---
tags:
  - startup
  - fundraising
---
Creating a pitch deck is part of the startup fundraising process. 

Every stage of investment and industry has different norms, but there are a lot of standard expectations and basics. 

I’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]].

There’s a movement towards writing up [[Investment Memos]] instead of Pitch Decks. 
## Slide Design

### 10 slides 
Your pitch deck will be 10 slides. 

You can (and will) have 10s of appendix / backup / alternate slides. The meat of your base pitch will only be 10 slides. 

An overview or intro deck can / should be less!
### Send a PDF attachment

Build your deck in whatever you want - Keynote, PowerPoint, Google Slides, Figma, whatever. 

When 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. 

There 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. 
### The title of the slide should be the take away

[LinkedIn post by Stephen Carroll](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stevecarroll76_the-best-advice-i-ever-got-about-building-activity-7157053966973878272-VMED)

> The best advice I ever got about building pitch decks is stupidly simple:
> 
> “Make the title of the slide the thing you want the investor/customer to take away from reading that slide.”
> 
> Example:
> 
> There’s often a “team” slide… Which is appropriately titled something like “Our Team.”
> 
> That title is okay, but it can be improved.
> 
> “Team of Industry Veterans with 28+ Years of Experience” has way more punch than “Our Team”
> 
> Frames the thinking around how qualified your team is… Before they were just getting a general introduction to your team.
> 
> Same info. Different title. WAY bigger impact.
> 
> Instead of it reading like a description, it reads like a punchline.
> 
> This is psychology.
> 
> Another example:
> 
> The “Our Product” slide 
> 
> Typically followed with information about the offering.
> 
> Instead, just lead with the punchline…
> 
> “Our Product Reduces Manual Effort by 10x”
> 
> Much more powerful.

### Pitch Deck Coach Outline

![](/assets/pitchdeck/pitchdeckcoach.jpeg)

### 11 Pitch Types

![](/assets/pitchdeck/11-pitch-types.jpeg)