What Should Be Included in a Pitch Deck?
A pitch deck should give an audience enough information to understand the business opportunity without overwhelming them with every detail about the company.
The exact slides will vary depending on the company, its stage, the industry, and the audience. A startup seeking investment may need a different presentation from an established company seeking a strategic partner or presenting a new product.
Even so, many effective pitch decks address a similar group of core questions. The following sections cover the information that is commonly useful in an investor or business pitch deck.
1. A Clear Introduction to the Company
Early in the presentation, make it easy for the audience to understand what your company does.
A simple description of the business, product, or service can provide important context for everything that follows. If appropriate, include a short statement describing who the company serves and the main value it provides.
2. The Problem
Explain the problem your business is trying to solve.
Describe who experiences the problem and why it matters. The problem may involve cost, inconvenience, wasted time, poor results, limited access, inefficiency, or some other meaningful difficulty.
This section gives the audience a reason to care about the solution that follows.
3. The Solution
Once the problem is understood, explain how your company addresses it.
Describe what your product or service does and why it is useful. If the product is visual, screenshots, photographs, diagrams, or a brief demonstration may help make the idea easier to understand.
Focus on the central value of the solution before going into detailed features or technical information.
4. The Target Customer
Your audience should understand who is expected to use or buy the product.
Rather than describing the customer too broadly, identify the types of people, companies, industries, or market segments most likely to need the solution.
5. The Market Opportunity
If the purpose of the pitch deck is to attract investors, they will usually want to understand how large the opportunity may be.
Useful market information may include the number of potential customers, expected spending, industry growth, relevant market trends, and the portion of the market your company could realistically pursue.
Large market numbers can provide context, but they are most useful when clearly connected to the customers your business can actually serve.
6. The Business Model
Explain how the business expects to generate revenue.
Depending on the company, revenue might come from subscriptions, product sales, licensing, transaction fees, commissions, advertising, services, or another model.
If pricing is known, it may also be useful to explain what customers pay and why the pricing makes sense for the market.
7. Traction or Evidence of Progress
Traction helps show that the business has moved beyond an idea.
Depending on the company's stage, traction might include revenue, customers, users, growth, partnerships, pilot programs, contracts, letters of intent, product usage, repeat business, or other measurable progress.
If the company is extremely early and has limited traction, include the strongest genuine evidence available without overstating what it means.
8. The Competition
A pitch deck should usually acknowledge the alternatives customers already have.
Those alternatives may include direct competitors, indirect competitors, older technologies, manual processes, or simply doing nothing.
Explain how your company differs and why those differences may matter to customers. This is generally more credible than claiming that no competition exists.
9. Your Competitive Advantage
Competition explains what alternatives exist. Competitive advantage explains why your company may be able to succeed despite those alternatives.
Possible advantages might include proprietary technology, intellectual property, lower costs, superior distribution, unusual expertise, customer relationships, data, network effects, brand, speed, or a better user experience.
10. The Team
Investors often place significant weight on the people building the company.
Include the founders and other key team members, but concentrate on the experience and qualifications that are relevant to the business.
The objective is not necessarily to reproduce everyone's full resume. It is to explain why this particular team is suited to pursue this opportunity.
11. Financial Information
The financial information included in a pitch deck should reflect the company's stage.
An established business may have historical revenue, expenses, margins, and growth data. An early-stage startup may rely more heavily on forecasts and assumptions.
Keep the information understandable and be prepared to explain the assumptions behind projections. Forecasts should communicate your expectations rather than create the impression that future results are guaranteed.
12. The Funding Request
If you are using the pitch deck to raise money, make the purpose of the fundraising clear.
You may want to explain how much capital the company is seeking and what that funding is expected to help accomplish.
For example, funding might be intended for product development, hiring, marketing, sales expansion, manufacturing, regulatory work, entering new markets, or reaching another significant milestone.
13. The Company's Vision
A pitch deck should not only explain where the business is today. It can also help the audience understand what the company might become.
A clear vision can help connect the current product or opportunity with the larger future you are trying to build. Keep that vision ambitious enough to be meaningful but grounded enough to remain believable.
14. Contact Information or a Clear Next Step
A pitch deck should make it easy for an interested viewer to know what to do next.
Depending on the purpose of the presentation, this might include contact information, a request for a meeting, a funding request, a product demonstration, or another specific next step.
Does Every Pitch Deck Need All of These Slides?
No. A pitch deck should not become a checklist where every possible topic receives its own slide regardless of whether that information helps tell the story.
Some topics can be combined. Others may not be relevant at a particular stage of the business. A company with no revenue, for example, cannot present years of historical financial performance. A company entering an unusual or emerging market may need more explanation of the problem and market than another company would.
Use the topics above as questions your presentation should consider answering, not as a rigid slide-by-slide formula.
How Long Should a Pitch Deck Be?
There is no universal number of slides that makes a pitch deck good. What matters more is whether the presentation communicates the important information efficiently.
Avoid adding slides simply to make the deck appear more substantial, and avoid removing useful information merely to meet an arbitrary number. Every slide should have a reason to be there.
Once the Pitch Deck Is Finished, How Will You Share It?
Deciding what belongs in your pitch deck is only part of the process. Eventually, the finished presentation has to reach investors, prospects, partners, clients, or other people you want to see it.
One option is to send the original PDF or PowerPoint file as an email attachment. Another is to host the presentation online and provide viewers with access to it.
PitchDeckHost.com was created for this part of the presentation process. You can upload a supported presentation, share access with viewers, and obtain information about how the presentation is viewed.
Learn About Pitch Deck Hosting
Related Pitch Deck Resources
You may also find these PitchDeckHost.com resources useful:
How to Design a Pitch Deck for Investors
Visit the complete Pitch Deck Resources section for additional articles about creating, designing, presenting, sharing, and tracking pitch decks and business presentations.