What should be in my startup pitch deck?

I get this question a lot.

This is how I answer.

Like all selling, you need to understand your audience. Most fundraising decks are written for a Clients or user audience as that is who they know best.

Your audience is Venture Capitalists, and they have a specific need. Their job is to deliver a suitcase of money back to LP’s that is three times bigger than the one they got in the first place.

So give them what they want.

What they want is this.

You can also see sequoia’s deck template. They are pretty much the same.

Those are table stakes. Don’t overcomplicate it.

Now, what’s next level ?

a) Avoid deckcrime
b) Paint the story of when you’re done
c) The best presentation top i ever got — Make your headlines the exec summary.

d) Another tip: take a blank sheet of paper, draw two horizontal and vertical lines so you get 9 tiles (slides). If you cannot with 1–3 words per tile get your story(line) across your audience is lost.

Hope helpful.

Oh, finally, a note on process.

Have 3 different decks. Each deck is designed optimally to get you to the next phase. A teaser (4 slides) to get a meeting. A narrative (10 slides) to excite people enough in the first meeting. A ‘monster’ to cherry pick in future meetings and answer VC diligence questions.

That’s it

Good luck

A