Ultimate Pitch Deck (Part 4)

Synopsis

Need a pitch deck template to impress investors? We'll explain what a pitch deck is, how to use our Ultimate Pitch Deck (Part 4) template to get you started, and if you read until the end, you'll learn one of the top metrics that mega-VC firm Andressen Horowitz uses to assess a startup's potential. Why is it that the top-funded pitch decks all seem to follow the same format? Whether you're talking about Airbnb… Uber… Facebook… Or Youtube… all of these companies followed a similar format to pitch VC and get millions of dollars in investment.

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What are some tips for using a pitch deck template effectively?

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To use a pitch deck template effectively, you should first understand what a pitch deck is and its purpose. It's a presentation used to provide your audience with a quick overview of your business plan. You'd typically use a pitch deck during face-to-face or online meetings with potential investors, customers, partners, and co-founders. Some tips include: keeping it simple, making sure your message is clear and concise, telling a story, and using visuals to support your message. Also, it's important to tailor your pitch deck to your audience and always be prepared to answer any questions.

How can a pitch deck help in establishing a startup's credibility and potential?

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A pitch deck can help establish a startup's credibility and potential by effectively communicating the business model, vision, and strategy of the startup to potential investors. It provides a clear and concise overview of the startup's value proposition, market opportunity, competitive advantage, financial projections, and team. This information can help investors assess the viability and potential of the startup, thereby enhancing its credibility.

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Our fully customizable Ultimate Pitch Deck (Part 4) template includes all of the top slides you need to pitch your company to investors, from the problem and solution slides, the team, and company overview slides, as well as slides to showcase your business model, demo your product, or highlight how you create value to customers. We'll also cover slides on market size, market validation, demographics, and financial projections. Now, let's break down how these slides are used to improve your chance of getting funded by VCs.

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What are some ways to use data and analytics in a pitch deck?

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Data and analytics can be used in a pitch deck in several ways. They can be used to demonstrate the market size and validation, showing potential investors the potential for growth and profitability. They can also be used in the business model slide to show how the company creates value for its customers. Additionally, data and analytics can be used in the financial projections slide to provide a realistic forecast of the company's financial future. Lastly, they can be used in the demographics slide to show who the company's target customers are and how the company plans to reach them.

How can a pitch deck be used to demonstrate a company's market positioning?

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A pitch deck can be used to demonstrate a company's market positioning by including slides that showcase the company's business model, product demo, and how the company creates value for its customers. It can also include slides on market size, market validation, demographics, and financial projections. These slides collectively help in demonstrating the company's position in the market.

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Tool highlights

Start with a problem and solution

The most important aspect of any pitch is to set up the problem that your company aims to solve. Without a real problem to solve, there's no need for your business. For example, did you know one of WeWork founder Adam Neumann's first business idea was kneepads for babies? Babies have crawled on their own for centuries, so this wasn't a real problem. Cheap office space was a much better idea.

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How can a business pivot if the problem they initially aimed to solve doesn't resonate with investors?

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A business can pivot by reassessing their business model, identifying a new problem that needs solving, and developing a solution for it. This may involve market research, customer feedback, and brainstorming sessions. The new problem and solution should be compelling enough to attract investors. It's also important to communicate the pivot effectively to stakeholders, including investors, to gain their support.

What are some strategies for showcasing problem-solving in a pitch deck?

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Some strategies for showcasing problem-solving in a pitch deck include: 1. Clearly defining the problem: Start by explaining the problem your business aims to solve. This sets the stage for your solution. 2. Presenting your solution: After defining the problem, present your solution. This should be clear and concise. 3. Demonstrating your solution's effectiveness: Use data, case studies, or testimonials to show how your solution effectively solves the problem. 4. Comparing with alternatives: Show how your solution is better than other existing solutions. This could be in terms of cost, efficiency, or other factors. 5. Showing your plan: Outline your plan for implementing your solution. This shows that you have a clear path forward.

