Solid pitch deck design is essential to getting funding for a startup. A successful pitch to investors must provide the information needed without overloading the investor with data. It must tell a striking story without leaving the investor feeling emotionally manipulated. And finally, it must communicate the value of an enterprise without producing confusion. A well designed pitch deck can go a long way toward helping an entrepreneur navigate these issues.

A winning pitch tells the story of your company. A well crafted, well told narrative makes your pitch memorable, creates an emotional impact, and communicates the value you offer in a way that data and statistics alone simply cannot. This story must be coherent, succinct and linear. It is the story of identifying a problem, conceiving of a solution, and with enough funding, making that solution a reality. It is a story of forward motion and progress. This story is not just told in words; it must be told through the pitch deck. The order of the slides establishes a seamless flow, and the flow should follow the story.

While organization and flow is very important, a winning pitch deck design also takes each individual slide into account. Each slide plays a role in the larger story, but it also must also stand on its own. A good slide will communicate some indispensable piece of information in such a way that it can be understood by looking at that slide in isolation. Each slide encompasses one important point. Forcing an audience to think back to earlier slides or anticipate future slides can be distracting, and loading too much information in a single slide can be even more distracting. Keep each slide focused on one important point in order to keep and direct the attention of the audience.

It can be tempting to fill an investor pitch deck with every number, statistic and piece of data you have. After all, it is your extensive research that has convinced you that your idea can and should become a reality. The more data you collect, the more you realized how tenable your business can be, which fuels your passion. But loading a pitch deck with numbers will not fuel that same passion in potential investors, at least not right away. Remember that before all the research came the spark, the one idea that became lodged in your imagination. The purpose of a pitch deck is to ignite that spark in investors. Pouring over the numbers will come later.

A pitch deck design that takes these issues into consideration will be more likely to generate interest in a new company and lead to more investors.

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Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Deb_Gabor/1640174

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A small talk with a potential investor could lead to your dream investment. But how do you approach such a conversation? You are working day and night on your startup. You got a winning team and are doing your best to develop a great product. Now all you need is to find investors. You know that what separates you from your life’s dream is one phone call. Well, there are some good news and some bad news. Starting with the good – it’s possible! The bad news is that it’s going to take, apparently, a lot of time and effort to succeed. If it took Churchill one hour to write every minute of his speech, than writing yours, which presents your startup, generates impact and willingness to hear more, will be a much difficult task. By combining several tools and one simple solution, you too can transform the most complex product or service to be exciting, simple and valuable. Let’s get started:

Set a goal for your Pitch

Before you sit down to write your pitch, set your self a clear and defined goal. This goal should include a time frame, clarity and quantity.

What’s your end goal? Getting funded? Another meeting? Cooperation? Advice?

It needs to be even more focused. For example, you would like to get funded: how much cash do you need? When will you need it? In stages or all at once? You need to know exactly what you are going to ask for. If you don’t have a clear goal, the chance of reaching it becomes a product of luck.

After you are clear about the goal of your pitch, you can sit down to write it.

Teaser: stimulate the investor

So you got a great opportunity and you are a sitting alone in a room with your potential investor. That doesn’t necessarily mean his brain and attention is given solely to you. Your mission, right from the beginning, would be to capture his full attention and have him completely focused on you.

There are several ways to generate attention in a very short time. One of them, is to present a big fact that is relevant to your product or market. This will generates curiosity and the listener will likely try to understand what is it about. The teaser could also be a personal story, an interesting article from a newspaper, a breakthrough research, anything that will skyrocket his attention. Your teaser will work best if the value in it will be “flooded”.

“Value flooding”: what’s in it for him?

As a way to turn your product or service to fascinating, you have to ensure, that the person sitting in front of you, understands the value relevant for him. Once we can connect between the teaser and the value, we are creating a “mental shortcut” and the level of attention grows significantly.

For example, when we walk down the street and see a scratch card Ad saying “scratch now and win 1,000,000$” – the Ad both grabs our immediate attention and floods the value – we want to win those 1,000,000$.

