Pitch Deck: use this slide template to

sumarize your business

This pitch deck asks for more information than is typically on a pitch deck, but this additional information
is helpful in the early stages of the competition. You can format the your pitch deck as you wish but you
must include the information below.
Your submission is limited to 15 slides.
Cover Slide
Introduction/Elevator pitch
The Market
Market Problem/Current Solutions
Your Solution
Your Team
Go to Market Strategy
Competitive Landscape
Competitive or Technological Advantages
Milestones/ Company Timeline
Business Model
Revenue Projections
Exit Strategy
Raising Capital / Use of Proceeds
Summary and Closing

[your company
here]
Date
Purpose of the presentation
name & title of the presenter
Include a one line company slogan

The Introduction/Elevator
Pitch
Your front slide is important in order to grab the attention of your audience as well as give
an introduction to your company. Briefly and succinctly cover:

What is your vision and your ultimate solution for your

customers?

What is the business?

Service?

Product?

What is the core problem you are solving for the

customer?

The Market
On this slide, you are setting up your market so that immediately after, you can discuss
the pain points and why your company can solve this! Demonstrate that you understand
the market and customer
Total Addressable
Market

What is the Overall Market?

What is the size and definition of the market?
Units? Revenue? Is it growing? Are you
entering an existing market or creating a new
one?

Define your Total Addressable Market

Whats Your Target Market? How can the Overall
market divided? Geographic, Demographic,
Behavioral, psychographic
What are the attributes of each customer that
makes them unique, and how can you extrapolate
on those features to define a market segment?

Define your target customer and key

characteristics
Who has the problem you are trying to solve? Ex.
Small vs. Large businesses, independents vs.
agencies, examples of ideal clients or
individuals

Potential
Customers/Clients

What are the current needs of your customer?

Market Problem / Current

Solutions

This is where you define the customers problem and show that there are existing solutions
in the marketplace that are just not cutting it .

Industry reports and news

articles

Customer quotes

What is the Big Market Problem or Big Unmet Need?

Are the current marketplace solutions solving the existing
unmet need or problems? Are they causing additional headaches?
Clearly demonstrate the pain of the problem how much pain and
money is this costing the customer?
Convey the strong desire or need that is being unfilled.

The market has either changed or the existing solutions do not fulfill or solve the big needs
or problems of the customers this is the opportunity

Your Solution
Present the solution. This is your value proposition and why your company can solve
this problem more elegantly, more effectively, less expensively or more quickly.

Describe your solution and convey its core value proposition to the client.
Be brief and centered around the customer who has the identified problem.
Discuss the benefits of the solution to the customer (and detailed technical info
IF APPLICABLE) and how it provides value based on the problem youve identified.

Demonstrate or illustrate your solution by

bringing it to life
Live Demo
Screen Shots
Video
Tell a Story
About a future
client or an
example of a
future client

Convince people this is a MUST HAVE solution, not a nice to have solution

Your Team
Describe your current (and planned) management team and advisors

Team Members: current, planned

Current team members
Assess and acknowledge skill gaps & future
needed hires

Accomplishments, Experience, Education

Describe experience, education, and
accomplishments that are meaningful to the
proposed venture
Be realistic

Advisory Boards, Outside Directors

Important to establish credibility and
connections
Actual contributions are needed - not just
names only.

Why are you the right team to execute on this business plan? What is your particular
expertise and passion?

Go To Market Strategy
How will you launch the product and quickly gain momentum and market share?

Targeting

What
What
your
What

segment will you target first and why?

does the sales cycle look like and how will you obtain
customers?
is your potential to leverage, scale, and grow quickly?

Strategic
Channels: How to reach / market to customers?
Partnerships/ Strategy: How to convert, acquire or close clients?
Unique Strategic Relationships / Partnerships?
Channel

Marketing

Customer
Retention

Describe your marketing, communications and

advertising strategy?
What sort of time/energy/expenses do you need to
expend to generate revenue?
How to keep clients and build recurring sales?
Average cost to acquire a customer, average revenue
per user/customer
What is the lifetime value of a customer?

Competitive Landscape
This is where you characterize your competition and who already is addressing this
problem in the marketplace. Make sure you are thorough in your research. For example,
dont miss Apple, Google, or Microsoft as a competitor!

List any direct competitors

and competing alternatives
(including the status quo).
Do your research here. Who
are they? List them.
How are you different?
Describe it.

Your Company

Feature 1

Feature 2

Company 1

Company 2

Company n

Feature n

What gives your company an

advantage? Make sure you
highlight.
If possible, show the
competitive landscape
graphically
Depict any specific features
that add substantial value
compared to your competitors.

Competitive or Technological
Advantages

On this page, describe how your solution works without revealing proprietary
information and in language a non-technical investor/advisor would understand.

What makes this solution

effective, unique, and/or
defensible from competitors?
What are the competitors
advantages or weaknesses?
What is your current competitive
advantage, and why is it robust
and scalable? Why does it
translate into a sustainable
business model?
What is your Moat or barrier
to entry (e.g. money, time,
expertise, unfair competitive
advantage)? Is what you are
creating difficult to duplicate?
Is there any IP protection?
you have any patents?

