In more than 7 years of Visual Hackers, we have been looking to specialize and niche, to offer the highest quality design services that have a real impact on our clients.
Now we are counting over 150 Pitch Decks designed, which have raised above $1.5Bn in pre-seed/angel, seed, series A, series B, and series C.
An effective pitch deck communicates your idea clearly and persuasively. It tells a compelling story about your business, using visuals to enhance understanding and engagement. Highlight the market opportunity, and provide evidence of traction and progress. Be transparent about your financial projections and end with a clear call to action. Practice delivering your pitch with confidence and enthusiasm to make a lasting impression on investors.
Find a pitch deck guide in our previous article: How to build a successful Pitch Deck in 2024
One key motto we have at Visual Hackers is ABL (Always Be Learning) - we're constantly on the lookout for ways to improve our skills, processes, or techniques and we're open to experimenting with new tools and technologies, going to industry-specific events or upskill ourselves with new coursed and educational materials.
Include the right type of content
Content is king. You can have the best, world-class design, but if the content doesn’t answer the investors’ questions, the deck won’t hold up. More importantly, it’s to be easy to understand: clearly articulate the problem and how you’re solving it, who the customers and how big is the market, etc.
Include enough content to cover all key aspects of your startup. Usually, there’s a core bunch of slides (10-12) that are in every deck and then you can add other optional slides depending on startup/growth stage/industry (but try and keep it in under 20 slides, especially if it’s not for a growth round (B or higher).
Core building slides: opportunity, problem, solution, market size, traction, competition, business model, team, ask & use of funds, financials
Optional slides: status quo, technology, roadmap & milestones, why now, unit economics, go-to-market strategy, case studies, target customers
The 3 Ts in a pitch deck
A few slides are more important than others: Team, Traction, and Technology.
Some slides are more important than others when we're talking about content. Of course, all slides are important, because that’s why you put them in your deck, but these slides seriously hinder your chances if not done right. These are the 3Ts: Team, Traction, Technology. The reason for this is that each of these slides, if done right, reduces the risk an investor perceives in your startup, especially at an early stage.
An investor always analyzes a startup also from the perspective of how much risk this startup has:
There’s a risk of execution and of not getting things done. A great team slide solves this.
There’s a risk of not enough demand from the market. The traction slide solves this.
There’s a risk of a bad product (whether that means complicated to use, not good enough compared to other alternatives, or anything else). A good tech or product slide solves this.
It’s important to back up your numbers or claims made in the deck, especially if an investor starts poking holes
What investors are looking for in a pitch deck
Ultimately, the pitch deck must answer these questions for an investor:
- What is the problem?
- Is it big enough or worth solving?
- What’s the solution?
- How does it add value to customers?
- Who are your customers?
- How are you going to reach them?
- Is this team the right team to do it?
- What do you need to get it done?
That’s what they’re looking for.
Practice makes the difference
Founders should focus on practicing their pitch to be able to deliver it in different ways, and getting the most accurate, recent, and reliable data, and giving meaning to it through storytelling.
It is the founder's job to understand the audience from each funding opportunity and to create a relevant pitch for that.
Your whole deck should be built on an overarching story instead of looking like a group of disconnected slides put together with what investors want to see/hear.
The importance of details
When presenting make sure you start strong: have a killer cover slide, visually impactful, and a great opening slide that hooks the audience or reader. Continue with pitching the whole startup and not just the product.
Make sure you adapt the pitch deck accordingly to the situation, it should be different if sent via email, presented live, and even from investor to investor.
Another key aspect is having a consistent design in terms of branding. Staying true to the startup’s branding and respect the brand guidelines and assure consistency, throughout the pitch deck.
Succes stories from our clients:
Case study: Maternova – Enabling a $1.3M Seed Raise
Case study: SeedBlink - Supporting the investment & equity management platform for tech startups
You have one shot to impress investors with your pitch deck, seize this opportunity. Tell your startup’s story, have relevant information for your audience, and show the future plans you have with the right pitch deck.
Working with us gets you a compelling pitch deck, with consistent content in an excellent design.
Get in touch via form or at info@visualhackers.com
Download here the Anatomy of a Winning Pitch Deck
Mihai Zamfir, our founder and senior designer, held a pitching workshop for Startup Reaktor, the internationalization platform dedicated to SEE early-stage tech startups to fast forward the validation and launching of scalable products, organized by ROTSA - Romanian Tech Startups Association in partnership with Techcelerator.Co and EIT Digital.
The workshop was to help prepare the remaining startups in the program for their upcoming demo day. We focused on covering all 3 important components of a winning pitch: story, content, and design.