How To Write A Great Start-Up Pitch Deck

2. Market Slide

You want to show this slide early in your deck, so you can orient your audience on your story’s larger context and to show that you’ve done your research and are thinking about the larger context you’re operating in.

Your market slide should include:

1. Your category
2. Location
3. Current market trends in that category and location

Sample market slide:

3. Problem Slide

In your problem slide, make sure the problem is clear, short, and to the point. You can include data and statistics to back up your claims about your customers’ problem, but it’s not required. Including only a problem statement without statistics can be effective on its own.

Keep in mind that the problems should be formulated to correspond to your exact products or services, as you’ll have to present a direct solution to each of the problem in the next slide. We need to keep the content on the problem and solution slides perfectly aligned.

Your problem slide should include:

1. Who is your customer
2. What is their pressing problem(s)
3. Data/stats about their problem(s)

Sample problem slide:

4. Solution Slide

Your solutions slide should clearly address the customers’ problems and pain points you’ve just described and should do so in short, straightforward sentences. Avoid being long-winded or over-explaining. For the differentiators section, make sure you include no more than three strengths or differentiators.

Your solution slide should include:

1. Direct solution to each of the problem(s) stated below
2. Differentiators in how these solutions are implemented that are unique/competitive compared to current market offerings

Sample solution slide:

5. Traction Slide

Depending on how far along you are in your business, you may be including operational achievements or actual positive sales numbers.  The purpose of this slide is to list your major achievements to date and show your forward momentum. It can include both quantitative and qualitative achievements.

These achievements can range from:

your business operations

• money raised
• teams formed
• patents filed
• partnerships formed
  

to your inroads with customers

• pilots conducted and their results
• customers won
  
• sales/revenue numbers
• customer satisfaction ratings or positive quotes

Sample traction slide:

6. Business Model Slide

This slide explains how you make money.
It can include how you’ve priced your products and services.  

You can include information on your primary source of income, as well as additional (for example service add-ons). If you make money in multiple ways (say recurring subscriptions and one-time sales) or by charting two different groups of people for different services, explain that.

Sample business model slide:

7. How It Works Slide 

Here you should explain how your products or services work, focusing on the ones that are your main revenue driver. Don’t be exhaustive, even though you obviously know your products and operations well – being too detailed will make the slide LESS compelling.

Edit down to the absolute essential few sentences.

If you can, sneak in language or visuals showing:

1. Any proprietary features
2. How you manage to be faster, cheaper, more frictionless than others

Sample ‘how it works’ slide:

8. Advantages Slide

This slide is often also called ‘Competition’ or ‘Competitive Landscape.’ This is where you’ll discuss who your direct competitors are in the market and explain your advantages and differentiators with them.

Sample advantages slide:

9. Go-To-Market Slide

This slide is also sometimes called the ‘Growth’ slide. 

The most effective way to show your go-to-market plan is to include both your growth goals, as well as the tactics you’ll use to achieve them.

You can include:

• Geographic goals: where you want to open
• Customer acquisition goals or sales numbers goals
• What mix of marketing and sales tactics you’ll use to get there

Sample Go-To-Market slide:

10. Opportunity Slide

In this slide, explain any additional revenue streams to the main one we’ve covered previously. Here you can add one to three additional new markets your startup could expand into or grow.

Sample opportunity slide:

11. Roadmap Slide

In the roadmap slide, you’ll outline the key milestones you plan to achieve in your implementation plan, as you stabilize, grow, and expand over time.  

You can break this out across areas like product development, sales, and team or operations or you can have a single timeline. It’ll help your investors visualize your execution plan and exactly how you'll progress from where you are now to your stated goals.

Sample roadmap slide:

12. Team Slide

In this slide you need to explain why your team is the RIGHT team for this job. Make sure to list the experience of each team member that is relevant to your goals and space.

Remember this isn’t about content density or length.  It’s about editing down to show the relevant experience clearly.

Sample team slide:

13. Financials Slide

The financials slide is where you can demonstrate your projected growth and finances. Obviously, predicting the future is hard, and investors will know that these numbers are simply projections. Try to base them on real research of the market, competitors, and your own historical data if you have it. 

In the financials slide, you can include:

1. High Level profit and loss statement
2. One or two of your KPIs (say, customers)
3. A chart of your projected growth

Sample financials slide:

14. Use of Funds Slide

In this slide, ask for enough money from your investors to grow your company in the next year or so.

For the use of funds break down, keep things general and remember to tie these categories aligned with the goals and story you’ve already told throughout the deck.

Sample use of funds slide:

15. End Slide

Here you should include:

• Your name and/or logo again
• Your contacts
• If you want to include a final strong statement, summary about ‘why now’ is the right time to invest!

Sample end slide:

Template Resources 

If you'd like to use a ready-made template to start your own early stage or seed round pitch deck, Linia Presentations has a few options for you!

You can download the pitch deck slides template used in this blog post, if you'd like to use them as your starting point.

Or you can look through our library of pitch deck templates and single slides to get just the slides you need.

Let us know if you have any questions, suggestions, or comments to improve this blog post.