STARTUP FINANCE- PITCH PRESENTATIONS

Pitch deck presentation is a short and brief presentation to investors explaining about prospects of the company and why they should invest into the startup business. The pitch should not be more than 18 to 20 minutes long and it is ideal to have 15 to 18 slides because too much information means you are going to lose attention of the investors.

Generally you can think of a pitch deck as a story of your product that you want to convey to the investors. It has a story arc, plot points, developments, antagonists and climax. Start the pitch by introducing the product, your project and other cover items and then move on to the problem and solution part of the pitch. So basically the idea is that you state the problem faced for which you are going to provide your product or service as a solution. This technique is highly effective and widely used. Then, go on and highlight the features, the uniqueness of your product or service but don't ever get into all the technical details of your product as it increases the chances of you losing the attention of your audience. The next step is to put forth the business model you are planning to adopt. Pitch in how you will make money from this opportunity and just provide an overview of solid numbers in order to show what demand your product or service is going to have.

Pitch the size of the market that your product or service is going to conquer and how much will the customers be ready to pay for it. Provide the investors with the current traction that your product or  service has- products, customers, revenues, etc.. Let the investors know about the competitive landscape i.e. who are currently or in future going to compete with your product or service and what are the actions you plan to take for preventing the same from affecting your business. Provide charts and graphs indicating your current and future financial projections. Using graphs and charts provides a visual aid to your pitch. Pitch projections for revenue, costs, time period in which you estimate the product or service to take off in the market, etc.. At the end, pitch your funding need, how your capital structure is going to be - the proportion  of equity and debt in your capital structure and also provide the investors with their exit options i.e. if in future any investor wants to liquidate his/her investment, who will buy their share and what other prospects do they have.

Thus we can summarize the above and state that the followings points are crucial for a pitch presentation :

1.  Cover

2.  Team

3.  Problem

4.  Solution

5.  Product or service

6.  Business model

7.  Size of the market opportunity

8.  Traction

9.  Competitive landscape

10. Financial analysis

11. Funding needs, capital structure and exit options

I would like to specifically mention that avoid repeating data in pitch presentations and don't oversell it and it is fine if you don't know all the answers. If your idea has the potential, a perfect pitch will surely take you on a successful business journey.