Gain a better understanding of what it takes to create an effective pitch deck.
A pitch deck is a very brief presentation that can be used to provide possible investors, partners, or customers with a short overview of your company and its purpose.
You could also use a pitch deck to advertise a specific service or product that you're about to develop or bring to the market. In many cases, pitch decks will be displayed via software platforms like Prezi, Keynote, or PowerPoint. While pitch decks can be shown to investors or partners through digital platforms or face-to-face, the majority of pitch decks occur on a face-to-face basis.
Pitch decks are designed to assist companies in pitching an idea for a business or product, which can be useful when you're attempting to obtain more investments or gain a new partner for the company. This type of presentation is commonly used by startups that require more funding in order to grow their company. If you want to create a successful pitch deck, it's highly recommended that you only display a single idea with each slide, tell an intriguing and personable story, use large and readable fonts, use minimal bullet points, and maintain color, size, and font consistency with each slide.
To gain a better understanding of what it takes to create an effective pitch deck, you should take a closer look at the following pitch deck examples, which include:
The Facebook Pitch deck originally advertised the social media platform under the name of "thefacebook". Launched back in 2004, Facebook is currently valued at $140 billion with a base of 360 million users. This particular pitch deck is a very early example since the startup landscape was in its formative years.
While the pitch deck solely used lines of text to provide investors with an overview of the social media platform, it was effective at showing what the platform was, how it was launched online, and how its popularity began to grow as it spread from school to school. The pitch deck also included several quotes from the media that helped to validate the company and its current success.
BuzzFeed is a highly popular internet entertainment, news, and media company that has been at the forefront of digital journalism since it was founded in 2006. The main goal that BuzzFeed has had since its inception is to create videos, quizzes, articles, and lists that go viral and obtain millions of viewers.
When looking solely at the BuzzFeed YouTube channel, it has had more than 17 million subscribers and 14 billion views. The BuzzFeed pitch deck was effective because it used numerous screenshots of the news platform at various intervals throughout the deck. Another notable aspect of this pitch deck is that the competitive analysis slide displayed how BuzzFeed was the perfect blend of the media and advertising sectors instead of merely comparing how BuzzFeed differed from the two sectors.
Airbnb is an internet service that provides people with the ability to book rooms in other cities from locals, which can help to keep costs down when taking a vacation. Since it was founded in 2008, Airbnb has flourished and currently brings in around $3 billion in revenues every year. The process of booking a room with Airbnb is simple and straightforward, which is among the primary reasons why this platform is successful.
The Airbnb pitch deck focused on the advantages that the platform had over the competition while also displaying their distinct market positioning. This particular pitch deck was successful because it centered around simplicity. They highlighted the problems that customers had with other services before talking about the solution that Airbnb could provide. The pitch deck barely described the platform software and instead made sure that prospective investors understood the market potential.
Uber is a highly popular ride-sharing company that allows customers to request nearby drivers when they want to travel to another location. Uber is essentially a modern taxi service that removes the hassle of hailing a taxi. In 2019 alone, Uber brought in more than $14 billion in revenues. Their popularity has grown significantly since their founding in 2011 due to the convenience that customers are afforded when using the service.
The pitch deck for Uber was relatively simple with some rough edges. However, it was effective at bringing in investors because they focused on the solution that Uber provided. They presented the numerous problems with the taxicab industry before highlighting the possible benefits of Uber, which included a fast and efficient car service as well as the ability to request drivers online.
Buffer is a popular software application that allows companies to better manage their accounts on social media platforms. When using this service, businesses can schedule posts on the majority of notable social media platforms, which include Facebook and Twitter. They can also analyze results from their marketing campaigns. As of today, Buffer brings in around $16 million in annual revenues and has nearly 4.5 million customers.
The Buffer pitch deck was successful at bringing in new investors because it highlighted solid numbers and facts that investors would find useful. They focused on showing investors the milestones they had reached, the users they had, and the annual revenues they were bringing in. By sticking to verifiable numbers, investors were able to see that any future investments would be going to a company that was already exhibiting consistent growth.
