Purpose of This Guide
The guidance provided in this deck is geared towards creating a business story that resonates with
a general audience of general investors who are skeptical of pitches. A founder’s greatest enemy is
the collective memory of investors who have been pitched on hundreds—if not thousands—of new
technologies each year. They are desensitized to buzzwords, sensationalism, or arguments that
ultimately require a faith-based level of trust in a founder’s ability to execute on their claims.
Though there is no objective right or wrong way to pitch a startup to Investors, successful trends in
communication, story arches, and visualizations have been identified over the years and used to
create more compelling decks that utilize these modern, best practices. This report applies these
best practices, as well as recommendations on how best to align the deck with such practices.
2 www.venturecraft.io
Types of Pitch Decks
There are two styles of pitch decks to be aware of: e-mail decks and presentation decks. An e-mail
deck, as the name implies, is a deck that is e-mailed to a recipient and lives without a narrator. As
such, e-mail decks are generally more wordy, dense, and have the expectation that the audience
will consume the deck at their leisure. Such decks often include detailed citations, or links to
external references that can be clicked within the document
In contrast, a presentation deck is a type of pitch deck that has the luxury of being presented with a
narrator (generally, the CEO or a founder). People are generally incapable of effectively listening
while reading, which means presentation decks need to strike a balance of only including text and
visuals that are necessary to compliment the narrator’s talk-track. Failure to strike this balance
results in the audience either refusing to read content on the slides, or refusing to attentively
listen to the narrator while they read.
3 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 1: Introduction/Cover Slide
This is the initial slide acts as a billboard for
the entire presentation. It should have clear
branding (company name and logo), 5 to 10
Important Information to Highlight:
words that succinctly articulates the
• Company Name and Logo
business, and a point of contact (ideally the
• Your Name, Title, and E-mail
CEO, with name, title, and email address).
• Amount of Funding Sought
Optionally, consider putting the amount of
• Succinct Tagline (5 to 10 words)
your raise on this slide (e.g., “Raising $5 MM
Series A”).
4 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 2: Clear Problem Statement
A strong problem statement will clearly describe the pressing pain that your business seeks to address. It
should be sufficiently pervasive to convey the existence of a large opportunity. You want to present the
problem from the customer’s perspective and support with specific, quantified market research if possible.
The goal of a strong problem statement is to enable your audience to empathize with those who feel the pain
identified. Note that the pain should be felt by your customer, and your customer is the individual or business
who pay money for your service. A mistake companies often make during pitching is focusing on the end-user of
the product who may not actually be the customer. For example, Facebook’s customers are advertising
partners, not individual users.
Note that where a problem is too abstract or large to effectively be contained within a single slide, you can split
it into two slides. The first, high-level description becomes the “Opportunity Slide,” enabling a clearer, more
narrowed focus for the Problem Statement slide.
5 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 3: Compelling Solution
At its core, a solution slide should logically mirror the problem statement in a way that helps the audience appreciate
what novel way you have managed to alleviate the pains you previously identified as being a driving force of interest in
your market. For example, if the problem involved a lack of efficiency or an unnecessary amount of cost, the solution is,
implicitly, efficiency and lowered costs.
The relationship between the problem statement and solution statement is the most important pair of slides in the
entire deck. It is what provides some level of clarity and understanding to the audience about what the remaining slides
will address. If the soul of your business opportunity is not clear to your audience by the time they move beyond this
slide, your only hope of investment will be if they can stitch together your business’ purpose through the aggregate of
your other slides. This drastically reduces the probability of receiving an investment because it ultimately requires the
audience to have some motivation to care and invest their neocortex into figuring out what the purpose of your
business is. For most general investors, they would rather move on to the next pitch than do your heavy lifting for you.
In other words, it is the job of the investor to connect the dots — but it is the job of the entrepreneur to place the dots as
close together as possible.
6 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 4: Market Sizing – TAM/SAM/SOM
The Market Sizing slide is the third most important slide in the entire pitch. If you’ve successfully conveyed your
problem and solution statement, then your audience is now at a receptive point of wanting to learn more about your
business opportunity. However, one of your biggest enemies is the collective memory of investors. A common
occurrence among investor communities is to fall in love with a startup only to find out much later that the market is too
small to support outside capital.
For this reason, after you have successfully calibrated your audience’s expectations about what the business is about,
the most powerful slide to ensure they continue paying attention is to provide some assurance that there is money to
be made. To accomplish this, you will want to break your market down into three segments: Total Available Market
(“TAM”), Serviceable Available Market (“SOM”), and Serviceable Obtainable Market (“SOM”). A TAM/SAM/SOM model is
usually represented as a series of concentric circles.
