In this blog post, we’ll discuss how can startups show their pitch deck essentials to secure funding from investors. We hosted an exciting webinar session on this topic and it was buzzing with burning questions, useful advice, and insightful suggestions and discussions. 

We were thrilled to have around 54 start-up founders join us, sharing their ideas, visions, and apprehensions regarding the pitch deck and other relevant issues. 

The Zoom session was hosted by Anshuman Sinha, an angel investor and co-founder of Startup Steroid.

“The topic for today is how to demonstrate your pitch deck to angel investors and captivate their interest in it. It should be concise and not contain excessive jargon and industry-specific words that are too difficult to understand. Make it attractive by adding interesting visuals and a storyline. Ideally, your pitch deck should not contain more than 10-12 slides. You must describe a bit about your target audience who you wish to reach out to for selling your products and services. As far as the structure of the pitch deck is concerned, it should have a startup introduction, problem statement—the problem that your startup wishes to solve—and the business model. Besides these things, you may also need to explain how your startup generates revenue, why is it different from your competitors and how can you proceed with the demo of your product or services,”— Anshuman Sinha. 

We had Navneet Sinha  on the show. He described how he’s working on a startup model relating to sports media and broadcasting. In his own words, he said,

“I am creating a digital platform for sports athletes and talents in India. As we know, events like IPL and the Olympics have broadcasting channels, but you don’t see broadcasting channels for Indian domestic events those that relate to non-cricket sports events. That’s why we want to come up with a startup that specifically addresses the concern of our athletes giving them a platform to showcase their talents.” 

Then, we had Carlos De La Huerga, founder of Oparus, Safer Healthcare, he wanted to know what are the essential slides that should be on the pitch deck.

Our mentor, Anshuman, understood the context and offered appropriate suggestions to him.

He added, “When someone wants to know about your business and you have to send it through email, it’s just like an advertisement. You have to create interest in their minds about your business. Here, you don’t need to send pitch deck. Just send them a detailed slide, and it’ll be more than enough. Try to summarise everything in a single slide, including the problem statement or pain points of customers plus the solutions that your firm is offering.”

Carlos also wanted to know how can he explain about his startup to someone in detail, specifically relating to what he does!

Here, Gagan Pal Singh Nagi, chimed in, adding his insight. “You should you should create a pitch deck, which is concise and precise. It should contain all necessary information relating to what product you are working on, what are you trying to solve and what are your future action plan. You also need to explain what you want to achieve out of it. If they find your pitch interesting, investors will certainly reach out to you for more information,” Gagan said.

Gaurav Agarwal, founder of Recex, also shared his perspective on it, emphasising the importance of highlighting 4 Ts of pitch decks—TAM, TEAM, Traction and Technology. He feels if you could explain these 4 Ts successfully and convincingly to your investors, you might get a call from them.

Meanwhile, Stuti Lal, one of our regular attendees, thanked the panel saying how she has benefitted by this webinar and it helped her enhance her sales by following the advice of our experts. 

How to Captivate Investors through Your Pitch Deck: The Essentials

Did you know 90% of startups fail without making any impact? Paucity of funds continue to remain the top reason behind it. If you wish to secure funding from angel investors, your pitch needs to be up to the mark.

It not only needs to be attention-grabbing, but thought provoking, too.

Brand and marketing expert, Asif Shakeel, suggested that startup founders should never be afraid to walk the extra mile and think out of the box while creating their pitch deck.

He emphasized the importance of storytelling in pitch decks and shared a whole new alternative perspective to it. He holds the view that pitch decks focus on the future and as we all know the latter is intangible. He believed that in order to make your ideas tangible, you have to work on certain anchors like trust of the team and people who have used your product or subscribed to your idea.

“If everyone follows the same formula or format while writing a pitch deck, it would be a great disservice to the investors. You need to pitch the idea correctly, instead of focusing on sales. For example; instead of saying we’ll sell two billion shoes, you can say everyone can be athletes now! Pitch decks are not about how many slides you add but about how much value you add to your pitch. There is no single format to it and don’t take away your originality, if you wish to create a pitch deck, do it in your own format and in your own original idea. Use the power of storytelling as that’s how people love getting connected with each other,” Asif concluded.

Here’s How You Can Craft an Interesting Pitch Deck

Define Your Purpose

As a startup, you have to come up with the details of your startup first. You should dedicate your first slide completely to it. In addition, you should add the logo, tagline, and your contact details. You can present some key business facts on the first slide in bullet points to help investors understand what you are up to.

Problem Statement

In the next slide, you have to explain the problem or pain points of customers that you’re addressing to. Here, presenting brief details of other firms and where they are failing to address the issue could help you earn some brownie points. You should do it tacitly else it might look too promotional.

Focus on the Solution

You have to explain in detail what you think of the problem and the solution that you are working on to accomplish your startup goal. While describing the solution part, here you can also describe how you are unable to proceed further because of financial problem.

Add relevant infographics, key data, insights, and metrics to make your pitch deck more professional. You may also need to explain TAM and SOM to your investors. Do it thoroughly, as it’ll give them an idea of the target market you wish to reach out to.

Introduce Your Team

Your investors would be interested in knowing who you’re working with. You should mention the team or people who’ll engage in your project. It’s better if you could put out their name, designation, experience, and skills in the pitch documents.

Deep Dive into Financials

In your pitch deck, you should mention what type of business model you are going to adopt for your business. You should also clarify how you wish to sell your products or services and what shall be the mode of the business operation.

You may also need to divulge details of the financial transaction or turnover of your last 12 months, you can use the Balance sheet, Profit/ Loss account, and cash flow statement to prove your point.

In Conclusion

Before wrapping up your pitch deck, don’t forget to gently ask what’s your expectation from the investors and what they probably want to take from you. If they are interested in staking claim to your startup in lieu of the investment they made in your firm, take professional help from CFO or CA to understand the terms and conditions better and before finalising the deal.