How To Make A Perfect Pitch Deck? Learn The Best Practices To Make One

If you’re raising money for your startup, having an impressive pitch deck is a key component in your fundraising toolkit. A great pitch deck gets potential investors excited about your idea and engages them in a conversation about your business, hopefully leading to an investment. Do you know investors spend an average of only 3 mins and 44 seconds on any pitch deck? Therefore the goal of a pitch deck for investors should be to spark their interest in your company.

While every business is different, we believe the following 8 pitch deck PowerPoint slides work for most businesses and are most likely to generate interest from potential investors.

Problem Statement
Value Proposition
Business Model
Competitor Analysis
Core Team
Investment Strategy
Roadmap
Pitch Deck Example
Elevator Pitch Examples

Problem Statement: “A problem well stated is a problem half solved”. The most important goal of any problem statement template in a startup pitch deck is to articulate the problem being addressed to the investor in a way that is

Clear, straightforward, and easy to understand.
Succinctly summarize the problem you intend to solve.
Back it up with a few appalling statistics to show the gravity of the problem.
Shows financial implications.

Here are a few examples of Problem Statement templates for the pitch deck

Problem Statement Example

Source: Problem Statement by SlideUpLift

Problem Statement Template

Source: Problem Statement by SlideUpLift

Problem Statement Template

Source: Problem Statement by SlideUpLift

The above problem statement PowerPoint templates have a clean design and well-organized text boxes that make the presentation slides easy to understand and highlights the financial implications clearly and straightforward.

Value Proposition: A value proposition is a promise of value or solution which will solve the problem. It’s the primary reason a prospect should buy from you. In a nutshell, a value proposition for customers is a clear statement that explains how your product solves customers’ problems or improves their situation, delivers specific benefits, and tells your target audience why they should buy from you and not from the competition. Create a value proposition template that clearly maps the user’s needs to the benefits offered by your product/services.

Here are a few value proposition template examples to use in your pitch deck

Value Proposition PPT

Source: Value Proposition by SlideUpLift

Value Proposition Template

Source: Value Proposition by SlideUpLift

These value proposition PowerPoint Templates are designed so that the audience or the prospects get all the details in a glance of why they should do business with you rather than your competitors.

Business Model: Business Model describes the rationale of how your startup will create, deliver, and capture value. If you already have sales or early adopters using your offerings, talk about that here. Investors want to see that you have proven some aspect of your business model as that reduces risk, so any proof you have that validates that your solution works to solve the problem you have identified is extremely powerful.

Here are a few business model template examples to use in your pitch deck

Product Business Model Canvas

Source: Product Business Model Canvas by SlideUpLift

Business Model Canvas

Source: Business Model Canvas by SlideUpLift

Business Model Template

Source: Business Model by SlideUpLift

Business Model Template

Source: Business Model by SlideUpLift

You can use the above business model PowerPoint templates to talk about your key business strategies. You can talk about your strategy and goals in key business areas like resourcing, partnerships, sales, and marketing, etc.

Competitor Analysis: Using competitor analysis templates, you can show the competitive landscape and how you are different than your competitors. You can show your relative position w.r.t competition in different aspects of the business – operations, sales, marketing, product features. The key here is to explain what key advantages you have over the competition to highlight the “secret sauce” that you have and others don’t.

Here are a few competitor analysis templates to use in your investor pitch deck.

Competitor Analysis Template

Source: Competitor Analysis by SlideUpLift

Competitor Analysis Template

Source: Competitor Analysis Template by SlideUpLift

Competitor Analysis PowerPoint Template

Source: Competitor Analysis by SlideUpLift

The above PowerPoint templates are the different ways you can show the competitor analysis in your pitch deck. The first two templates are designed to present the analysis in a tabular format. The third template uses a quadrant graph to highlight the same.

Core Team: It’s not merely the business idea that convinces the investor to invest, the people who will be working to make the concept successful also acts as the driving force. It is with the backing of experienced and sound teams that even small businesses take off to great heights. Even if you don’t have a complete team yet, identify the key positions that you still need to fill and why those positions are critical to company growth. Consider dedicating one of the PowerPoint Pitch Deck templates to show your leadership team.

Here are a few team templates to show strong leadership in your company

Team Template

Source: Team PowerPoint by SlideUpLift

Org Chart Template

Source: Org Chart by SlideUpLift

Team PowerPoint Template

Source: Company Team by SlideUpLift

The team slide plays an important factor in making a positive first impression on the investors. The above PowerPoint templates can help you succinctly showcase the core team’s important details and make a great impression.

Investment Strategy: The investment proposal template is an important PowerPoint slide in your pitch deck on which investors spend the most time. An entrepreneur can (generally) control their costs, but will have far less control over the adoption of their product, and thus their revenue projections will be far more variable than their cost projections. That’s why focus on what will it cost to find out if the business can work? Crisply explain the costs to start and operate the business to achieve key milestones over a certain period of time that maps back to your funding ask. It will also prove to the investors that you understand your costs well and hence will potentially make the right use of funds.

Investment Strategy Template

Source: Investment Strategy by SlideUpLift

Financial Planning Template

Source: Financial Planning by SlideUpLift

The investment strategy is one of the most crucial parts of a pitch deck.

The above investment strategy examples crisply cover all the necessary information and keep the slides uncluttered.

Roadmap: You can use roadmap templates to showcase the progress that you have achieved so far and milestones that you aim to hit. Investors would love to know how sound is your road mapping and timeline planning. What major goals have you achieved so far and what are the major next steps you plan on taking? A product or company roadmap that outlines key milestones will be helpful to include.

Here are a few examples of Roadmap Templates to include in your Pitch Deck