The bmannconsulting.com website
bmann.ca
1---
2tags:
3 - startup
4 - fundraising
5---
6Creating a pitch deck is part of the startup fundraising process.
7
8Every stage of investment and industry has different norms, but there are a lot of standard expectations and basics.
9
10I’ll focus on sharing resources around early stage fundraising for your pre-seed or seed rounds, for what you think is a [[Venture Sized Business]].
11
12There’s a movement towards writing up [[Investment Memos]] instead of Pitch Decks.
13## Slide Design
14
15### 10 slides
16Your pitch deck will be 10 slides.
17
18You can (and will) have 10s of appendix / backup / alternate slides. The meat of your base pitch will only be 10 slides.
19
20An overview or intro deck can / should be less!
21### Send a PDF attachment
22
23Build your deck in whatever you want - Keynote, PowerPoint, Google Slides, Figma, whatever.
24
25When actually sending a deck, send it as a PDF attachment. This works on mobile, it works offline, it can easily be forwarded, and it’s non editable.
26
27There are things like Docsend and various other “send this as a link and email gate it”. This is likely more appropriate for customer sales engagement or other purposes.
28### The title of the slide should be the take away
29
30[LinkedIn post by Stephen Carroll](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stevecarroll76_the-best-advice-i-ever-got-about-building-activity-7157053966973878272-VMED)
31
32> The best advice I ever got about building pitch decks is stupidly simple:
33>
34> “Make the title of the slide the thing you want the investor/customer to take away from reading that slide.”
35>
36> Example:
37>
38> There’s often a “team” slide… Which is appropriately titled something like “Our Team.”
39>
40> That title is okay, but it can be improved.
41>
42> “Team of Industry Veterans with 28+ Years of Experience” has way more punch than “Our Team”
43>
44> Frames the thinking around how qualified your team is… Before they were just getting a general introduction to your team.
45>
46> Same info. Different title. WAY bigger impact.
47>
48> Instead of it reading like a description, it reads like a punchline.
49>
50> This is psychology.
51>
52> Another example:
53>
54> The “Our Product” slide
55>
56> Typically followed with information about the offering.
57>
58> Instead, just lead with the punchline…
59>
60> “Our Product Reduces Manual Effort by 10x”
61>
62> Much more powerful.
63
64### Pitch Deck Coach Outline
65
66
67
68### 11 Pitch Types
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