side of the business and build trust among potential investors.

Business Plan Pitch Deck

Closing the list of the best investor pitch decks from Renderforest with a business plan with a deck pack that features a gradient purple and peach color palette that softens the visual impression. That’s a basic pitch template – consisting of only 17 scenes and containing only the very necessary slides, such as vision, mission, goals, business plan, and questions.

Who can this brand deck be most useful for? It’s a great choice for those who don’t have so much content to share yet need a full-fledged presentation. Short but informative, this business plan is best used for sharing an idea with potential investors at the early stages of the product.

A potential drawback is the lack of slides with rich figures and data, as other pitch deck samples of this list have. However, if you’re still in the early stages of your project and still need to get all the data to share, this template can be your best choice.

Get Inspired with Real-World Examples of The Best Pitch Decks

What about delving deeper into the world of the best pitch decks? 

We invite you to join us on the exhilarating journey of reviewing the most successful pitch decks! Our editorial team cherrypicked the most inspiring presentations of the worldly known companies ( once startups like yours that managed to make a real success story ) and learned how the best agency pitch decks are made.

Take this opportunity to observe, get inspired, and apply the knowledge to your business!

1. Facebook

Back in 2004, when Facebook was not what it is today, the company owners had a crystal-clear understanding of their potential customers. Who are they? What’s their purchase power, and which part of their budget is reserved for the service? All these questions were answered in their pitch deck in great detail, awakening trust in the company’s success.

Additionally, Facebook had a clear action plan of what they were going to do and how. That’s one of the best pitch decks for a reason – it ensures the investors that their money isn’t going to be lost on a project without an action plan.

• Even if and especially if your startup is bringing an innovative product, be confident in your statements and ensure you transfer your detailed plan of action to make that revolutionary idea well-accepted by the public .
• Have detailed and realistic calculations behind your statements. Let data speak for itself.

The first slide is a brilliant trigger for an investor pitch deck. Storage is a mess – at times, Dropbox was launching its solution, and this messy picture was relatable to almost everyone. The rest is even more convincing – as the company has a very detailed analysis of the current market situation – what consumers are looking for and what currently exists from the competitors’ side.

We especially loved how clearly Dropbox explains its features – no extra words to distract the attention, just a few points that make them stand out. That’s a great way to present your unique selling propositions and add more weight to the investors’ decision-making.

• Work well on your brand deck hook. Ensure your highlighted problem triggers people at once .
• Know your customers and competitors well. Be fully acquainted with every nuance of your niche to prove you can improve it.

Did we already say Airbnb has one of the best pitch decks of all time? We want to state that again!

Showing 560M serviceable available market out of 2 billion + available total market is an undeniable statement of how great a potential Airbnb has. It also has an impressive competitor analysis – a creatively pictured visual graph with few words which clearly highlight the gaps Airbnb is going to fill.

And we loved the closing. Here they have a clear dialogue – we need a precisely estimated amount of money for specifically planned results.

• Try to present your research results and findings in a format other than words – be creative and use original graphs, charts, or any other visual tools.
• Be absolutely precise about the capital you need and estimate which real results you can show investors with that money .

The famous taxi company did a good trick. It looked at the market gaps and inconveniences from two sides – from the perspective of clients and drivers. That’s one of the best pitch decks that justifies the urgent need for the product from both sides.

What’s unique among the best pitch decks presented in this list so far is that Uber presented potential outcomes of their business plan – best-case scenario, realistic scenario, and worst-case one. That’s an inspiring way to demonstrate how well the team thinks through their idea and is ready for any possible outcome.

• Try to have a comprehensive look at all the stakeholders that are going to be impacted by your product – clients, employees, affiliates and the public.
• Show your responsible approach by having your action plan’s possible outcomes well estimated . Be prepared to act in any situation.