So even if our chances of winning goes against all statistical and logical calculations, our attention was already caught because we were immediately presented (“flooded”) with the value, even before explaining the general idea or logic behind it.

Make it Simple

After we managed to grab attention, it is time to tell the story of our product or service. Here comes the real challenging part: can you really explain, sometimes in a single sentence, what does your company\product\service does? The true greatness of really good or complex products is the ability to make them simple and tangible.

Make sure not to use extremely high or too complex language, which usually creates opacity and covers the inability to generate a clear definition. If you managed to do so, in a minimized form, it will leave you with more time to invest in the other parts of your pitch.

Why you?

Towards the end of your pitch, it’s time to explain why you. Why you are the one who can turn this vision into reality. This is a critical point as you ask your potential investor for his trust (… and money).

Here is the point to emphasize your unique background in the field, winning team combination or previous successes. It is important to remember that most decisions we do are irrational, so it is imperative to use your attitude and presentation methods to strengthen your message, no less than the list of your titles or achievements.

Tip: we tend to associate self-confidence – and hence trust – when the shoulders are straight up. So straighten up!

Combining these ingredients, which builds a winning pitch, will require your time and efforts in order to sharpen your messaging. Sometime, using external consultants as well as using new technologies could upgrade your performance.

Note: apart from using the old PowerPoint, I can highly recommend Prezi and Bunkr.

Each year there are hundreds of new startups being founded, and with them grows the competition for investors. The first impression and effect you project at the beginning could be that critical point that would separate you from the rest, and will cause the investor to invest in you, over the other sea of startups.

Sometimes, this small conversation could make your life dream come true – don’t let it slip away.

The pitch deck, also called a pitch slide deck or a slide deck, is often the very first thing you will use when you interact with an investor. It is one of your most important tools in many ways. Your presentation of the pitch deck, along with the content, can assist the investor to decide whether or not to go evaluating your business opportunity.

The following example summarizes the main information that should be comprised in the original pitch deck. Don’t forget the “10/20/30 rule of PowerPoint”, which is 10 slides, 20 minutes, and font no smaller than 30 point.

Title – Include your organization’s name, your name as well, and information to

contact you. The audience can read the slide. Then they can sum up what you do. For example, you can sell software that can say something like, protecting the environment. You can open with what your company does. Basically, you want investors to think about the possibility of your company and also the size of the market.

Problem – Describe the pain you are relieving. The object is to get everyone to buy in. Evade looking for a resolution that is searching for an issue. Lessen or remove quotations of advising studies about the future size of the market.

Solution – When you are creating a pitch deck, it is important that you clarify how you relieve this pain and the meaning you make of it. Ensure that the audience clearly comprehends your value of proposition and what you are selling. Do not go into an in depth technical explanation. Supply just the core of how you relieve the pain.

Business Model – Discuss how you make money and who pays you. Also, explain your gross margins and your channel distribution. A unique, untested business model is a scary proposition. If you have a revolutionary business model, discuss it in terms of well known ones. This is your chance to mention the name of organizations that are already using your service or your product.

Underlying Magic – This is the part of your pitch deck design where you get the chance to depict the secret sauce, magic, or technology that is behind your service or product. Aim for more schematics, diagrams, flow charts and less text on the slide. Objective proofs and white papers of concepts are very useful right here.

Marketing And Sales – Explain how you will reach your marketing leverage points and how you will reach your consumer. Try to convince the audience that you have an efficient go to market strategy. Convince them that it will not break the bank.

Competition – Supply an entire view of the realistic competitive landscape. It is better to have too much than too little.

Management Team – Depict the main players on your management team such as, the board of advisors and the board of directors. Include your major investors as well.

Financial Projections And Key Metrics – Supply a three to five year forecast. This contains dollars and also key metrics, such as, the conversion rate and the number of customers.

