If you are raising money for your business, making a presentation in front of investors that is worthy of the project is essential. These types of exhibitions are called pitch decks, and they have exploded along with the startup boom in recent years.

If you are an entrepreneur, and you have a good business idea, but you don't have any potential investors for it yet, creating a pitch deck is the first step, and using AI to assist in the creation can be VERY useful to you.

Success in entrepreneurship isn't just about luck, hard work and timing. It's also about convincing others to invest in your vision, whether you're seeking funding, advice, mentorship, or partnerships. A great pitch deck will be your essential tool in persuading potential investors or partners.

How to Structure a Compelling Pitch Deck

Venture capital or private equity is generally used to support startups and other businesses with the potential for substantial and rapid growth, but before accepting a new project, they will require an investor pitch deck. 

A pitch deck is a summarized presentation of your business plan that seeks to communicate your project, business plan, and product attractively and highlight it to potential investors.

In these types of exhibitions, the product is usually shown, the business model is shared, the monetization strategy is analyzed, and the team is introduced, among other things.

This presentation is usually the first thing investors are likely to see about your business, so it serves above all to awaken their interest. What do shareholders look for when investing in a startup?

The answer is simple: What they are really looking for is to be provided with real information and the project to have potential to make them a return on their investment. Therefore, they seek answers to the following questions: How much has your business grown? What are its benefits? How much does it generate each month?

When structuring an effective pitch deck, ensure it covers the essential points that will capture investors' attention and clearly communicate the value of the proposal. Those points are: 

• Company vision and value proposition: a value proposition is a short statement that communicates why buyers should choose your products or services based on market research, but focusing, in this case, on why an investor should help your current project. Explain and highlight why your company will be different, what is the main purpose and what you want to achieve as an early-stage company. 

  
  

• Problem being addressed: how does your product or service solve a problem or challenge for your target market. 

• Target market: explain who the target audience is, what the size of this audience is, and how your company will have a competitive advantage among others trying to reach this same target market. 

• Solution: how does your product or service solve the problem you identified for your market. Be concise and very clear, tying this back to the list of challenges you previously mentioned. 

• Business model: a business model is a company's core strategy for profitably doing business. Models generally include information like products or services the business plans to sell, target markets, strategies to achieve revenue goals, and any anticipated expenses. Analysts and investors often look at a company's gross profit to evaluate the success of a business model.

  
  

  

  
  

• Financial projections: many angel investors will ask for the projections of how much success your business can have through time. This includes metrics like revenue, cost of goods sold, other expenses, customer lifetime value, and more.

• Go-to-market strategy: the go-to-market strategy is a comprehensive approach that focuses on bringing a product or service to market effectively. At its core, this should answer “how are you going to sell your product and make money?”. From product development to market opportunities and launch, a well-thought-out marketing strategy identifying the market size is essential to business success.

  
  

• Competitive analysis: identify which the companies offer products or services similar to yours and generate strategies that help you have an advantage over them for your target market. A competitive landscape involves collecting and examining a brand's top competitors to understand their products, sales, and marketing tactics.

  
  

• Team: mention the characteristics and successes of your team members and if there are co-founders. 

• Use of funds: specify all the expenses that are planned, how much money you are asking for, and how it will be used.

Essential Tips for Creating an Effective Pitch Deck

Creating a successful pitch deck presentation is a key component to find venture capitalists or sponsors for your business or project

There is only one opportunity to make a good impression and spark interest. In addition, you must stand out among the range of investment opportunities that usually reach the hands of a fund every day.

But there is a great challenge: investment funds spend an average of 3 minutes and 44 seconds on the first review of a deck. You read that right -  3 minutes and 44 seconds is the time you have to attract the attention of an investor. 

The objective is that investors want to review your pitch deck again, know more about your business, schedule another meeting to continue delving deeper into the business until, hopefully, they decide to invest and join as a partner.

And how can you get an impact deck? Let's discuss some tips. 

Know Your Audience

An attractive pitch deck works as a magnet for investors, but to generate this effect it needs to be as interesting as possible and meet the characteristics of the investors you are looking for.

For example: If you're pitching a B2B software solution, an investor with a track record in consumer retail might not be the best fit, regardless of how compelling your presentation is. Try to always communicate critical details about your business and demonstrate your professionalism and commitment.

Be Clear and Concise 

Even if most people want to explain everything on their pitch deck, the truth is that most investors will not review that deck if it is longer than standard pitch deck templates. Some recommendations are: 

• The slide deck shouldn't be longer than 19 slides. 

• Avoid creating slides with irrelevant information; only important slides should be seen by the investors.

• Use striking fonts in the first slide. 

• Avoid long paragraphs. Leverage bullets, graphics, and charts as much as possible.

• Use bullet points to mention the most important details about your project.

• The title slide is the first impression you will give. So make sure your cover slide is polished, and your tagline is both catchy and descriptive. Don't forget to include the name of the startup, the company logo and the tagline or one-sentence description of what you do.

• The team slide should include professional pictures and a brief description of your position and duties. 