One of the best SaaS pitch decks –  Buffer’s one is the closest to what we describe as a golden standard of modern-day presentations. It has 13 pages, is well structured, and contains only the key points needed to put the idea out there.

One of the best startup pitch decks – Buffer’s presentation- contains detailed milestones of what the company has achieved and intends to do next. This detailed timeline with dates and numbers helps to build trust in the team’s proficiency and the journey they have ahead.

• Try to accommodate all your important points in 10-15 pages at most. If you can say it in fewer words, do it . Short pitch deck examples are more inviting to read.
• Clearly document all your important achievements so you can further present a clear and detailed history of your progress. Record dates of important events and the results you achieved.

Tinder wasn’t always called Tinder. When it started as a Match Box, the company made one of the best startup pitch decks, which is out of the ordinary in its structure and flow.

Instead of the standard problem-solution scheme ( the effectiveness of which we do not underestimate ), the company starts its brand deck with the story of Matt – a guy that’s a prototypical representative of Tinder’s target audience. He wants to talk to a girl at the party, but he’s shy – all the traits that this niche audience can easily relate to.

• Don’t be afraid to go out of the box with your brand deck structure . If your creative juices are flowing and you can describe your suggested product and why it’s so necessary for a specific target audience group with an inventive approach, don’t limit yourself to standard slides.

Well, WeWork is considered one of the best pitch decks due to its robust analytical and research data. It’s very detailed in its explanation of how it is going to change the office rental industry as a whole and what kind of services it will provide.

WeWork has done an excellent job of outlining the global market for co-working spaces and how it is set to grow exponentially. Just looking at this investor pitch deck is enough to realize this company knows what it’s doing. It also shows a detailed plan with costings and the 5-year projection.

• That’s not a common rule for every company ( and actually, you need a company with a good history to do it ), but if you can thoroughly analyze all data pertaining to your business, do it . Not only will you impress investors, but the company will have a clear path for the next years with a good chance of success.

Recommended Reading

• 10 Business Presentation Examples | Say Goodbye to PowerPoint!
• Here’s Your Guide to Creating a Proposal Template Design in Seconds!
• The Power of Data: Annual Report Format Explained with Templates

The widely embraced social media phenomenon, TikTok, had its product developed in every detail when preparing this investor pitch deck. This allowed them to focus on the user experience and present a detailed explanation of how their product works and why it has the potential to become one of the most popular apps on the market.

Having screenshots of the final product with elaborate descriptions of the design and features is a winning play as it gives investors a taste of what the app offers and how it can be profitable.

• Again, this depends on which product development phase you apply for the investor’s pitch. If you have a finished product or can include at least a prototype for investors to see , that’s a great way to show the potential of your product.

9. BuzzFeed

The next on our list of the best pitch decks is BuzzFeed. What we loved about their investor pitch deck was the competitor analysis presented with the Venn diagram. This approach is a great way to compare the company’s product with similar products already on the market and show their intersecting points.

BuzzFeed also does a great job explaining its key differentiators and the development perspectives – where we are, where we are headed, and how big this can become. This cascading down from a big picture to the specifics is very helpful for investors to understand how this product can become profitable.

Lastly, they didn’t mention only founders or CEOs in the team slide as many others do. The list goes down to advisors, developers, designers, and editors, which, in our view, shows a more human-centered approach that is very inviting.

• Get creative with competitor analysis. Use diagrams and charts to cut through the noise and clearly present all positions.
• Go beyond the founders and CEOs of your startup when introducing the team .

We are in love with the initial statement on Moz’s pitch template’s cover. This brief sentence conveys a wealth of information about the company’s previous journey and where it’s heading now + it adds much confidence to the team and their project.

Further, they did a great mix of storytelling and a truly deep analysis of their industry, competitors, and the existing market. We especially liked the detailed breakdown of Moz’s target market and its distribution.

And the unique point – Moz presents potential acquisitions that could take place in the future as part of their roadmap.