Ultimately, a successful Market Sizing slide will convey: (1) that you have a confident, tangible, strategic understanding
of your market; (2) the market is large enough to warrant outside investment; and (3) how large the initial opportunity
or lowest hanging fruits are as you begin to roll out your Go to Market Strategy.
7 www.venturecraft.io
Deep Dive: TAM Explained
The TAM is a theoretical, unachievable number that forces you to draw a line
around your market and quantify its value as if you had 100% share of the
market. For example, if you were a shoe company operating within the United
States, your TAM would be the price of your shoes multiplied against the
entire population of the United States. As of 2019, the United States had a
population of 328 million. If we assume the average price for a pair of shoes is
$50, we arrive at a TAM of $16.4 billion. We could further refine this number by
adopting it more to our market goals. If, for example, our shoe company
specializes in senior citizens, then our TAM is reduced by the number of senior
citizens existing within the population. It also acts as a self-assessment to
make sure our marketing assumptions are worth pursuing. For example, if our
shoe company specialized in abnormally large feet and only sold sizes bigger
than a men’s 20, we would likely drastically reduce our TAM to the point where
it may no longer be an investible business model (i.e., if there are only 100,000
people in the United States who wear a size 20+ in shoes, the TAM is now a
mere $5 million).
8 www.venturecraft.io
Deep Dive: SOM Explained
The SOM represents the lowest hanging fruit opportunities of your market
that you can realistically target based on your actual resources, connections,
and go to market strategy. Continuing with our shoe company hypothetical, it
is unlikely that a new company would be able to support a nationwide
distribution and release of a new shoe. Rather, it is more likely that our shoe
company will start in specific, targeted regions or sales partners. For example,
perhaps we first launch in Los Angeles because (1) the location of the
shipping ports makes distribution simple and cost effective as shoes arrive
from overseas where they are made, and (2) because we operate in California
and already have established relationships with local retailers to carry our
products. If we are a direct-to-consumer company, then perhaps our SOM is
restricted based on the population that purchases shoes online, which will
likely be a subset of those who purchase in person. Whatever the
assumptions are, the goal is to contrast the theoretical universe calculation
provided by the TAM with a more practical, strategic SOM.
9 www.venturecraft.io
Deep Dive: SAM Explained
The SAM is best left to last for calculation. Its value is to enable your audience
to envision what your future strategy may be once you’ve successfully
dominated your SOM and effectively burst out of its container into the
surrounding SAM. It is also more reflective of an achievable TAM that, with
enough planning and success, is actually obtainable rather than a theoretical
quantification of your market.
10 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 5: Go to Market Strategy
Building on the momentum of your previous slide, the go
to market strategy slide communicates to your audience
how you plan to actually get to market. The best go to
market strategies are ones that appear fully fleshed out
Important Information to Highlight:
as if there is already a strategy. The worst kinds of go to
• Identify your target customer
market strategies make it appear as if the founders are
• Discuss potential reimbursement strategy
going to figure it out at a later point while using the
investor's money to figure it out. This is where you'll
• Describe where you fit in the value chain
want to describe your marketing and sales strategy the • Existing channel partners
channels to be employed the sales cycle and customer • Existing LOIs
acquisition plans and cost. Describe where you fit in the
overall value chain for your customer.
11 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 6: Competitive Matrix
The competitive matrix slide is another incredibly valuable slide that conveys a lot of information to the
audience. First and foremost it shows and educates the audience on who are the major players that operate
within your market. The second thing it does is it identifies the value propositions that you believe your
customers use to identify a solution for their needs. Money and time are finite. So these different value
propositions are the things that will ultimately weigh in your favor when put head-to-head against your
competitors.
Usually a competitive matrix shows up as a grid where each competitor is listed along the left side with value
propositions listed along the x-axis and then a series of check marks or x's to show which features or value
propositions apply to which entity. A successful competitive matrix will educate your audience on the players
within the market as well as what makes you special when compared to them from a high-level perspective.
12 www.venturecraft.io
Deep Dive: Competitive Matrix
Note that one of the biggest mistakes startups make on this slide is
pretending that there are no competitors. This may seem like an ideal
situation, since a lack of competitors is sometimes perceived as an
YOU Competitor
advantage. However, in reality, a market without competitors is usually not a
viable market. The existence of competitors validates the demand for a Feature 1
solution. Without existing competitors, there is likely a need to invest
substantially in educating the market as to why they need a solution you’ve
created, which is costly and increases the overall risk of failure. Feature 2
Dig deep when you are trying to come up with competitors, even if they don’t
seem obvious. If you are a better mouse trap, then your competitors are other Feature 3
mouse traps. If you are the first mouse trap, then your competitors are
poisons or cats. If a problem is substantial enough to solve, then your market
is undoubtedly already trying to solve it with existing resources, even if they Feature 4
are not nearly as effective as the product or service you are offering.
