7 tips for a knock-em-dead startup investment pitch deck from a top VC

Pitching is stressful – whether it’s on stage (pictured at our Tech in Asia Tokyo 2015 conference) or in a room full of investors.

You are a visionary who is going to change the world. One of the essential pieces in bringing your dream to reality is investment. To get the money, you’ll need investors, like Jeff Paine, founding partner at Golden Gate Ventures.

We spoke with Jeff to get his advice on crafting the perfect pitch deck – the slides you use to illustrate your idea while you sing and dance and jump around the room, trying to convert the investors into true believers in your vision.

Jeff is familiar with startup visionaries and their pitch decks. In fact, GGV recently launched a new US$50 million fund for Southeast Asian startups as well as those looking to move into the region. References on Jeff’s AngelList demonstrate his expertise at investing in and guiding startups towards success.

His insights provide a glimpse into the minds of investors who are reviewing mountains of pitch decks and deciding which ones they will inject with essential cash, powering them to the next level.

Jeff Paine

Before we get to those seven tips, Jeff points out that while no two presentations are the same, successful pitch decks usually contain a very distinct formula of slides. It goes like this in 10 steps:

• Problem: pitch an obvious and applicable problem
• Solution: communicate your solution using familiar concepts, originality, and value
• Market: prove a profitable market exists for your solution
• Competitors: what can you do that they cannot?
• Technology: what makes your technology special and why is it primed for immediate success?
• Business model: how do you plan to make money?
• Marketing and sales: how you are going to get exposure and build a following?
• Team: why your team is the right team for this idea?
• Call to action: what is it that the investor could contribute to your startup?
• Milestones: what have you achieved so far and what are you trying to achieve going forward?

Crafting a pitch deck using this formula requires that you think very deeply about your startup and how it solves a specific problem for specific people. It isn’t just a matter of a preferred format for investors, it’s a matter of showing them that you truly understand what you’re doing and that you are the right person to do it. Using this formula, along with Jeff’s other tips below will significantly increase your chances of getting the investment you need to realize your vision.

7 top tips

Here are Jeff’s tips for making the perfect startup investment pitch deck:

1. Stack your credibility blocks

While your deck is compartmentalized into those 10 segments, remember that every slide should contribute to a single goal: getting funding. For this, it is imperative that you remember to maintain a flow in your deck.

For example, if your solutions slide focuses on addressing wearable-inclined consumers, your market slide should explain how those customers are spending their money on wearables. All of your slides should resonate with each other to add as much credibility to your idea as possible. Stack up your credibility even more by demonstrating that your solution is something you and your team have got undying passion for. Explain why you’re obsessed with solving this problem and the story of how you got hooked on this idea.

Conclusion