Do

Are there any key relationships

or partnerships you have?

10

Milestones / Company Timeline

Milestones are important to trace company development as well as to signify
accomplishments to investors. Each milestone should be compelling enough for an
investor to know the company is progressing.
Q1 2014

Q2 2014

Q3 2014

Q4 2014

Q1 2015

Q2 2015

Q4 2015

Raise Angel Round

of Financing

Proof of Concept
Prototype Developed
and Completed

Product Launch
1.0
Complete
Business
Plan

Q3 2015

1st Customer

Product
Refinements

100 Customers!

Cash Flow
Positive

Develop a meaningful timeline for the stage of your company. You dont need to cover every milestone, just the one for now
and the next one plus an estimate of how much you need to raise eventually to become self sufficient cash flow break even.
Raising funds, whether by grant or from investors, is about meeting milestones that increase the value of the company. Each
milestone should be set, then reached, so that it is compelling enough to inspire the next round of money.

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Business Model
Describe how your company will make money solving the customers problem by
describing the key revenue streams and profit model.

Define your Revenue Model. Who will pay for the solution and how will you make money?

What are the key revenue streams?

Discuss the scalability of your business model.

Does it lend itself to rapid expansion?

How many customers do you expect to capture and what is their buying decision cycle?

Is there recurring revenue?

Show an example using basic revenue/math

Is this high volume?

Low volume?

What is the frequency?

Describe your pricing structure and how much you expect to generate in revenue from each
customer.

Discuss pricing - per unit, subscription, flat fee? % fee? transaction fee,
advertising

Define your financial projections.

financial projections.

Specify, fixed costs , variable costs and

spell out

Is your new venture profitable, or, more likely, is it going to reach profitability in
the near future?

What are my initial costs to bring

How much does it cost to run the business?

revenue and net revenue?

the product to market

Is there a big difference between gross

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Revenue Projections
A simple table that identifies some of the key metrics of the business (revenue, net income,
customers, headcount etc.) and financial information with measurements of financial
progress (revenue, gross profit and net profit).

Some General Guidelines

# Years Projected:

Startups: 6 year projections (accounts for ~1

year of getting started)

Early-mid stage: 1-2 year historical, 3-5 year

projections

Target Market Size vs. Acquired Clients:

Its important to see how much money the

company will need and how much it will make,
and how other key metrics line up with the
financials.
EBITDA is often used in place of Net Income
Revenue should be in line with your vision and be
realistic, yet optimistic.

Total # Clients in Target Market (Show each year

with growth)

# Clients Acquired or Free Users vs. Revenue

Generating Users (shows conversion rate)

% Penetrated (be realistic: growing from 0% to

1%-5% penetration makes sense, 50%-100% is
unreasonable)

High Level Financials:

Revenue, Expenses, EBITDA, EBITDA Margin %

Optional: Break out key revenue streams or Gross

vs. Net Revenue

Optional: Break out key expenses (Ex. #

Employees)

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Exit Strategy
You need to think about what is ultimately going to happen to your company will it be
acquired? Will it go public? Will it exist as a going concern?

Acquisition:

(Most likely exit option)

Name potential companies (any unique relationships with them?)

Name types / categories of companies that could acquire you
Why would they acquire you, how do you fit into their strategy?
Why wont they try to build it themselves?

Financial Buyer
Will your company generate excess cash flow that
could make it attractive to financial buyers to
generate a return?

IPO: The least likely exit for a company, but a possibility.

Often not preferred to founders or investors compared to top
two choices, due to required holding period and volatility

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Raising Capital / Use of Proceeds

What is the ask? Capital? Intros? The goal of the meeting? This can vary depending on
the stage of your company. BE CLEAR about what you are asking.

Capital Raise: Always try for 20% to 50% more than you think you will need.
transparent about what you need now.

Be

Stage / Size? Ex.

Investment Terms and type: Ex: Pre-Money Valuation Expectations / Range, Discount
into next round?, Dividend / Interest Rate?, Equity or Convertible debt?

Current Investors in Round: Founders, Key Angels, VCs

Prior Investment Rounds: Size? Investors? Valuation? Key Terms?

Monthly Burn Rate? / How long will new $ last (runway)?

Seed Round: up to $500K, Series A: $2-3M, what is the structure?

Use of Proceeds: (Name It / $ Amount / % of Capital Raised)

Sales & Marketing

Hire key employees and founders salaries

Build out / further develop technology

Legal and accounting work e.g. file patents

What is needed to achieve Milestones: 1st Client? Get to Breakeven? 3x Rev Growth?

Things to remember: you will never move as quickly as you project, and you will have
multiple unanticipated stumbling blocks somewhere

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Summary & Closing

Your last slide is important to give a review of what you have presented and leave a lasting
impression of your company.

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[your company here]

Any Questions?

Thank You
Include contact information

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