• Work hard on how you first introduce your startup to investors . Start your brand deck with an impressive statement that succinctly introduces you and awakes interest.
• Some say storytelling is dead – but it’s only if there’s no data to back it up. Moz did a great analysis of all the aspects that investors must consider .

11. LinkedIn 

What a brilliant problem slide – LinkedIn lists three popular ways of professional people search at the moment and how they are inefficient. Further, they nailed it by presenting LinkedIn as a Professional People Search 2.0, comparing it to the successful companies of other fields that transformed how things worked before.

These parallels are drawn throughout the whole pitch deck that makes its main point clear: LinkedIn will be the next generation of professional people search focused on user-based networks, a model that is already proven to work in the examples of Google, eBay, and Paypal.

We also loved how detailed and structured LinkedIn presents its superiority over its competitors. No loud words – just realistic calculations and comparisons showing their leading position creates high barriers to entry for the competition.

Key Points 

• Proving your chosen model works as others do is a great way to convince investors . Of course, you must ensure this comparison is accurate and relevant to your product.
• Don’t get unnecessarily shy when it comes to bragging about your achievements. Highlight your competitive advantages and put them in the context of real numbers that investors can understand.

12. Coinbase

Here you can see one of the most concise pitch decks where the team is super laconic in presenting their project. The winning maneuver here is tying the first part of the brand deck to Bitcoin – a global currency, the popularity of which is growing exponentially.

Further, the company merges the Bitcoin potential and its product by presenting Coinbase as the easy-to-use Bitcoin wallet compared to all other complex solutions existing in the market.

And the cherry on top? It draws a parallel between the connection of Coinbase and Bitcoin and iTunes and MP3 to create associations of success and reliability.

• Less is more, and we can’t state that enough. Your presentation can become one of the best pitch decks, even if it’s very simple and succinct in its wording .

13. Foursquare

We give the awards for the “most detailed and clear explanation of the product” to Foursquare. This is one of the best startup pitch decks if your startup is at the beginning of its journey and has just released the product’s first version.

If you are at your starting point, this type of detailed brand deck can help you fully reveal the whole idea of the company. We recommend you take their writing style and the construction of the slides if there is a need to present your idea from scratch, and the lack of details can work against you.

• If your startup is a complete novice and needs to build its reputation from scratch, create a detailed deck that will fully explain your vision .

14. Snapchat

More a user-centered presentation of how the product can be used rather than a pitch deck for investors, Snapchat’s presentation anyways finds its place in our list of best pitch decks. Why? Because they are mastering the art of product demonstration – you feel like you are about to use the product already when you see their slides.

What’s the secret behind it? Very personal and honest style of sharing information + the team behind Snapchat developed a great philosophy before they launched the product – embracing the moment and unguarded conversations.

• Come up with a deep and well-thought-out idea that will support your product. It will create a strong foundation for your communication with potential users or investors.
• Tie your tone of voice to the philosophy of the product to create a comprehensive picture and make users feel like they are a part of the story.

15. YouTube 

Well, YouTube’s early-stage presentation is not as visually appealing and modern-looking as others in our best pitch decks list. But we want you to look at it from another perspective – how with just an idea and a few slides, the YouTube team managed to convey their vision of how the product will look at its full capacity. 

Here, the emphasis is mostly on the genius idea behind the startup – videos exist as isolated files, and something should be done with that. The team behind YouTube managed to find the right pain point that triggered many in the gradually growing digital era. And if your idea is worthy, it can win over investors even without an outstanding presentation. Just a clear presentation of a great idea.

• Without underestimating the importance of a good presentation, don’t forget that a worthy idea is what lies at the core of success . So be sure to think it through and come up with something unique that will spark interest.

16. Crunchbase

Well, here’s another great example of mixing creative and analytical approaches – the Crunchbase pitch deck. They perfectly promote their value as a private company prospecting space with a hook – the public company market is shrinking, while private companies are the way to go. Meanwhile, many professionals strive to get opportunities in the private market. Added the thoughtfully picked visuals of ice fissure – and the viewers fall into the feeling of the cold inaccessible world of private companies where they need help.

