11 Topics to Include in your Pitch Deck to Investors

A pitch deck is the first tool of communication used by entrepreneurs in an attempt to raise funds from potential investors. Receiving funding from investors can be challenging. Therefore creating a pitch deck that grabs the investors attention and articulates a compelling story is crucial.

Here, we have outlined ten topics to include in your pitch deck to investors:

1. Value proposition

Arguably the most important part of your pitch deck, a value proposition is a simple statement that summarizes why customers should purchase your product/service. The most common mistake when creating your value proposition is to bury your message behind buzzwords and meaningless slogans.

Clearly define what you offer customers and why they should choose you over competitors. Then, communicate this message in a short, simple yet powerful statement.

2. Problem statement

All businesses exist to solve a certain problem. Some problems may be more directly solved than others. Use this section to clarify what problem your business aims to solve. Don’t just state the problem – tell a compelling story. Be specific, detailed and concise.

After reading this section, investors should have a clear understanding of what problem your business aims to solve.

3. Solution

This is the section where you describe your product or service. This description should be concise and investors should have a clear understanding of your product/service. Aside from describing the product or service, it is important to also state how your product/service solves the problem you defined earlier. State how the product/service works and how much it will be sold for.

4. Target Market

Next, define your ideal customer. Who will buy your product? Who will use your product? Are the people who buy your products the same people who will use your products? These are all questions that you must address in this section of your pitch deck. When defining your target market, you must also identify your primary market and secondary market. Define a specific and focused market that is appropriate for your product or service.

Describe your ideal customer in terms of demographic, geographic, psychographic and behavioural characteristics. For demographic characteristics, state the age range of your customers, gender (if applicable), income level, education level and marital status. For geographic characteristics, state the geographic area where your ideal customers live, population size and the type of communities your customers live in (urban, suburban, rural). For psychographic information, define your customer’s hobbies, lifestyle choices and interests. Lastly, for behavioural characteristics, define your customer’s spending habits and buying processes.

Additionally, it is important to state your total addressable market. This is the total market demand for a product or service. For this calculation, you may have to make some assumptions if you lack certain information. However, you must state and explain your assumptions so that your investors understand how you got these numbers.

5. Competition

In this section, you should discuss the competitive landscape of the market. Is the market highly competitive? Is there currently a monopoly or is the market highly fragmented? Are there high barriers to entry for new competitors? These are some of the key questions that you should be addressing.

It is also important to discuss your business’s competitive advantage. A competitive advantage is a differentiating factor that explains why customers would choose your business over competitors. It explains why you are different from your competitors and why customers would choose you over the competition.

6. Revenue model

This section outlines how your business makes money. Here, you must define your selling price and how your pricing strategy fits into the competitive landscape. A company’s revenue model is a key component to the overall business model. In this section, you should also define how your pricing compares to competitors and how this conveys your business’s brand image.

Pricing is very important to convey a certain image that you want to associate with your brand. If you want your brand to be considered a luxury brand, you should be pricing your products/services much higher than competitors. If you want your brand to compete on price, you should be pricing your product/service on the lower end.

7. Marketing and sales strategy

Here is where you outline your marketing and sales plan. Define what key tactics you will use to reach your customers. Key questions you should address includes:

How will you leverage your social media presence to connect with customers?
What mediums will you advertise through?
What kind of content will you produce?
How will you convert prospective buyers into customers?

In this section, you should demonstrate that you have a solid grasp on how you will reach your target market and investors should clearly understand your intended marketing tactics and sales channels.

8. Traction and validation

Investors want to feel confident that your business will be successful and generate sufficient return. The best way to give these investors confidence is to showcase your success thus far. Prove that your concept works. Discuss major milestones or goals that you have achieved so far. These milestones could be for example, positive customer reviews, high customer retention rates, revenue earned etc.

You should also develop a company roadmap to set goals for the future. These goals should be set within a certain period of time. For example, within one month, you expect a certain number of customers or a certain revenue projection in $. Be specific with these goals, yet also be realistic. Convince investors that you are capable of achieving these goals.

9. Financials

This is a very important section of the pitch deck. Given that investors often wish to get a return by investing in businesses, investors want to see your financials. The three essential financial forecasts include; sales forecasts, income statement and cash flow forecasts for the next three years. Other financial metrics may also be included, if they are relevant to your pitch. However, these three should be included for any business.

One common mistake that entrepreneurs make when showcasing their financials to investors is having a slide with many different numbers and calculations. This comes off as confusing and overwhelming. A trick to avoid this is to simply state your calculation on one slide and include the in-depth calculation in the appendix of the pitch deck. This way, you are presenting your financial information in a very straightforward way, but if investors have specific questions as to how you got that number, you can refer to the appendix to walk them through the calculation.

10. Team

While your business plan may sound really good on paper, you need an excellent team to be able to execute this plan. In this section, outline what makes your team capable of achieving business success. Key questions to be addressed include:

What does your team possess that others in the industry don’t?
What experience does each individual member have that makes them suitable for the role?
What experience do you have as a team?

You should be highlighting the key strengths of each team member and how these strengths will be leveraged to achieve overall company goals. Even if your team is not complete, identify the key positions that you need to fill and why those positions are key to company growth.

11. Investment and use of funds

Even if a business is suitable for more funding, investors need to know why they need these funds and where they will be going. In this section, state why you need the money and what you will do with it. Key questions include:

Why do you need more funds?
Where will this money be going?
How will these funds help you achieve your goals?

In this section, you need to be very specific. Explain how the funds will be distributed down to the dollar. Investors do not want to feel like their investment will go to waste. Therefore, provide a dollar by dollar breakdown of where these funds will go.

Aside from allocating the funds, you also need to somehow demonstrate how these funds will help you achieve your goals. For example, if you indicate that you are going to buy new equipment with these funds, you need to demonstrate how purchasing this new equipment will benefit your business.

A good pitch deck usually has no more than 15-20 slides and will incorporate all of the topics mentioned above. Ensure your pitch deck is clear and concise. Make it easy for your investors to understand.

At Clear Insight, we have vast experience helping businesses tailor their pitch decks to secure investments from investors. To see if Clear Insight is right for your business, head to our Virtual CFO Services page.