A bad pitch deck scares investors away. We spoke to numerous investors: How should a deck be structured? What belongs in and what goes out?
“Investors have the attention span of a sleep-deprived goldfish” Getty Images/Maskot
To be successful at fundraising, you need to understand what investors want from a pitch deck. But that’s not so easy, because investors are quite different.
First, the good news: almost everyone agrees on one thing. The tighter the deck, the easier it is for the investor. Multiple business angel Beate Fastrich advises accordingly: “A good pitch deck tells the whole story of your startup – short, clear, to the point, authentic, with all relevant information and nothing more.”
If that wasn’t clear enough, perhaps this self-deprecating analogy from Feliks Eyser, business angel and partner at W3.fund will help: “Investors have the attention span of a sleep-deprived goldfish. The benchmark should be: If your mother understands the deck without explanations, everything is good.”
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This is how you should structure the pitch deck
David Meiborg, partner at First Momentum Ventures, explains how to implement pitch decks in a compact and easy-to-understand way: “Start with a pure text storyboard of ten to 15 action titles that tell a comprehensive and consistent story in the right order. Then add two to three lines of text content at a time. Only when they are waterproof do you create the remaining content of the films.”
As a founder, you should know as much as possible about your market, your customers, your metrics, and so on. But be honest and transparent about what you really know, what is a hypothesis and what you cannot yet know. Investors like David Schäffler from Hessian VC BMH appreciate teams that communicate in this way.
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Teams need to be ambitious but realistic
The team is the most important thing for VCs in an early-stage startup. Dr. Gesa Miczaika from Auxxo Female Catalyst Fund wants to see two questions answered on the team slide: “Why are you exactly the right team for this startup and this market? And: Can you really scale the company into a unicorn?” When this becomes clear, you are on the right path.
In addition, says Claudia Baumgart, Chief Investment Officer at PAWAO, “Now more than ever, investors want to see initial traction and real USPs.” Only when investors understand what is truly unique about your business will they want to talk to you.
“Be ambitious but realistic,” says Alex von Frankenberg from the High-Tech Gründerfonds. So don’t be tempted to exaggerate.
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You need three pitch decks
Also important: having the “right” deck ready for every situation. Business Angel of the Year 2022 Thomas Schmidt recommends three versions of the deck: One with little text and more visuals for the live pitch, a compact read deck for the digital cold approach. And a full investor deck with all the details.
The oral presentation should also be in the personal conversation with the investor in order to leave a professional impression: “With several test runs you can make sure that nothing goes wrong,” says Michael Wax, co-founder of Unicorn Forto and an active business person Angel knows both sides.
You can get more pitch deck tips, best practices and ready-made templates in the new free pitch deck guide from AddedVal.io. Here we show you a selection of the slides. You can find the complete guide here.
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