It’s also worth mentioning Crunchbase is the first in our list of best pitch decks of all time that presents a growth engine. It’s a great way to demonstrate the effectiveness of your project and show investors how it can reach its full potential.

• If your muse just woke up, complement your statements with visuals that strengthen the emotional impact of your project . Visuals are a universal language that can help you win the hearts of many.
• Design a growth engine that is achievable and based on real numbers and projections.

17. Peloton

Here’s something new we haven’t talked about before. Peloton has one of the best investor pitch decks due to the detailed brand wheel on which they built their whole presentation.

The brand wheel is a clear graph showing the core four aspects necessary for investors to understand the whole idea of the product and how it fits into the market. In more simple terms, the brand wheel shows the brand-customer relationship from many angles – from what the startup team tries to convey to how it’s perceived by their customers.

We liked the brand strategy Peloton has – they have very detailed demographics and psychographics of their target audience. Consequently, they know which messaging and visuals are the most suitable for their potential customers.

• Have a brand wheel to track the unnoticed areas of your consumers’ behavior . Knowing what your target audience wants and needs is the key to success in many marketing campaigns. And if you can prove to investors you have the key to your target audience’s hearts, the chances your startup will get investments are much higher.

18. Wayfair

The pitch deck of Wayfair awakes emotions of comfy home life, as the colors and visuals bring a feeling of warmth and coziness to the viewer. That’s this investor pitch deck’s first success as Wayfair transforms how people shop for home furnishings and decor. So, if their presentation design alone can set the right emotional background, their desired impression is half made.

What further caught our attention were the detailed financials. Reconciliation of adjusted EBITDA, free cash flow, and illustrative customer acquisition cost – all of these elements are a great way to demonstrate how the company is developing and growing in the language of numbers that investors understand the best.

• Leverage the power of financials to give the most real-life demonstration of the development and success of your company.
• Play with colors and design elements in the background to convey the desired impression of your project.

19. Walmart

Another one of the best startup pitch decks – Walmart shows the effectiveness of their investment in Flipkart Group. This eCommerce company can open new doors into an online market for Walmart.

This presentation demonstrates the effectiveness of the synergy between the two companies – Walmart brings its offline network and expertise. At the same time, Flipkart Group provides an online presence and knowledge of the market.

Slide 7 is a good way to present your startup’s growth opportunity in a specific market. You can see Walmart included all the key metrics that comprehensively overview current and future opportunities. It’s a good example of deep analytical data that shows the growth rate in the market, added detailed data about potential customers and their characteristics.

• If you aim to show the investment potential of your company or project, break down all the key metrics into small pieces and demonstrate them clearly. Your investor pitch deck should show what each cooperation party brings to the table .

Coming to Bliss, here’s one of the pitch decks with a great approach to justifying why they need the finance they need and why investors should pay attention now and not later.

Their financing slide is a good example of giving investors the WHY behind their investment. Here, Bliss provides precise data on when they can reach certain milestones and how their decisions will affect the company’s future. Isn’t it more impressive than just showing the number of cash they need?

We also love Bliss creating urgency by emphasizing engineering talent’s poor adaptability to the increasingly remote world. They provide investors with a clear understanding of how their investment can help them to bridge the gap between current and future states.

• Create a sense of urgency explaining why the specific project is the right one to invest in at this particular moment .
• Give the investors an understanding of what their investment can bring to the company and how it will lead to success. Show how your raised money will help you to reach the desired future state .

21. Launchrock

Best pitch decks can break the rules of standard structures, and Launchrock’s example is great proof of it.

There is no standard problem/solution slide that explains the pain point and how the product solves it. Instead, Launchrock used an unconventional approach – they just listed their key achievements so far (users, shares, etc.) and some examples of how customers use them.