Square is a mobile payment company that provides businesses with the ability to accept credit card payments on mobile devices via a dongle. In 2019 alone, they brought in more than $4.7 billion in revenues. They have had various products and services over the years that have helped make accepting credit card payments easier and more straightforward.
Likely the best aspect of the Square pitch deck is that they were able to advertise a strong management team that consisted of the co-founder of Twitter and the VP of business and corporate development at LinkedIn. This particular pitch deck was also highly detailed with a focus on a simple financial model that displayed annual revenues and five-year projections.
LinkedIn is a social networking platform that's business-oriented. Many job seekers go there to post their resumes and search for jobs that have been posted by prospective employers. This particular platform is also a great place to go to network with professionals in the same industry. Since LinkedIn was launched in 2003, it has gained 630 million members in a total of 150 countries.
The LinkedIn pitch deck is among the lengthiest pitch decks around and was created for the purpose of obtaining seed funding. Back in 2004, the internet wasn't quite as widespread as it is today, which meant that LinkedIn had to predict how the internet would grow in the coming years. Their first priority as explained in the pitch deck was to establish a network, which they deemed to be essential in order to scale rapidly. They also displayed how their actual growth at the time had blown past their projected growth.
Canvas is a kind of business solution that allows companies to digitize all of their paper assets for better organization. Since they were founded in 2008, they obtained more than $24 million in investments before being acquired by K1 Investment Management in 2018.
The reason that Canvas is considered to be a top pitch deck is because they used substantial amounts of imagery along with a small amount of written content to display their points. One notable aspect of this pitch deck is that they used statistics to show prospective investors how their app helped businesses like Healthtronics and Pepsi to digitize their assets.
Match Box is a networking and online dating application that's currently known as Tinder. Even though there were already many dating apps that people could use when Tinder launched in 2012, they focused on adding another key selling point, which provided individuals with the opportunity to swipe right to show interest or swipe left to say no to the individual. This particular feature has allowed Tinder to become the most popular dating app. They bring in more than $1 billion in revenues every year.
The Match Box pitch deck was very simple with a main focus being the fear of rejection. The pitch deck then showed how Match Box solved this fear by making it easy to find matches in regards to friends and social interests. It also displayed a clear and simplistic monetization model that investors immediately liked.
Coinbase is a secure exchange that makes it simple for individuals to sell, store, or buy various cryptocurrencies. They earned more than $1 billion in revenues in 2017. The Coinbase pitch deck was especially successful because it had a sizable hurdle to navigate.
At the time, not many people knew about cryptocurrencies, which means that investors wouldn't understand what problems needed to be solved by Coinbase. To navigate this issue, Coinbase showed investors how other options were too difficult to use. They then displayed how Coinbase was the solution to these problems before showing rapid growth in revenues and users.
Mixpanel is an analytics service company that's designed to track and monitor web and mobile apps. Companies that use this tool can compare marketing campaigns and conduct user surveys in a manner that will help them refine their marketing techniques. Throughout the five investment rounds that they've gone through, Mixpanel has brought in more than $77 million.
The Mixpanel pitch deck was highly simplistic with a focus on minimal text. The problem and solution slides were both comprised of a single sentence, which allowed investors to easily understand what the company was trying to do. They also used white font with a black background, which helped to make the words easy to read. Every slide contained a single concept.
While the aforementioned pitch decks differ in many ways, there are some commonalities between these pitch deck examples that indicate why they are regarded as some of the best pitch decks out there. Many of the top pitch decks were simplistic with minimal amounts of written content. Newer pitch decks also use imagery to stand out. All of these pitch decks focused on showing investors projections for revenues and users/customers.
As mentioned previously, there are some basic pitch deck steps that you should follow if you want to obtain the investments that you need to grow. For instance, make sure that your pitch deck uses consistent fonts and colors. You'll also need to answer questions about each slide in your pitch deck. If you want the content in your slides to be readable, it's recommended that you use large fonts.
Try to tell a personable and interest story about your startup. Pitch decks are important for startups because they can help you gain partners for your company or bring in new investments that will allow your company to grow at a fast rate. Understanding the importance of pitch decks should help you create a strong and effective pitch deck for your startup.
Revised 11/13/2020
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