How to build the perfect pitch deck: a step by step guide with examples and an analysis of my Airbnb's deck

The perfect pitch deck doesn't exist, but you need to be better than competitors.

Introduction

Today, I’m pleased to have Hugo Rauch in the newsletter. Hugo is the host of explore podcast and writer of explore newsletter. Highly recommend his work! :)

Hugo, over to you!

👋Hi everyone and thank you Rubén for the invitation!

I’m Hugo, a financial analyst at Microsoft by day and podcaster by night. I write a newsletter and record a podcast weekly about startups, fundraising and growth! Join more than 1,000 founders for your weekly startups boost. 📈

Today’s topic is: How to build the perfect pitch deck?

Let’s get started!

What it a pitch deck?

A pitch-deck is a brief presentation that gives an overview of your business. Founders use it when they need financing as they must convey their ideas to investors in a way that gets them excited.

“Ideas that you can’t clearly communicate to others are useless.”

Why is it important?

There is less investors and capital available than there is startups in need for funding. The pitch deck is your pass to enter the world of venture capital investment.

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Step by step guide

Crafting a deck is difficult, but here is a step by step guide that will help you.

As tempting as it is to open PowerPoint and start working on your deck, you should not do that now. Let’s use the analogy of a race. You would not start running without a good warm up right?

A checklist to get started

First, let’s make sure that you are VC fundable:

• Are you a scalable business? 📈

• Are you addressing a large market? 🚀

• Do you receive positive signals from customers? 🙂

Everything is checked?✅

We can move on to the next stages.

Now let’s get a bit more tactical:

• First, let’s pick the right slide editor (PowerPoint, Google Slides, Figma, Canva..). You’ll spend a lot of time on the tool, make sure you like it.

• Then, find 3 decks that you love (I’ve shared some examples at the end of this newsletter). Get inspired, and feel a creativity spark. ✨

• Finally, take a pen and paper and draft a table with two columns:

  • slide titles (I’ll give them to you in a minute)

  • key talking points for investors

Why are we doing this last step?

Because pitching is all about story telling, and we need to write the story first before crafting the deck to support this story.

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Everything is ready? We can now start our race slowly.

But again you should not open the software yet!

Let’s create your story

Now, we will fill in the piece of paper you have.

And we will give a great structure to the deck.

Why?

Because investors spend on average 2 mins on your deck. Most of them have a checklist to evaluate your idea. Therefore it’s in your best interest to help them check the boxes.

Let’s go slide by slide.

As you read this, you should pause on each section and fill in the two columns on your piece of paper.

Slide 1: Introduction

🎯Goal: communicate clearly and concisely what your business is offering.

After seeing it, investors should understand what your business is about.

A good intro slide has a logo and a sentence of 6 to 8 words that explains the business. No lingo or complex vocabulary. Make it accessible and simple.

A good example is Airbnb. 👇

Slide 2: Problem

🎯Goal: convince people you are solving for a real pain.

You need to show that people will be willing to pay for your solution. You need to make investors empathize with your target customer. They need to understand the rational, and emotional behavior that would lead to buying a product for this problem.

A good example is Revolut. Look at the slide, we can all relate. 👇

Slide 3: Solution

🎯Goal: present your offering and your unique value proposition.

By now investors understand what your business does. But you should emphasize the uniqueness and benefits of your offering. Talk about what makes your offering valuable to customers, and what makes it unique. Don’t go deep in features.

All you need is to show a simple and scalable solution.

A good example is YouTube. 👇

Premium contents 👇

- Rest of slides: Market, Product, Validation and Traction, Team, Competition, Financial projections, The Ask

- Crafting the perfect design

- Analyzing Airbnb’s Pitch Deck

- Resources & Inspiration