Actually, it’s not about the standard structure that matters but the effectiveness of presenting your value and how it can be used. Launchrock was a successful example of this approach – they showed what they did and how it worked.

This investor pitch deck is wrapped up by a large team of investors and advisors – a great way to show the engagement of people who believe in your idea.

• Rethink the structure of your pitch deck – don’t limit yourself to the traditional structure . As long as your presentation effectively conveys your project’s value, it’s all good.
• If investors already believe in your project, include them in your brand deck to create a feeling of community .

22. Intercom

In contrast to the previous brand deck, Intercom’s presentation is a very standard one. That’s one of the best pitch decks that helped them raise funding for further development. Though you may find the content too plain and simple – that’s what made it effective.

The startup team tried to avoid overwhelming investors with complex information. You can see only the most critical information without further details or explanations.

What we loved a lot ( and that’s not the first time it proved effective ), they included very detailed expectations from investors in the presentation. There is a clear amount of money needed, a timeline, and even special conditions if the company can meet its own goals.

• Investors make decisions easier if they see a clear structure and expectations from the team. Plan how your expected sum will be used and how long it will take to show some results to investors . With that roadmap at hand, they are more likely to trust you.

23. Shopify

It seems it’s the first investor pitch deck that includes a success story of an existing client who already benefits from their product. DODOCASE’s use case illustration reveals Shopify’s value and effectiveness without any further explanations from the startup team. And what was a smart move, in our opinion, is that Shopify showed the gradual success of their client when they first Shopify’s standard version and then moved to Shopify Premium, boosting their results even further.

That’s a good trick to show well-structured subscription models and which benefits each user level gets.

What else? We also loved growth vectors, a specific way to demonstrate the key directions for the company’s development in terms of products and markets.

• Have success stories of clients? That would be your best proof that the product is working and delivering results . If your startup doesn’t have one yet, you can run a few pilot projects and tell the stories of these clients in your pitch deck.
• If your project is multidimensional and there are different stakeholders ( buyers, merchants, etc., like in the case of Shopify ), have clear growth vectors that show which areas you’re focusing on .

24. Mattermark

Oh, how much we love clearly formulated slogans. Mattermark presents itself like a Google for business people, and that first-slide-first-impression vibe is hard to forget. Further, they show how Google addresses business people’s needs regarding information about investments, partners, and competitors, emphasizing the gaps in the market. That’s a good way to present a problem your startup is trying to solve.

This brand deck contains robust graphs and charts – something that shows the deep financial expertise of the team. The company’s previous performance and future development plans are illustrated with the help of very informative visuals.

• Have advanced financial analytics to show a deep understanding of the market and your ability to forecast . Elaborate charts and graphs will leave no investor indifferent.

25. Biogrify

Another nonconformist pitch deck example – no financials to demonstrate the company’s performance, no case studies, and no detailed problem statements.

Instead, Biogrify made a nice presentation with real examples of how the product looks and works in different scenarios. You can get the first impression of the product and how it works without a single word – just an example of posts shared on their social network.

We liked the colors and the creative examples of the platform, which were picked carefully to show the universal nature of the product. Overall, a great way to hook investors in the first slides – even without many statements about the potential of your startup.

• We have talked about it before. Real examples of a product’s usage are better than any words as they provide real context and show how the product works without further explanation.

Did we say short and concise? Piccsy heard that. This investor presentation has only four slides with the most straightforward structure.

First, what’s the problem? The problem slide is very comprehensive. A detailed bubble chart shows all the possible directions where the Piccsy team can move, and the simple pictorial illustration of each direction makes understanding easy. This slide shows the team’s clear vision and understanding of the market they are entering.

What’s coming next? Solution! That’s not as robust as the problem slide, but quite impressive in its way. There is a straightforward intro of the main directions where this social network can help users stream their desired content.

