Engaging Investor Pitch Decks
Today, I was helping a client with their investor pitch deck, and there are several considerations as well as current trends that investors are seeing.
First of all, Guy Kawasaki got it right when he identified "The Only 10 Slides You Need in Your Pitch."
After you have the information you need in the deck, consider the deck you present in front of vs. a leave-behind. Too often, I see PowerPoint presentations that have too many words, leaving the audience trying to both read and listen, which is impossible. If you are talking, let you be the star and your deck be the stage and set.
For a leave-behind, include hyper links so that the reader can get more information IF they want it, and your deck isn't squeezing in 10 point font trying to get every detail in. A good example of where you may include a link for further reading would be executive bios.
Here are examples of strong pitch decks that have garnered wide praise. Note that it's easy to go through these decks online with no voice over. You can tell a compelling story without too many words.
1) Clearly state "The Problem"
a) CSS Piffle - 3 "slides" at the top (use the 3 dots to scroll left to right) use images with only a few words to make the point, which is true throughout the "deck," not just with the problem.
b) Original AirBNB Pitch deck (from 2011 and it looks like 2011) - Also starts with "The Problem" on slide #2 - 3 bolded points, not many words, no cluttery images. Straight to the point.
2) "The Opportunity" (slides 4 - 7) is very sharp in Park Evergreen's deck
3) Relevant visuals tell the story -- Crema
If you are going to investors who are seeing other decks that have a more modern design, you don't want to give the impression that you are living in the past. Here are example of very famous pitch decks from years past. While successful, you can see the difference in the style of decks today vs. yesterday
2004 - FourSqure
2013 - Uber
2014 - Fittr
2015 (or perhaps before. Uploaded in 2015) - WeWork