How to Make a Pitch Deck: Examples & Detailed Slides Review

When pitching to potential investors, your company and team are as important to them as the solution, or even more. A good idea can easily fail in the hands of a weak team. Yet, if you can clearly explain what sets your startup apart from others and help you raise funding. This is especially true for Pre-Seed startups as they are relatively young and don’t have much to show in terms of traction.

In this guide, we are focusing mainly on tips & tricks of creating a startup pitch deck for pre-Seed, Seed, and Series A stages. Our goal is to make it clear: what to put and how to put it in your pitch presentation. Ready? Let’s start by breaking down the structure of the slides!

🧩 Key Slides to Add to your Pitch Deck

There are different opinions on the size of your pitch deck. One of the most popular approaches is the “10/20/30 rule” by Guy Kawasaki: you need just 10 slides, the pitch itself should be no longer than 20 minutes and you shouldn’t use fonts smaller than 30 point.

Yet, don’t focus on numbers too much. According to the STORY’s study of 100 pitch decks, the average size of successful decks is 14-15 slides.

The pitch deck outline (or order of slides) is also not strictly fixed. The best advice here is that you have to adjust it to your story so the deck looks consistent both emotionally and logically. If you’re looking for some inspiration, a more or less common pitch deck structure is:

Since potential investors pay a lot of attention to risks and profitability, it’s a good idea to link your milestones to increase in value. If it doesn’t improve your key metrics — think twice before listing it as a milestone.

As a part of the roadmap slide, you may also specify the amount you’re raising and how you’re going to use it to hit the milestones.

Thank you & Contact Slide

Even though it’s the simplest slide, dedicate some time to leave a good lasting impression. As this slide opens the floor to questions during live pitch events, add a thank you note to make it clear. Alternatively, you can put a call to action to encourage investors to get in touch with you.

Apart from the email and phone number, you may also add a website or social media accounts so you can be easily found through different channels.

📌 Do’s and Don’ts in Your Pitch Deck

We’ve already figured out what you should prepare for your ideal pitch deck. Yet, as you probably will be pitching live (no matter whether during an event or tet-a-tet), we wanted to share a few recommendations to make you feel more confident:

It’s the same with the audience: if you talk to people and at least make eye contact for two-way communication, they stop ignoring you. The ideal length of eye contact is three to five seconds. If you have only a few people listening, make contact with all of them.

Alternatively, if you’re presenting your product to about 20 investors, pick five people at different points in the room to look at. It will work with everyone: while you’re moving your gaze from one to the other, people think you’re looking at them. As long as you are focusing on a particular person, everyone sitting next to him will also think you are communicating specifically to them.

Use visual elements 🎨

Visual information is processed by the brain faster than text, so don’t forget to use statistics, infographics, product demonstration videos, etc. Infographics make it easier to explain complex concepts, display numerical data, and show the best sides of your product.

Another plus of visual elements is that you can use them in your social networks. So if you make a great infographic with interesting data, you can post it on LinkedIn and get a great response.

Be careful with screenshots as they can stretch out and become completely unreadable when you open the pitch deck on a big screen. Also, don’t use small print –– not everyone has good eyesight.

🗂 Successful Pitch Decks

Preparing a pitch deck can be frightening if you’ve just started a company or have never done fundraising. To give you an idea of what a good pitch deck should look like, we’ve prepared two examples from well-known startups.

🚕 Uber’s first pitch deck

Uber is the most famous online taxi service with more than 90 million users worldwide. In 2008 the company got a $200 thousand investment, which helped it reach the top of the market.

Front’s pitch deck contains a great example of a roadmap with key milestones in different fields (platform expansions, new integrations, features, etc.)

Back in 2019, the company managed to raise $8 million in Series A funding with this pitch deck.

Here are good points from the Yalochat pitch deck that you could use in your presentation:

• Concision –– pitch deck should be accompanied by explanations.
• Visualization: a lot of numbers and statistics.
• Use of own market research in addition to data from other publications.
• Show traction (MoM growth).
• Understand that they have many competitors.
• Key employees with experience in machine learning and messaging space.

💡 Takeaways

Every business is unique, so there’s no one-size-fits-all advice on exactly how to make a selling pitch deck. But you can improve your chances if you follow our tips:

• Tell a unique story. It can give much more than dry facts.
• Practice your pitch every day on someone you know. This practice will make it easier to establish eye contact during presentations.
• Don’t overdo. Use several slides with a limited amount of text.
• Be sure to leave contacts at the end of the pitch deck.
• Failure is also an experience. Find out what your gaps are and move on.

A great pitch deck can reduce your time to find the right funding partner and get support.

Also, be sure to check our extended guide on (Pre-)Seed Funding: