Startup pitch deck template. Free.

1. Startup
Pitch Deck Template
This 10-15 slide template has successfully
helped raise several million $.
• Learn how to focus on what’s important
• Avoid careless mistakes
+The best presentation tip ever!
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

2. General tips
1. This is just a template. You absolutely must change and adapt the flow
to feel totally confortable in telling your own story.
2. You will be telling your story when presenting in person. Don’t write
everything on the slides, or your presenter role will be useless. Use the
slides as support for your passionate conversation.
3. You should have 2 decks: one to e-mail, one to present live. The one
you e-mail must be understood by the reader without explanations, so it
can contain a bit more text telling the story if you need to.
4. A professional and coherent design is a must, but don’t go overboard.
People must not get distracted by the style – that is not the goal.
5. Use relatively large fonts. The audience might be viewing from far away
or you might be pitching from your mobile. Make an effort to write
shorter focused statements with what’s really important.
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

3. Project Name
Tagline if you have one
You can have here a great, imaginative and catchy full-size background
image.
Common mistake 1: a great, imaginative and catchy small image.
Common mistake 2: a full-size image in low definition or blurred.
Common mistake 3: a catchy image without any correlation with the topic.
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

4. Most people - especially in tech don’t bother with a disclaimer.
It’s certainly useless in a live presentation. You can consider
adding the disclaimer slide only if you send a deck.
If you’re doing something in accounting, finance, medical… it’s
important to show you know your legal stuff and you have good
legal advisors.
Legal disclaimer (optional)
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

5. One simple and clear statement to explain what you do.
Explain how you help someone do something better.
Try something like this:
We help [customer group]
achieving better [benefit],
thanks to [key ingredient of our solution].
Every year [some terrible waste happens].
With [our smart idea],
[customer group] can [reap a benefit].
Common mistake 1: write a long paragraph, or even worst several paragraphs.
Common mistake 2: spend your full 10 minutes on this slide. This is just an
appetizer to set the stage.
Problem to solve
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

6. (screenshots or photos or demo)
Demonstrate the solution in 1 or a few slides: show the actual
product or mockup if you have one, and explain how this solves the
problem. This must be quick.
No need to show a full flow, or irrelevant features like a lost
password page. Just show one or two core screenshots that
illustrate the central scope.
Make the screenshots or images as large as you can to make sure
what you want to show is clearly visible.
If you don’t have screenshots or anything visible to show, try the
next slide « How we solve the problem ».
Common mistake 1: writing text explanations over screenshots; you
should be able to explain verbally.
Common mistake 2: multiple small unreadable screenshots all in
one slide.
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

7. As an alternative, or more complete support to the screenshots, you
can prepare a graphic chart showing how the different users interact
with the solution. You can explain verbally the different interaction flows
and how it works.
Or alternatively, list 3 main items – not more than 3 – with they key
ingredients of your solution.
• You can add some sub details to your 3 main items, but not more
than 3 sub bullets each.
Why 3? Because of the « Rule of Three » (Google it). 3 sticks. 4 is too much.
If you have one « unfair » or « sustainable » competitive advantage,
better to focus on this one than diluting its value with 3-4 weaker
claims.
Common mistake: show technical architecture details. In most cases, investors first need
to understand what your users can do with your solution, not what’s inside the box.
How we solve the problem
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

8. Why is this the right team to solve this problem?
• Founders - who brings what skills and experience
• Key management - experts who can help fill gaps in founders
skills.
• Advisors, if you need credibility from other better known names
Give only names + previous relevant roles and companies, main
relevant qualifications or achievements. Pictures are OK but not
mandatory.
Important: if your team kicks butts and your names are enough to
raise, you can put the team slide first in the deck.
Common mistake: long profiles. This is not about your great life. This is about why
you can execute on this specific project. The full CVs can be sent offline or checked
during due diligence anyway.
Team
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

9. Use one or two charts, clearly readable. More than 2 charts could
make the estimates complex and less credible.
Do not explain here how you get the numbers, you can explain
verbally or send models later.
If no known market size, use comparable/proxy market metrics that
give a sense of the size.
Add any important strategic pattern about this market:
emerging/mature, consolidated/fragmented, local/global.
If emerging, are there any projections for growth?
Reference 3rd party sources (market research, annual reports,
serious news sources, academic papers).
Common mistake: invent a huge global market size that is not one addressable
market, but the sum of many. If you’re selling children car seats, your market is not car
owners, but parents who own cars.
Market size and potential
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