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These Problem and Solution slides communicate to investors the top four main pain points to your target market and the top four value adds of your solution. For instance, the top four pain points that baby kneepads solve are nothing. The top four "customer gains" that your product or service provides set up your company's value proposition, which is the tangible benefits customers receive with your product. If you don't land this aspect of your pitch, VCs or angel investors won't see the value of the rest of your pitch. (Slide 3 + 4)

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Provide a team and company overview

After an established value proposition, you need to share why you are best equipped to provide this value. This slide highlights your founder team, their roles, and their most relevant points of experience. This aspect of your pitch is vital because VCs need to know the team can deliver.

Wonder what the right background for your team is? Data from the book Super Founders found that just over 50% of all billion dollar companies had a business background, while 49% had technical backgrounds. Over 70% of all chief executives of billion-dollar startups had less than a year of industry or relevant work experience. And only one in five billion-dollar companies was founded by a single founder. However, nearly a third of all companies were founded by a duo. For more insights on this, check out the link to our summary.

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What are the key slides needed in a pitch deck to effectively present a business idea?

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The key slides needed in a pitch deck to effectively present a business idea typically include: an introduction slide, problem statement, solution or product overview, business model, market size and opportunity, competitive landscape, marketing and sales strategy, team overview, financial projections, and the ask (what you're seeking from investors). Each slide should be concise, clear, and compelling to keep the audience engaged and interested.

How can a pitch deck help in impressing potential investors or partners?

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A pitch deck can impress potential investors or partners by effectively communicating your business idea, vision, and strategy. It provides a clear and concise overview of your business, including your mission, value proposition, and origin story. A well-structured pitch deck tells a compelling story about your business, making it easier for investors or partners to understand and empathize with your vision. It's not just about the technicalities of your business, but also about how well your story flows and appeals to the human condition.

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Now, this company overview slide should tell investors who you are as a company. Include a founding story, as well as an easy-to-digest mission statement to solidify the value proposition from before. Remember: Your pitch isn't about how impressive the technicalities are, but how well your story flows. A lot of business ideas did come from personal experience and personal hardships, so a real story is never a bad thing. But if your origin story didn't come from some profound personal experience, you should still appeal to the general human condition in your pitch so people can empathize with you and your vision. (Slide 7)

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Another visualization of the company overview slide provides your origin story as told through key numbers, such as the year you were founded, how much funding or revenue you've generated so far, and how big your team is. Remember: this is not some boring internal document like a progress report, this is an external-facing document where you pick out the most impressive aspects of your company and translate them into a language that anyone can understand. (Slide 8)

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Business model, product demo, and value to customers

Now that you've established who you are and the why behind what you do, your pitch deck should then establish the how, as in how you plan to execute this vision. For instance, this business model slide demonstrates the intricacies of your business model in a simple and straightforward way. (Slide 11)

For a digital product, you may want to include a product demo of your UI and its core benefits, like with this visualization. There are plenty of variations of these UI demos inside the presentation, so make sure to download the full version to get access to them all. (Slide 12)

And after you introduce these specifics, you may want to reiterate how this business model and product provide value to the customers with this slide. For more slides and tools to help you plot your value proposition, such as a value proposition canvas, you can download and customize our Value Proposition presentation. (Slide 13)

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Are there any case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of an EV sharing subscription service?

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While the content provided does not specifically mention any case studies, there are indeed several case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of an EV sharing subscription service. For instance, a study conducted by the International Transport Forum examined the impact of car-sharing services in several cities and found that they can significantly reduce the number of cars on the road, decrease emissions, and increase the use of electric vehicles. Another study by the Shared-Use Mobility Center found that car-sharing services can lead to a significant reduction in vehicle ownership among users. However, it's important to note that the effectiveness of such services can vary greatly depending on the specific context and implementation.

Can you name a company that could benefit from an EV sharing subscription service and explain how?

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A company that could benefit from an EV sharing subscription service is Uber. As a ride-hailing service, Uber could incorporate EV sharing into their existing business model. This would allow drivers to rent electric vehicles on a subscription basis, reducing the upfront cost of purchasing an EV. It could also attract more environmentally conscious customers and drivers, enhancing Uber's brand image and potentially increasing their market share.

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Market size, market validation, and demographics

Now, what about your market size? When investors invest, they do so based on a multiple of future earnings. This slide shows your total addressable market. If you watch our video above, we explain why this is important to investors.(Slide 16)

How do you prove to investors you can capture this target market? Use market validation to highlight your product market fit. If you don't already have sales data to share, you can validate your assumptions in a different way. Even though your product is new and innovative, there are precedents to point to the value of your potential business. Market validation doesn't have to come from a company or product doing the exact same thing. Rather, it's evidence that implies a shift is brewing that validates your product.

