A pitch deck is a short presentation of your project, in which each page is called a slide. The structure set out here has twelve. It suits a deck that the person opens on their own, without you there to talk them through it.
Who is your deck for, and how will it be read?
This deck is for your family and friends, your customers, your community and your banker. Many of them have no financial training and may open it on their phone. Write each slide in everyday words, so that it can be understood without anyone talking it through.
To check this, send the deck to someone who does not know the project and ask them to summarise it for you the next day. Rewrite the slides they forgot or misunderstood.
Which slides, and in what order?
The order follows the questions a person asks when they first come across a project. Each slide answers a single question.
| No. | Slide | The question it answers |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cover | What project is this, and who is sending it to me? |
| 2 | The pitch in one sentence | What do you do, and who for? |
| 3 | The problem | What problem do you want to solve? |
| 4 | The solution | What are you offering, in concrete terms? |
| 5 | The evidence | What shows that anyone is interested? |
| 6 | The market | How many people does it concern? |
| 7 | The model | How does the project make money? |
| 8 | The team | Who is behind the project, with what skills? |
| 9 | The plan | What happens over the next few months? |
| 10 | The ask | What are you looking for, and what is it for? |
| 11 | Good to know | What could go wrong? |
| 12 | Get involved | What can I do now? |
What should each slide say, and which mistake should you avoid?
The examples that follow are fictional.
- Cover. The name of the project, what it does in a few words, your name and the date. Common mistake: a logo on its own, with no word about what the project does.
- The pitch in one sentence. Who you help, and to do what. For example: “Every Thursday we deliver a vegetable box to employees on the business park, at their workplace.” Common mistake: a sentence that could describe ten other projects.
- The problem. A specific situation, experienced by a specific person. For an alterations workshop: “In our town, having a pair of trousers altered takes twelve days and a twenty-minute drive.” Common mistake: a general problem that nobody runs into during their week.
- The solution. What the customer receives and how it works for them, step by step. Common mistake: a list of features in place of the customer’s journey.
- The evidence. A fact that shows the need exists: sales, a waiting list or a one-month trial. If you have none yet, write that down and say what you are going to test. Common mistake: presenting encouragement from family and friends as evidence.
- The market. The number of customers you can reach, with the calculation. For a food truck: the number of employees at work at midday within a ten-minute walk. Common mistake: a national figure that has nothing to do with your area.
- The model. Who pays, how much, how often, and what each sale costs you. Common mistake: stating a turnover figure without showing the price and the number of sales behind it.
- The team. Who does what, and what in each person’s background serves the project. Also state the skill you are missing and how you plan to find it. Common mistake: job titles with no facts behind them.
- The plan. Three or four dated steps over the next twelve months, each with a result that can be checked. Common mistake: a five-year timetable in which no step can be checked.
- The ask. What you are looking for, and how it breaks down item by item. Someone taking over a garage would write: “€60,000, of which €35,000 is for the vehicle lift and €25,000 for the parts stock.” Common mistake: a round figure with no breakdown.
- Good to know. Two or three risks, stated plainly, with what you are doing to reduce them. For example: “We depend on a single supplier. We are testing a second one before June.” Common mistake: deleting this slide. A reader who finds no risks in the deck wonders whether you have seen them.
- Get involved. What the reader can do now and how to reach you: a meeting or an information session on a specific date. Common mistake: ending on “Thank you” without giving the next step.
How do you present the project out loud, in one sentence, thirty seconds or two minutes?
Start with the sentence on slide 2. Read it to someone outside the project. If they reply “Meaning?”, the sentence is still too vague.
For the thirty-second version, put the problem before the sentence and a piece of evidence after it. Fictional example: “Employees on the business park finish work after the market has closed. Every Thursday we deliver a vegetable box to their workplace. During a six-week trial, 38 people ordered and 29 ordered again.”
For the two-minute version, add the model, the plan and the ask, that is, slides 7, 9 and 10, then finish with the next step. That gives you the spoken summary of the deck, in slide order.
What should the slides look like?
- One idea per slide. The title is a full sentence that carries that idea: “38 employees ordered during the trial” says more than “Our results”. Someone who reads only the titles should understand the project.
- Text that can be read on a phone. Keep body text above 18 points and aim for about thirty words per slide. The detail belongs in a longer document, such as the memorandum or the business plan.
- An image only if it shows something real. A photo of your workshop or a real screen from your app tells the reader something. Leave decorative images out.
- Never a fake screenshot. If the app does not exist yet, show a mock-up and write “mock-up” underneath. A reader who finds out that an image was made up will then doubt the other slides.
And how do you avoid starting from a blank page?
Prelud’s Scorecard asks four questions about your project, in a conversation of a few minutes, then gives a score out of 100. Its Memorandum Pack produces an exportable pitch deck from your answers. The twelve slides described here then serve as your checklist for reviewing it.
A preparation tool. It is neither a financial valuation nor an investment recommendation.