Forty-eight hours is a completely reasonable amount of time to create a pitch deck, says Pat Roberts, co-founder and chief technical officer at UltraMedia Innovation, a tech company transitioning existing and new high definition media into ultra high definition.
“You should be able to build one in less than an eight-hour day,” Roberts said.
The question, “How Can I Create An Investor Pitch Deck In 48 Hours?” originally appeared on Quora, the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.
Answers by Pat Roberts, Mohit Bansal, Wallace Ho, Chad Jardine, Sramana Mitra, David Pethick, Mudit Narang, Stanley Lee, and Malcolm Lewis,
Answered Sept. 14, 2016
If you really have just 48hrs, I would suggest you follow the following steps:
Step 1: Figure out if you and your business are ready for funding:
Check out the slideshare in this post: How to make an Investor Pitch Deck that really works (I am the author, but I genuinely feel this is the best resource to answer the above question)
Step 2: Figure out what should go in YOUR pitch – stuff that would excite the investor.
The slideshare should help with this too. Plus you may check out this guide by BaseTemplate.
Step 3: Use the template from BaseTemplate or try Slidebean
Hope it helps.
Answered Aug. 3
For very early stage business/startup, focus on few points below:Problem statement (how big the problem is, how big the market is)
Solutions (how do you use your products/services to solve them?)
Team (who are in your team, any strong backing?)
Go to Market (how do you promote and sell your products? Try not only using FB & Google ads, anyone can do ads, best to include some other ways that are free, effective and low cost)
Business model (how do you make money?)
Answered July 22
Change your frame of mind.A slide deck is just a tool. You don’t need a deck.
If you are connecting with investors for the first time you will be in one of two situations: they will ask you to email your deck or you will be presenting in person like at a startup competition.
Either way, you need a hook not a comprehensive set of slides (and I LOVE a well-designed slide presentation).
First: Email in response to a deck request, send a 1–2 page executive summary as a PDF, not a hastily prepared check-the-boxes slide deck. It needs to be good. Spend 1/2 your time on the summary and half on the email that accompanies it.
This is a marketing process, so each communication has only one job, to get the reader to the next step in the process.
You’ll be in a sea of competition, so you need to nail:
Why your company? (What’s your unfair advantage?)
Why now? (What trends make this the most opportune time?)
Why you? (Often this is the story about how you encountered the problem and set out to solve it—
even better if you encountered obstacles along the way and overcame them with determination, passion and grit)You need to answer these questions with memorable punch and with contrast against the competition.
Second: Live pitch—you can use slides if you want, but I would start by nailing your message first (see above) without slides.
In any good presentation the visual aids should reinforce the speaker as the main attraction. Often founders approach this as if their function is simply to narrate the slides. Those pitches suck.
Be prepared to go without slides. You will be instantly more memorable and the audience will focus on you.
Should you still want slides, start with one. Get your main message down to a single slide.
This is still a marketing process. Your job isn’t to communicate everything about your company. It’s to communicate the one or two things that prompt a call back.
Keep in mind that investors need two things to invest,
A compelling opportunity
Reason to believe you are the one(s) who can execute/deliver on it.
Check that your presentation delivers on both… but if you only nail one, make sure it is the opportunity. You can build reason to believe later, but if you miss the opportunity part, you wont get the chance to convince them.Good luck!
Answered March 23, 2016
I would not start by looking for a pitch template on Google, I would search for a resource on what makes a business fundable and start there.As someone who coaches thousands of entrepreneurs, I have to say that until you fully understand what makes a business fundable, you just can’t create a killer pitch no matter how hard you try.
And once you do understand what makes a business fundable, you can put each of those fundamentals on each of your slides, and your pitch will sing, even if you have never seen a great investor pitch template.
So, if I had 48 hours, I first would do a quick Self-Assessment to identify where I stand with my idea and to identify my gaps. You can use this one:
Then, I would use the 1M /1M Basic Curriculum for tech entrepreneurs, particularly, its Financing module, to quickly understand how I could plug those gaps quickly.
http://1m1m.sramanamitra.com/bas…
By the way, the Curriculum does have a killer pitch template, but as I said, before you get to
any template, there is serious work to be done, to ensure that your pitch is not a complete waste of your time.And, if you want to test how well you have done in desiging your investor pitch, come and pitch me any Thursday.
One Million by One Million Free Public Roundtables
Good luck, you have some work to do ahead 🙂
Answered Oct. 27, 2014
That’s a completely reasonable amount of time to create a pitch deck. You should be able to
build one in less than an 8-hour day. If you don’t have a template, I would look at the decks on PitchEnvy and find a format that you like, then use it as a guide in creating your own deck. I like using Awwwards to find a graphic design direction, Envato for art assets, and building decks in Adobe InDesign, but if I’m in a hurry I use PowerPoint or Google Docs Presentation. The latter is great for collaborative building.
Answered Oct. 27, 2014
In that period of time, I suggest you use the template created by Guy Kawasaki and discussed in The Art of the Start.
Answered Dec. 22, 2014
Follow the guidelines given in this sample pitch by Alok Kejriwal: A ready to use Template for pitching your Business for funding! (with…
Answered Oct. 27, 2014
Try pitching it to a mentor with experience of raising money, record it, transcribe the pitch, and then get a designer to tidy up the deck.
Answered May 16, 2015
Get some detailed guidance on what you need. My article on The Pitch Deck might help you: The Pitch Deck
This question, “How Can I Create An Investor Pitch Deck In 48 Hours?” originally appeared on Quora, the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.