The Perfect Pitch

Illuminating the (Battle-Tested) Sequence to Raising Capital

I vacillate between writing about the future of technology and things I’ve picked up as a founder, investor, advisor, operator, etc. This posts is one of the latter; i.e., no future talk today. For the moment and after an evening like last night, I’d like to not think about what’s going to happen next; rather, only what I / we can do right now. And in this case, it’s talking about… pitch decks. (My apologies if you were in search of profundity.) And away we go….

Every pitch deck I’ve ever helped iterate and bring to life evolves to the same sequence of slides.

“Novels Pitch decks are like snowflakes; each one appears unique on the surface, but at their core, they all share the same intricate design of story structure.” -ChatGPT.

I’d estimate that over the last decade alone I’ve attended >100 demo days and seen thousands of pitches including the ~25 pitches from a recent ERA demo day and Techstars NYC and Boston mentor office hours; and a comparable number that I’ll see for similar reasons by year end. And during nearly every set of mentor sessions, I get the request to help craft the pitch. So several years ago, during a mentor session with a fledgling startup, I scribbled on a whiteboard a list in sequence that they should use to craft their deck. (See actual whiteboard photo below:)) And now I’m posting my notes here so that I can just refer to this post when people ask ;-)

And about a year after that I learned that my brilliant scribble had already been presented (or pitched, if you will) by YC for years. You can see that here; it’s probably better than mine. But I’ll share mine anyway; it’s basically the same as above just with a few extra notes….

1. One liner mission statement.

2. There is a gigantic problem.

3. The current solutions don’t work.

4. We solved it.

5. These people / companies are using us (traction).

6. This is how they’re using us (product).

7. This is how we make money (business model).

8. This is how we’re taking it to market (GTM).

9. This is who else is in the market (competitive landscape).

10. And this is why we can do it (team).

Investors are looking for: (1) absolutely gigantic opportunities and (2) mitigating risk. It’s the latter point that founders often overlook, but it’s critical (especially anything about traction).  This is what this deck sequence articulates in a way that each slide prompts a question answered by the next. There is an (tongue-in-cheek) example below (and you can listen to the conversation NotebookLM created from it here),,,

1. One liner mission statement.

You: “GE - we bring good things to light!”
Investor: “Ok great, so what’s going on here…?”

2. There is a gigantic problem.

You: “It’s very dark and people want to be able to see things at night so they can work, play, and not trip or get murdered. In fact, there are only 12 hours of sunlight on the average day so each of the 333 million people in the United States wastes >4,000 hours per year or over 1.4 BILLION hours in total!”
Investor: “Don’t people use candles and lamps?”

3. The current solutions don’t work.

You: “Candles and oil lamps and other sources of light are hot, don’t last, and cause fires that burn down houses and buildings and they lead to mass death.”
Investor: “Ok got it - how are you fixing this?”

4. We solved it.

You: “We make light bulbs and sell electricity to power those light bulbs.”
Investor: “That sounds promising, but complicated. Is anybody actually using these things?”

5. These people / companies are using us (traction).

Note: this is possibly the single most important slide in your deck (after you establish how great the opportunity is); in short, this is the best way to mitigate concerns about risk. In short, the question asks, “Is anybody aside from your mother willing to use this thing…?”

You: “Actually, in Wabash, Indiana, four 3,000-candlepower Brush lights suspended from the flagstaff on top of the Wabash County Courthouse were switched on, flooding the neighborhood with light….”
Investor: “Neat, but what did that even do?”

6. This is how they’re using us (product).

You: “...[t]he people, almost with bated breath, stood overwhelmed with awe…. [a] journalist reported that he had been able to read a newspaper, held up to the light, from one street away; from two blocks away, he could still read the headlines; from four blocks away he could make out the advertisements….”
Investor: “Ok that is actually very cool, but how do you make money by making lights and turning them on?”

6. This is how we make money (business model).

You: “We sell lightbulbs and make money by selling the electricity that powers them; i.e., the more they use it, the more they pay.”
Investor: “I like that business model. But how are you going to get people to use it - doesn’t that require every home to have electricity?”

8. This is how we’re taking it to market (GTM).

You: “We already have power stations in New York City and in Indiana and we have plans and partnerships to build power stations in every state in the country.”
Investor: “Ah, smart. Are any other companies trying to do this?”

9. This is who else is in the market (competitive landscape).

You: “Of course. Nikola Tesla has been doing similar work in the space, but he’s been focused on alternating current and wireless technology, which we have demonstrated is dangerous and will take many years to be commercially deployable. Plus, we own the patents on a ton of these technologies so it will be difficult for Tesla to gain commercial success.”
Investor: “Got it; we’re hearing the same re Tesla… maybe some day he’ll make a car or something. Tell me about your team so we know that you’ll be able to execute.”

10. And this is why we can do it (team).

You: “Our founder, Thomas Edison, developed the quadruplex telegraph, which I’m sure you know lets you send four simultaneous messages on a single wire. He then invented the phonograph, which all the kids these days are using to dance.”
Investor: “Impressive. Where do I send my check?”

If you’d like to listen to an audio version of this conversation tap here. (Thank you NotebookLM!)

Note: all quotations etc. are from Wikipedia and ChatGPT; i.e., they’re “real.”