Point Of View: You’re an entrepreneur who has a breackthrough idea, an scalable Business Plan and has surrounded with an outstading team. Now it’s time to start fundraise with proffesional investors, and you only have the powerpoint presentation you created for your first clients and your brother-in-law when you raised a Family and Friends (FFF) investment round.
If you’re here, you probably need to create a new Investor Deck, probably might face the Blank page syndrome and don’t know where to start. We’ve created the «Builing the perfect Investor Deck» to help you in this process based on the book «Entrepreneur Pitch Book», from HassoPlatner Ventures. Don’t forget to share it with Swanlaab once its finished!
You can download our PDF here:
Part 1: Introduction
Lets dig a bit deeper into what investors love reading in the Introduction slide. Don’t forget that this slide will be the first touch point with the investor so its your chance to make a great impression.
What the investor wants to know
You should always put yourself in the shoes of the investor and think: «what would I like to know if someone I didn’t know shared its project with me?» Well, this is what we, as investors, would like to know.
- Give a brief history of the company, when it was started, how it’s been funded. Storytelling here is key. You want the investor to be part of your story.
- Define the company, business or product in a single sentence. While pitching, have in mind that the investor might not be an expert in the field. Explain this as if your mother was listening.
- Concisely state your core value proposition, including the target market. What is your buyer persona and how is your product special?
- What unique benefit will you provide to what customers to addres what need? Investors receive hundreds (or thousands) of pitch decks every year. What makes you unique?
Key objective
As simple as it might sound, with this slide, everyone should know the basic idea and value proposition of the company. If you do this the right way, the investor will already have a big picture in mind with lots of questions and curiosity about how you are going to disrupt the market you’re targeting.
Tips for the perfect slide
Don’t rush while explaining this slide in your pitch. Your main goal here should be that everyone in the room has a clear picture of what you’re building. There should no questions on what you’re doing, but lots of question on how you are going to make it. For exceling this, you should share it with lots of people with different backgrounds and levels of expertise in your market.
Stay in this slide until everyone understands what your company is doing and for whom. Imagine your pitch here as a watching a film. If you’re late to the cinema or haven’t paid attention to the start, you won’t be focusing on the storytelling, but rather trying to figure out what’s going on. Make this slide the very first start for your storyline.
Be capable of explain what you’re doing in one or two sentences. Have in mind simple examples and make sure that your statement clarified why you are unique and necessary. Train repeatedly your elevator pitch and ask for feedback to people from different background. Everyone understand what Uber does, right? Imagine how their first pitch sounded like. Feedback is a gift and you should persue it as much as possible in the first stages.