Current Status, Timeline, Accomplishments To Date, And The Use Of Funds – Explain the present situation of your service or product, what the future looks like, and the money you are trying to raise and how you will use it.

A small talk with a potential investor could lead to your dream investment. But how do you approach such a conversation? You are working day and night on your startup. You got a winning team and are doing your best to develop a great product. Now all you need is to find investors. You know that what separates you from your life’s dream is one phone call. Well, there are some good news and some bad news. Starting with the good – it’s possible! The bad news is that it’s going to take, apparently, a lot of time and effort to succeed. If it took Churchill one hour to write every minute of his speech, than writing yours, which presents your startup, generates impact and willingness to hear more, will be a much difficult task. By combining several tools and one simple solution, you too can transform the most complex product or service to be exciting, simple and valuable. Let’s get started:

Set a goal for your Pitch

Before you sit down to write your pitch, set your self a clear and defined goal. This goal should include a timeframe, clarity and quantity.

What’s your end goal? Getting funded? Another meeting? Cooperation? Advice?

It needs to be even more focused. For example, you would like to get funded: how much cash do you need? When will you need it? In stages or all at once? You need to know exactly what you are going to ask for. If you don’t have a clear goal, the chance of reaching it becomes a product of luck.

After you are clear about the goal of your pitch, you can sit down to write it.

Teaser: stimulate the investor

So you got a great opportunity and you are a sitting alone in a room with your potential investor. That doesn’t necessarily mean his brain and attention is given solely to you. Your mission, right from the beginning, would be to capture his full attention and have him completely focused on you.

There are several ways to generate attention in a very short time. One of them, is to present a big fact that is relevant to your product or market. This will generates curiosity and the listener will likely try to understand what is it about. The teaser could also be a personal story, an interesting article from a newspaper, a breakthrough research, anything that will skyrocket his attention. Your teaser will work best if the value in it will be “flooded”.

“Value flooding”: what’s in it for him?

As a way to turn your product or service to fascinating, you have to ensure, that the person sitting in front of you, understands the value relevant for him. Once we can connect between the teaser and the value, we are creating a “mental shortcut” and the level of attention grows significantly.

For example, when we walk down the street and see a scratch card Ad saying “scratch now and win 1,000,000$” – the Ad both grabs our immediate attention and floods the value – we want to win those 1,000,000$.

So even if our chances of winning goes against all statistical and logical calculations, our attention was already caught because we were immediately presented (“flooded”) with the value, even before explaining the general idea or logic behind it.

Make it Simple

After we managed to grab attention, it is time to tell the story of our product or service. Here comes the real challenging part: can you really explain, sometimes in a single sentence, what does your company\product\service does? The true greatness of really good or complex products is the ability to make them simple and tangible.

Make sure not to use extremely high or too complex language, which usually creates opacity and covers the inability to generate a clear definition. If you managed to do so, in a minimized form, it will leave you with more time to invest in the other parts of your pitch.

Why you?

Towards the end of your pitch, it’s time to explain why you. Why you are the one who can turn this vision into reality. This is a critical point as you ask your potential investor for his trust (… and money).

Here is the point to emphasize your unique background in the field, winning team combination or previous successes. It is important to remember that most decisions we do are irrational, so it is imperative to use your attitude and presentation methods to strengthen your message, no less than the list of your titles or achievements.

Tip: we tend to associate self-confidence – and hence trust – when the shoulders are straight up. So straighten up!

Combining these ingredients, which builds a winning pitch, will require your time and efforts in order to sharpen your messaging. Sometime, using external consultants as well as using new technologies could upgrade your performance.

Note: apart from using the old PowerPoint, I can highly recommend Prezi and Bunkr.

Each year there are hundreds of new startups being founded, and with them grows the competition for investors. The first impression and effect you project at the beginning could be that critical point that would separate you from the rest, and will cause the investor to invest in you, over the other sea of startups.

Sometimes, this small conversation could make your life dream come true – don’t let it slip away.

For More Information On Start-Up Funding Click Here!