I see prices across the board, ranging from $500 to $5000+, and a lot of DIY options like Canva, but I want to make sure I am getting the right message and information across in a really good-looking presentation. Don’t want to miss anything before reaching out to investors.
I started on my own and built a pretty decent one, when I went to go do a redesign of it, I paid 350 and it looks amazing now.
well… to successfully fundraise you need to master your narrative and have a thoughtful answer to all the typical questions. It is fine to get external help, but your deck must be perfectly aligned with your vision and plan and nobody these better than YOU. You do have a clear vision and plan in your mind, right? If not this is where you need to start before building a deck.
I’ll do your deck for something in the middle. Send me details.
It depends on the stage but as a guess (I think you’re at pre-seed/seed level) you won’t need a $5,000 pitch deck. Investors prefer and in fact are now preferring more data over design.
PS: My Decks have successfully raised funds and they come in <$500 range. Feel free to DM if you need any professional help.
If I were to do a deck, I’d fill it with relevant substance and make sure it’s readable in a PowerPoint format (and not too busy) and worry about the aesthetics later or not even at all.
I don’t think in the history of VC that someone got funding because “I thought you had really cool PowerPoint transitions”
It’s the story of the suit vs hoodie; “hire the guy in the hoody because the people in the suit are trying to dress up bad engineering”
The content matters far more than the design (obviously it can’t look crap)
I work at a VC with an accelerator attached, we push 10 companies every half year. Key tips 1 ycombinator has a great format for a pitch deck you can find it free online 2 1 point per slide 3 no more than 10 words per slide, don’t go smaller than 20 font size 4 graphs and real numbers 5 pace your story telling
Make sure you have a robust financial model. At our last demo day I was talking to another VC and we both agreed we could pretty much tell everything we need to know about the business from the financial model, we could theoretically bypass the pitch deck - so I interpret that to mean the pitch deck is more like a fly to attract me to ask for the financial model.
Thanks for this 🙏
Super interesting. Any chance you could point me in the right direction for how to visually display a financial model? Are they expecting tables, graphs, an equation?
I would agree with this. The content/story/messaging comes first, design comes second, and should add value, not distract from the content. So what is it worth to work with someone who can build compelling content? I’ve witnessed many technical founders who really struggle to translate their highly technical innovations into relatable and convincing terms in pitch decks and pitches.