10. Explain how you intend to generate revenues: product sales, subscriptions,
sign up fees, consulting fees, ad fees … A table format is usually appropriate.
Give examples: price points, comparable products or services, show one replicable
account or business case to estimate gross margins.
You might be asked to dig into the metrics, great if you have a backup slide, in all
cases be prepared as these metrics should be visible in your full financial model.
Typical B2C metrics: acquisition costs, average basket, commission or gross margin,
repeat purchase rate, conversion rate, click-through rate…
Typical B2B metrics: sales lead time, acquisition cost, contract duration, contract value
or subscription fee, cross-sell opportunities
Business model
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting
Offer 1 or
Segment 1
Offer 2 or
Segment 2
Offer 3 or
Segment 3
Service 1 Yes Yes No
Service 2 On demand Yes Yes
Option 3 No + $30 Yes
List price $100 $200 $300

11. What are the channels you are planning to use to get to clients?
Ideally, a graphic chart or a table showing different channels and
how distribution models differ.
This slide can be skipped, but in general it’s recommended for
any company who depends on distribution channels and partners
to reach clients.
For direct sales, this slide can be used to illustrate the media plan
or marketing tactics.
Distribution/go to market
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

12. What have you already achieved so far?
Insert the most relevant milestones or metrics.
A revenue growth chart is the best visual, if you’re at this stage.
If you have outstanding news, this slide could be placed much
earlier in the presentation for more impact.
- Customers and market proof
- Quotes, LOI, market research, contracts, subscribers,
visitors, revenue track record, awards, partnerships …
-Technical/product stage
- Prototype, products launched, operations, service teams,
hardware purchased, outsourcing,…
- Company/legal stage
- Registered brands, domains, patents or other IP, hiring
key roles
Execution so far
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

13. Ideal: show a chart with 2 axis:
- Customer benefit 1 vs Customer benefit 2
- OR Market segment vs Key strenght
- map your team and your competitors on the chart to show how you are
different. You can use different colors to show a qualitative attribute, and/or bullet
size for a qantitative one.
Other option: show 2 groups.
-Direct competitors doing almost the same thing, or the same thing elsewhere
- Alternative products and services who could solve the problem in a different
way
Add 1-2 bullet points highlighting your unfair or sustainable competitive
advantages.
Note: you can add funding or valuations for competitors or comparable
businesses to give a sense of what other investors are doing.
Common mistake: saying that there is no competition. This would mean there is
no problem.
Competition
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

14. Financials (seed-early stage)
If this is seed/very early stage: explain how the funds are going to be
allocated.
How much do you want to raise. No hesitation here: only one, clear
number.
Debatable option: writing how much equity you are ready to sell for the round. This
means giving your own valuation. Usually you should prefer to have investors make you
offers and negotiate from there. In some smaller angel circles it is expected to state the
percentage you are selling. Be careful.
1. What are the goals/milestones to achieve and when;
2. Where is the money going to be spent:
- tech/production
- sales and marketing
- general (patents, legal…)
Be prepared to give headcount of planned hires in the next 4 quarters.
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

15. Financials (late/growth stage)
If you’ve already raised funds, list dates and amounts.
No need to write it down, but be prepared to explain current
shareholding structure (cap table).
Show past year actual P&L, current year and next 2-year projections.
Explain how future funds will be allocated. You might be asked how
past funds have been spent.
Current round: how much are you looking for, and for what goal.
Valuations of comparable businesses can be used if relevant.
Common mistake 1: describing projections as « conservative ».
Warning: triple check everything: no mistake with numbers is tolerable.
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

16. Backup slides
It’s good to prepare backup slides, to pull out in case a specific question is raised.
You will show you have already thought about the problem and you are prepared.
Don’t send the backup slides if you have to send a deck before the presentation.
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

17. • Valuation of comparable businesses
• Org chart
• Specific process charts
• Customer case study
• Press coverage
• Macroeconomic charts (cost of fuel if you’re in trucking, …)
• More information about partners
• Risk analysis (what could go wrong and what can we do now)
• Media costs / PPC keyword cost analysis
• Financial model assumptions
• Different growth scenarios
• Detailled market segmentation analysis
• Personas and use cases
• Customer/partner quotes
• Product roadmap
• Details about technology/stack used
• More screenshots
• Future product design/mockups
Sample content for backup slides
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

18. Once done, go back and change all of your slides titles.
Instead of what the slide is about, write WHAT IS THE KEY
MESSAGE you want to get across. See some examples:
- Competition > « Fragmented non-tech incumbents »
- Market size > « An addressable market of $3B »
- Execution so far > « Strong growth demonstrated »
-Team > « Experienced and international team »
- Business model > « 84% gross margin »
This must make the key messages clearly stand out.
If you try and copy just your slide titles on a separate document,
you should get the story, in the 10-15 key messages people
should remember when walking out.
And… the best tip ever
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting

19. Other resources
1. www.pitchenvy.com
Large gallery of presumably real decks.
2. Slideshare, tons of shared decks.
3. Get inspired with Facebook’s first sales deck… not bad but
you can do better!
http://www.digiday.com/platforms/how-eduardo-saverin-sold-
facebook-ads-in-2004/
© 2010-2013 Beccari Consulting