The last slide is about the team behind Piccsy. Short. Quick. That’s all you need to know.

Well, it would be honest to say that presentations this short are not the best idea for early-stage startups. And don’t forget about the +- 10 pages standard that prevails among investor pitch decks.

Still, that’s one of the best pitch decks in history, thanks to its straightforward language and the ability to say more with less.

• We probably highlight here the problem’s slide structure which can be very useful for any startup . Show the market you’re entering and what possible directions your team can take in an advanced way.

27. Fyre Festival

Fyre comes with a big announcement. Their pitch deck promotes and announces the Fyre Festival along with product marketing, showcasing how deep the company’s roots are with music and influencers and the community-driven approach they had from the very beginning.

The style of the presentation deserves special attention. The slides are very minimalistic and with all the elements of high-class aesthetics. They perfectly translate the niche where Fyre positions itself – confident, stylish, and up-to-date.

And Fyre’s community of the most renowned artists of the time presented in the beginning. That’s a boom – speaking louder than any words.

• Choose font colors, tone of voice, and composition of each slide with extra care to position your brand correctly . The correctly chosen design and writing style can hypnotize your investors, making them instantly feel the vibe you want to create.

28. TouristEye

Hmm… Not sure if we recommend you opt for the aggressive competitor comparison TouristEye did in its first slides, but they could display what they do unique in the competitive market, which is one of the key tasks of a good pitch deck.

The app’s screenshots demonstrate its features and user-friendly design without benefits-driven language. This approach is proven to be effective, and that’s not the first time we see it in successful startup presentations.

There is no team slide here, and that can be the approach that drives investor attention more to the product than to the team behind it.

• Screenshots of the app in action are one of the most obvious and effective ways to demonstrate how your product works and what problems it solves . That kind of insight can instantly attract investors without explaining a lot.

29. Kickfolio

What about listing only the key things you want to share about your company without much detail? Kickfolio makes it, and that’s a good example to show how best pitch decks can also be concise.

It has a unique structure – very short in words and explanations; this investor pitch deck looks like an infographic with the key points about the company’s performance, team, and product features.

They start with the problem statement, continuing with the progress and reviews of users after Kickfolio’s launch and first success, and wrapping up with a laconic statement of how much money Kickfolio is looking to raise.

Though there are no case studies or detailed analytics, this pitch deck is still very powerful. It conveys the essence of Kickfolio and provides enough information for investors to get a general idea about the project.

And what we like about it the most – there are many user reviews about the product, which is not typical for a pitch deck – yet they speak louder than many case studies or graphs.

• Include customer reviews or peer testimonials if you have them . If your product already has positive feedback, it will make the perfect addition to any startup pitch deck.

30. Mixpanel

Two problem statements – one better than the other – catch the attention from the very first slide. Mixpanel pitch deck clearly explains its mission and its product’s place in the market by touching on the pain point we all can relate to this or that way – making business decisions underlooking the importance of data.

Mixpanel’s brand deck has one of the most detailed performance slides we have ever seen. They show their sales and marketing KPIs and have a great expansion plan showing their way to conquer the market.

Seeing forecasted metrics, a timeline of their product development, and the relevance of their product to the industry make this pitch deck worth every second.

• As much relevant data as possible – numbers, metrics, graphs – can help investors decide whether it’s worth investing . Show your product’s progress and forecasted performance through the years to impress investors.
• Have an achievable expansion plan to show that you can grow and develop your product in a way that will get you more investors and customers.

Key Takeaways

Well, let’s wrap up this journey through the best pitch decks.

• Though there are established standards that best pitch decks follow at some point, the most important standard for each investor pitch deck is to be comprehensive and convincing . Whatever creative approach you take, ensure your pitch deck leaves investors with an understanding of who you are and what you do. Make investors believe in your mission enough to make an investment decision.
• Spend most of your time on what you want to convey with your brand deck, and leave the rest to Renderforest. With the ready-to-use pitch deck templates and our intuitive editor, you can create a perfect investor pitch deck in no time.