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How can the Ultimate Pitch Deck template be customized to suit different business models?

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The Ultimate Pitch Deck template can be customized to suit different business models by adjusting the content of each slide to reflect the unique aspects of your business. This includes modifying the problem statement, solution, business model, marketing strategy, financial projections, and team slides to align with your specific business model. Additionally, the template can be visually customized to match your brand's aesthetics, including colors, fonts, and logos.

Why is it important to back up assumptions with hard data in the Ultimate Pitch Deck?

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Backing up assumptions with hard data in the Ultimate Pitch Deck is crucial because it provides credibility to your claims and projections. Investors are more likely to trust and invest in your business if they see that your assumptions are not just speculative, but are based on solid data and facts. It can make the difference between getting funded or not.

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For instance, let's say you see the electric car transition happening. At the same time, you see that more employees want to transition to remote work full time. Both of these trends could validate an EV sharing subscription service, where people share cars that they use less frequently instead of buying expensive new cars. A quick Google search shows there are TONS of companies doing just that! Last, as part of your market research, you'll want to share your target persona's demographic information across gender, age, income level and what they value. (Slides 15 and 17)

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What role does a company overview play in a pitch deck and how can it be effectively presented?

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The company overview in a pitch deck plays a crucial role as it provides a snapshot of your business to potential investors or partners. It typically includes information about the company's mission, vision, team, products or services, and market. It sets the stage for the rest of the presentation by giving context and background information. To effectively present it, keep it concise and engaging. Use clear and simple language, and include compelling visuals if possible. Highlight what makes your company unique and why it's a good investment opportunity.

How can a company's financial projections be effectively presented in a pitch deck?

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A company's financial projections can be effectively presented in a pitch deck by focusing on a few key aspects. First, it's important to provide a clear and concise summary of the financial projections. This should include revenue, expenses, and profitability. Second, it's crucial to explain the assumptions behind these projections. This helps investors understand the basis of the projections and assess their credibility. Third, it's beneficial to provide a sensitivity analysis showing how changes in key assumptions could impact the financial outcomes. Lastly, it's helpful to compare the projections with industry benchmarks or similar companies to give investors a frame of reference.

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Case study: Andressen Horowitz's advice

So how do you calculate your total addressable market size in a way that a top VC firm like Andressen Horowitz would like? Instead of the classic way to calculate TAM based on the market share of a total market size, Andressen Horowitz prefers what they call a "bottoms-up" analysis which counts your market size by the target customer profile, their willingness to pay for your product, and how you'll market and sell the product to them.

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Let's say you're an e-commerce business that wants to sell toothbrushes in China. If you calculated it based on the classic method, you might guess that you could capture 40% of the entire population of China, which is over one billion people. If you sold the toothbrush for one dollar, you could make five hundred and forty million dollars a year. But this overstates the market size and the difficulty of selling a toothbrush to five hundred and forty million people. Alternatively, you should calculate how many toothbrushes you can actually sell every day across all the venues available to you. This not only provides a more accurate number, but it makes you think about the skills and resources you'll need to pull your business off.

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To generate these projections, we've created a Business Plan that compiles all of the above across multiple product and subscription offerings while accounting for expected expenses. It can even generate charts and graphs to visualize as part of your investor pitch. If you can back up your assumptions with hard data, it could make the difference between getting funded or not.

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While VCs want to see big numbers, many of the best companies had relatively modest markets to begin with. For example, eBay and Airbnb both thought their market shares were a lot smaller than they ended up being. Because of network effects, these platforms grew to scale well beyond the original estimates because they proved they could do the hard part: offer a service that solved a real problem for a small community. Then, they grew from there. For more insights like this, check out the great blog A16z wrote on the topic here.

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Conclusion

Ready to pitch your company to investors? Download this new iteration of the Ultimate Pitch Deck for more slides on the ask, market sizing, target prospects, lead maturing cycle, customer acquisition framework, and additional dashboards to save time and hours of work.