Series: It’s Time to Get Pitch Perfect, Part III: Tips when designing your pitch deck

Welcome to the third instalment in our “Pitch Perfect” series to help you create the perfect pitch. If you missed the previous editions, you can find them all here.

So let’s now look at some do’s and dont’s when it comes to creating and designing an effective pitch deck. Your goal is to tell a compelling, memorable, and interesting story that inspires people.

• Keep it simple: Tell, don’t sell. Your potential investors will respond to a company story well-told rather than a ‘hard sell’.
• Make it short: Let’s say 15 slides maximum. If you feel the need to say more, then use the appendix.
• First things first: Introduce your company and key stats early in your pitch deck.
• Ensure you have the essentials: Quite simply, these include: Problem & solution, market size, competition, product, business model, team, financials, and fundraising requirements.
• Consistent style: Use a consistent theme, layout, font size, colour, and header title style throughout.
• Design and layout count: Keep it clear and well structured. The now infamous Airbnb pitch deck does the ‘rule of threes’ perfectly – whether it’s three bullet points, three diagrams, three images – on each slide. It works.
• Facts & figures: Whether it’s stats on market size, or information to back up your financial projections, do have some solid and believable facts and figures in there.
• Think visually: Use visuals to represent the problem your pitch deck is solving. If the investor can see it, they can imagine it.
• Don’t forget the basics: Spell check, remove jargon, cut unnecessary words.

So now you have all the design elements for a super strong pitch deck. But there’s more – our next “Pitch Perfect” blog post will cover how to actually present it in the room.