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The VC Corner

🎯 The Ultimate Pitch Deck Collection

30 proven examples for your startup.

Many of today’s biggest startups began with a pitch deck—a simple presentation that captured the essence of their idea and convinced investors to take a leap of faith. The beauty of the internet is that we now have access to these early pitch decks, giving us a rare glimpse into how companies like Airbnb, Uber, and Facebook started their journey.

Some of these decks have become legendary, like Airbnb’s, from when they were still called AirBed&Breakfast. These pitch decks didn’t just secure funding; they laid the foundation for the billion-dollar giants these companies would become.

In this article, we’ve curated 30 of the most influential pitch decks, offering you a chance to learn from the best.

What Makes a Good Pitch Deck?

Before we launch into 30 of the best pitch decks of all time, let’s talk about what makes a good pitch deck. What’s going to grab investor attention and help propel your business toward the same success that companies like Airbnb, WeWork, Uber and Facebook have all seen?

Let’s dig into a few major components to remember when designing a pitch deck.

1. Use the Right Slides: Your pitch deck should cover the essentials in a clear, structured format. Think of it as a roadmap for investors to understand your business. The 10 key slides typically include an introduction, problem/solution, business model, market opportunity, competitive landscape, financials, and more. Start by outlining these sections and then populate them with concise, impactful content.

2. Tell a Compelling Story: Data and metrics are important, but the story behind your startup is what will resonate with investors. Weave a narrative that not only highlights the problem you’re solving but also the journey you’re embarking on. Make them see the world through your eyes—why this, why now, and why you? A powerful story can transform a good pitch into an unforgettable one.

3. Show Passion: Investors aren’t just backing an idea—they’re backing you. Your belief in your vision must be palpable. If you’re not passionate about your business, why should they be? Convey your excitement, your commitment, and your drive. Passion is contagious, and it can often be the deciding factor in an investor’s decision.

4. Proofread and Practice Relentlessly: Typos and sloppy presentations are a quick way to lose credibility. Your deck should be flawless, and your delivery should be smooth. Rehearse until your pitch feels natural. The fewer “ums” and pauses, the more confident and professional you’ll appear.

5. Design Matters: First impressions are powerful. A pitch deck that looks outdated or cluttered can distract from your message. Utilize modern, clean design templates that enhance your content, not overshadow it. Tools like Visme make it easy to create visually stunning decks without being a design expert. Remember, a well-designed deck doesn’t just look good—it communicates that you take your business seriously.

These are the 30 Pitch Decks you will find below:

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How to create a Pitch deck 10 slides

Creating a compelling 10-slide pitch deck is crucial for effectively presenting your business idea.

Creating a Pitch deck (Step by Step Guide)

Step 1: open google slides.

Step 2: Add the MagicSlides Extension

Step 3: Create a New Presentation

Step 4: open the magicslides extension.

Step 5: Add Content for Slide 1 - Problem Statement

Step 6: Add Content for Slide 2 - Solution

Step 7: Continue Adding Content for Remaining Slides

• Slide 3: Market Opportunity - Provide an overview of the market size and potential growth.
• Slide 4: Business Model - Explain how your business will make money.
• Slide 5: Traction - Highlight any progress or milestones achieved so far.
• Slide 6: Marketing and Sales Strategy - Describe your plan for reaching and acquiring customers.
• Slide 7: Competition - Identify key competitors and explain your competitive advantage.
• Slide 8: Team - Introduce the core team members and their relevant experience.
• Slide 9: Financials - Present key financial projections and funding requirements.
• Slide 10: Ask - Clearly state what you are asking for, whether it's investment, partnerships, or other support.

Step 8: Click on "Create Presentation"

Step 9: Review and Customize

Step 10: Save and Share Your Presentation

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