Ultimate Pitch Deck Guide for Startups

This is the first impression investors will have of your startup, so make it count. Include your company name, your own name and title, as well as your contact details (address, email, and phone number) to make it easy for investors to reach you. It is also helpful to give a quick sense of what your company does by adding a tagline or a mission statement that hints at your business focus or value proposition.

This slide communicates your vision, that you have identified an untapped opportunity, recognized its economic potential, and are driven to capture it. Keep your ambition statement short and powerful, often just a few words that encapsulate your big idea or long-term goal. It is typically the slide with the fewest words, but it can be one of the hardest to craft effectively.

Define the type of customer who experiences a specific pain or unmet need that your product or service can address. This is the audience for whom you create tangible value by solving a real problem or easing a significant frustration. Keep in mind that a “customer” can represent a group of stakeholders rather than a single individual, especially in complex markets.

This slide identifies the specific challenges or unmet needs your target customers face. Highlight the issues that make them open to new solutions, and use a brief example or story to make the problem tangible. The goal is to help investors understand why this issue matters and why the market is ready for your solution.

This section explains how your product customers their needs and resolves their pain points. Each value proposition should directly correspond to a specific customer pain point you identified earlier. Avoid highlighting benefits that are not connected to those pains, as investors will be looking for a clear, logical link between the problem and your solution.

This slide provides a clear, objective description of your product. Show what users experience when they interact with it, including features, design, and overall look and feel. If your solution includes multiple components, such as a mobile app, web service, or hardware, be sure to represent all of them. Keep this description neutral, without discussing value or customer pain points.

Next, explain how your product addresses the problem introduced earlier. Highlight the benefits and real-world impact, showing investors why your solution matters and how it creates value.

Explain how your company creates and captures value. Show the flow of money and ensure the model is easy for customers to use. The business model is a key part of product-market fit. Make sure it is easy for customers to engage with and does not create unnecessary barriers to purchase. Describe how your company currently generates profit or how it plans to do so in the future, highlighting the mechanics that make your model sustainable and compelling.

Use graphics to clearly illustrate your market assumptions. Total Addressable Market (TAM) is best calculated bottom-up: number of ICPs multiplied by their willingness to pay, broken down by geography.

If your product requires the customer to justify its value internally, make sure you understand their business case and present it clearly in your slide deck.

Investors invest in teams as well as business ideas. Use this slide to show why your team is the best possible one to execute your vision. Highlight relevant experience, skills, and team dynamics, and be transparent about any gaps you are aware of and how you plan to fill them. Avoid simply listing headshots and titles; instead, explain why your team is uniquely positioned to make the company successful.

If your product is based on a new technology, this slide should show that you have validated:

• Proof of technology showing that the technology works
• Product reliability and scalability demonstrating that the product functions reliably and can be scaled
• Supply chain management showing that risks associated with new technology are addressed

Describe the technology, secret sauce, or unique features that make your company special. Include a demo or prototype, use illustrations, and focus on benefits rather than features to help investors engage with your idea. Highlight what makes your product stand out.

Describe your sales strategy. Are you using direct sales or indirect sales through distributors and resellers? Explain why you chose this approach and how it supports your business objectives.

This slide is needed if your GTM strategy is still ahead of you. Focus on how you plan to earn the right to scale, usually starting with a beachhead market to manage uncertainty. GTM efforts can sometimes force a strategic pivot, so clarity is key.

Explain how you plan to distribute and market your product or service. Simply mentioning social media is not enough. Every company must find customers, even if you are selling advanced technology. Detail your action plan, including how you will acquire and retain customers, which partners you will leverage, and why those partners are motivated to collaborate with you. Investors want to see that you have thought through the practical steps needed to reach the market and are ready for investment. Underestimating these efforts is a common reason startups fail.

If applicable, use this slide to show your growth strategy and the current state of your company. Outline milestones you have achieved so far and those you aim to reach in the near future. Clearly explain how you plan to use the investment and why funding is needed at this stage of development. This is also the place to specify how much capital you are seeking, helping investors understand the purpose and timing of your funding request.

Provide an overview of your competition and highlights how your company stands out. Identify which companies offer similar value propositions and show what they lack in comparison to you. Explain your unique selling proposition (USP), the value only your company provides that customers are willing to pay for. Highlight your unfair advantage, how it gives you an edge over competitors, and how sustainable that advantage is in the long term.

Moats are mechanisms that protect your company from competition or make it difficult for competitors to replicate your success. Common examples include:

• Intellectual Property (IP): patents, trademarks, and other legal protections
• Company secrets: proprietary knowledge needed to build your product
• Significant head start: a time advantage that competitors cannot easily recover
• Control of key resources: such as data sources, raw materials, or other critical inputs

Select a representative set of metrics that showcase your company’s performance or potential. Examples include:

• Adoption: installed units, daily active users, number of new customers
• Revenue: derived from adoption
• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
• Cost of Goods Sold (COGS)
• Cost of Revenue (COR): CAC plus COGS
• Sales Cycle

For recurring revenue businesses, also consider:

• Customer Lifetime Value (CLTV)
• Retention and Churn
• Unit Economics: CLTV divided by COR
• Payback Period

If your company is pre-GTM, provide estimated KPIs based on market research, analogies, experience, or insights from similar startups.

Use this slide to present top-level financials derived from your KPI model. Include a three-year forecast with key metrics such as number of customers and conversion rates. Focus on a bottom-up forecast, which starts with your business and growth plans rather than the entire market. This method provides a more realistic view of your company’s financial future, which is what investors want to see.

Be sure to include clear unit economics: how much it costs to acquire a customer (CAC), the cost to deliver your product or service (COGS), the revenue generated per transaction, and the resulting margin. This slide should clearly demonstrate the financial viability of your business.

Guidelines Financial Modeling to keep in mind:

• Avoid overly ambitious forecasts that are not supported by assumptions; back them with industry metrics and a strong go-to-market strategy.
• Track actual performance against your forecast and adjust as needed.
• Model on a monthly basis to capture seasonality and quickly identify deviations and liquidity risks.
• Consider different scenarios to understand potential outcomes.
• Model cash flow monthly to maintain a clear view of liquidity.

Benefits of a sophisticated financial model:

• Forces you to question assumptions and ensure a suitable pricing strategy.
• Provides a tool to test sensitivity to different customer behaviors and market conditions.
• Allows tracking of performance to validate assumptions or improve market understanding.
• Serves as a sales document that communicates your vision and startup potential.
• Reinforces investors’ perception that you are in control and understand your business and market.

Provides the fundamentals for a DCF valuation.

Financial Model Checklist

Financial Model Checklist

Visualize your Value Inflection Points (VIPs), showing when they occur and how much funding is needed to reach them. Include planned funding rounds on the timeline. Add the major activity streams that lead to each VIP and highlight the critical path required to achieve your milestones.

Use this slide to state the purpose of your presentation: you are seeking capital. Propose clear next steps based on the type of investor:

• Lead Investor: Move quickly to determine if they are a fit. Identify what information or follow-up they need and keep the process focused.
• Follower Investor: Ensure they understand your company and maintain engagement. Follow up promptly once a term sheet from a lead investor is available, unless they decline earlier.