13 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 7: Business Model
Your business model slide should identify the
ways in which you plan to actually make money.
It should communicate to me what you are
selling at what price and ultimately what are you Important Information to Highlight:
providing for that payment.
• Describe your revenue model
• Pricing for various tiers or products
Yeah. It’s pretty much that straight forward.
• Notable margins
14 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 8: 5-Year Financial Projection
A successful five-year financial projection will
allow the audience to see what your revenue
ramp looks like. Ideally you will be able to show
assumptions year-over-year so that the
audience can see how many users or products
you plan on selling what your EBITA is. And also
what your revenue is year-over-year.
15 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 9: Traction
The traction slide allows your audience to see what type of milestones you've achieved with the resources,
you've already invested. This is where you can list certain achievements partnerships, or previous raises that
you've had. It’s also a great slide to show any actual growth you’ve experienced in your userbase, subscription, or
sales. It helps the audience believe that you are more than just a theory; rather, you have an actual solution to an
actual problem that people are demanding.
16 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 10: Team
The purpose of a team slide is to provide that last level of assurance that you have the right team in place to
execute on the business you have described in previous slides. At this point in the pitch investors will already be
sold on the idea of your product or service, but they may still be hesitant on whether or not it can be trusted with
their capital. This slide allows them to see that you and your team are the right jockeys to invest in. Note that
your team should have all the required positions filled for the type of company that you are.
If you were a biotech company, it would be expected that someone on your team has a medical background. If you
are a technology company, it's expected that someone should have a CTO or someone with that type of field
background. If your cyber security company similarly, you should have someone with experience in cyber
security on your team.
17 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 11: Advisory Panel/Board
Related to the team slide is your advisory panel slide if applicable. An advisory panel allows investors to see what
kind of support network you have to help ensure that the investment is well guarded. If you are weak in your team
slide the advisory panel is where you can fill in the blanks to show that you have a stop gap measure in place to
provide that needed viewpoint. For example, a technology team that specializes in a biotech product who is
missing a medical background team member might be able to show support from a board of medical advisory
individuals to offset that risk.
18 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 12: IP & Barriers to Entry
Patents are one of the biggest barriers and. Moats a company will deal with when trying to raise capital. Investors
will likely want to know whether a company has achieved a freedom to operate. From a licensed attorney to
ensure that their technology does not intrude on anyone else's patents. Similarly a company that has patents or
is in the process of obtaining a patent should let the audience know that these structures are in place.
19 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 13: Roadmap
A roadmap slide is not always necessary, but can sometimes allow the audience to envision what future
milestones will look like. What future raises may require what future regulatory paths might be required or any
other type of timeline that is important for the audience to know in order to get excited about the overall
opportunity.
20 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 14: Ask / Use of Funds
The most important slide in an investor deck that makes it truly an investor deck is the ask slide. The ask slide is
where you ask for whatever amount of money you've identified as being necessary for your success. You want to
make sure that the raise is realistic and calculated based on an understanding of your needs. It is not uncommon
for startups to simply ask for a million dollars or five million dollars instead of having arrived at that number
through thorough calculation of their needs. Moreover a use of funds will allow the audience to see the
breakdown of how you plan on using the money you are asking for.
The best way to visualize a use of funds is through a pie chart that identifies the top four to six areas of spending
that you will use the money for. Be conscious of the fact that marketing is usually a substantial amount of an ask.
Sometimes marketing can be up to 50% of the entire ask depending on the market. It is not uncommon for
startups to underestimate the amount of marketing spend they will need. If an investor does not believe the
amount of money being requested is realistic it will undermine their confidence and all of the other slides and
whether or not their accuracy was true.
21 www.venturecraft.io
Slide 15: Summary Slide
The last slide should be a summary slide where you
identify the four to five main takeaways, you would
like to refresh your audience on before they end their
view of your deck. For example, you may want to
include how much money you are raising the size of
the market or the opportunity a brief reminder of Need a hand crafting your perfect pitch?
what your technology is and how it works.
Schedule a free consultation:
You will also want to include your name your title and
your contact information to make that easily
hello@venturecraft.io
accessible for investors to reach out.
22 www.venturecraft.io