Use Impactful Images

You can use some AI tools to create relevant graphs and images. Some examples that can help craft your story without too many words are easy-to-read charts or graphs of key metrics and images or graphics that clearly depict the value of your business and your product or service

Additionally, creating a roadmap is very useful. It is a strategic plan that defines a goal or desired outcome, and includes the major steps or milestones needed to reach it. It also serves as a communication tool, a high-level document that helps articulate the strategic thinking—why—behind both the goal and the plan for getting there.

Typeset's AI business report generator helps you transform data into visually engaging stories. Easily create and embed clear and attractive bar charts, pie charts, Gantt charts, and flowcharts. These dynamic visuals not only enhance the look of your reports but also help communicate your insights more effectively, making it an ideal tool for content creation and data visualization.

Tell a Story

Investors want to know who you are; your story, experience, and what made you decide to start your business can make a big impact. 

That is why you should always start your elevator pitch introducing yourself and explaining what things have brought you to where you are now and why you believe that this idea could be different from other companies. 

What Program Is Best to Create a Pitch Deck?

There are several software programs and websites you can use to create an outstanding pitch deck. A few examples are:

Typeset

Typeset.com leverages AI to enhance the creation process of slide decks, it empowers users to enrich their presentations with compelling storytelling and impactful data visualization through AI technology.

With just a few clicks, users can create and embed visually stunning bar charts, pie charts, Gantt charts, and flowcharts into their AI slide decks. These dynamic visual elements not only enhance data clarity but also captivate audiences, enabling effective communication of key messages.

What sets Typeset apart is its ability to handle the entire design process automatically, allowing presenters to focus solely on their narrative. As you input your content, the AI intelligently selects relevant high-quality images that complement your text, applies consistent formatting throughout the presentation, and maintains visual harmony across all slides. 

You can concentrate on crafting your story and delivering your message effectively, while Typeset handles all the visual heavy lifting - from layout optimization and color scheme selection to image placement and typography choices.

With Typeset, designing presentations has never been easier or more fun. Say goodbye to generic, boring templates. Typeset offers a unique creation experience that allows you to bring your vision to life in a truly impactful way.

Canva

Canva has established itself as a graphic design tool aimed at beginners and those looking to avoid technical complications. In this way, it turned into one of the favorite tools for creating slides, with thousands of templates and images that can be used.

But among its biggest disadvantages is that the free version lacks most of the designs and figures, thus requiring a paid version most of the time. Additionally, since it does not use AI, the experience may be slower compared to Typeset and requires starting from a set of templates that may not be a fit for everyone’s exact needs.. 

Pitch

This tool was created with teams in mind. Whether you work simultaneously or on your own time, Pitch is designed to «increase productivity without sacrificing creativity.»

In-person video conferencing allows users to have live discussions and brainstorming sessions right from the app without screen sharing.

Pitch has a large template library. . They have also incorporated Google Sheets and Google Analytics integration, though continue to receive feedback on improving this integration. 

Slidebean

Slidebean, a cloud tool, is an effective way to make professional presentations faster than most other presentation apps. Slidebean offers a significant number of preloaded presentation templates.

The offering ranges from master's thesis defense templates to comparative market analysis for real estate agents and homeowners. They created, revamped and improved a wide range of templates to make anyone's day easier.

Slidebean's live mode also offers remote slide control. This is how you can check the execution of a presentation from a mobile device at any time that is convenient.

Prezi

Prezi is an advanced presentation application that will be more attractive and eye caching than other options. This application has been designed with attractive presentation layers that can be created very easily.

Sadly, the customization of words patterns and colors are very limited; only a few colors and three or four styles are available for text. 

PowerPoint 

This is the classic option when you think about professional slides and presentations. Most people will agree that this is the easiest app you can use for slide creation. However, it does not leverage AI and not as many templates nor figures as Canva or others. 

FAQs

Some of the most common questions are: 

Does Startup Pitch Deck Work?

Yes, if you create the right presentation and it is presented to the right people. Some famous projects that were presented as pitch decks were Airbnb, Uber, BuzzFeed, and many others. 

How Long Does It Take to Make a Startup Pitch Deck?

That depends on how long it takes to decide what content you want in your pitch deck and creating the pitch deck. However, using AI tools and premade templates can significantly shorten the time investment to help you get it done in less than 1 week. 

What Is the Success Rate of Pitch Decks?

Every day, over 1,000 decks are made worldwide, but only 1% get funded. That is why a successful pitch deck should speak more with numbers and images than words, numbers showing evidence of your startup's progress and potential.

Is It Worth It to Build Your Own Deck?

Yes, considering that this deck should summarize who you are and what your project is about, it is essential that this is done by you. However, you don't have to do it alone, you can get help from experts for follow-up or help from an AI tool like Typeset to create a striking presentation.

What Is the 15-Second Pitch Rule?

It is a brief, persuasive speech that is used to spark interest in what you or your business has to offer. The importance of a 15-second pitch lies in its ability to quickly communicate your value proposition and marketing plan, establish credibility, and generate interest in a concise and memorable way.