What is a business pitch?
A business pitch is a presentation meant to persuade potential investors, partners, or clients to support a product, service, or company. The goal of a pitch is to quickly sum up the key details of your business in a compelling way to convince the audience to take the desired action, such as investing in your company or buying your product. An effective pitch should communicate who you are, the problem you’re solving, your solution, your target market, your competition, your team, your traction, and financial projections.
Why is a business pitch important?
A strong pitch is essential for several reasons:
- Raising funds – A pitch deck is often used when meeting with investors to secure startup funding or financing.
- Attracting partners – You may use a pitch to get strategic partners on board and interested in collaborating.
- Making sales – Pitching can help make that critical first sale to major customers or clients.
- Hiring talent – An appealing pitch highlighting your vision and growth potential can help recruit top talent.
- Promoting your brand – An engaging presentation can boost broader awareness of your company.
In short, the ability to create a compelling business pitch is a core entrepreneurial skill required to get your business off the ground and scale it.
How long should a pitch deck be?
Most pitch decks are 8-15 slides long. It is essential to keep your pitch deck concise by including only the most vital information. Here is a typical pitch deck outline:
- Title Slide
- Problem
- Solution
- Value Proposition
- Market Size
- Competition
- Business Model/Go-to-Market Strategy
- Team
- Traction/Growth
- Financial Projections
- Funding Needs/Use of Funds
- Call-to-Action
You may tweak this outline based on your specific business and audience, but generally you want to keep it to around 10 slides. If you have more details to share, you can attach those as an appendix. The goal is to summarize the essence of what investors need to know to make a funding decision. Less is more when pitching.
How to create an effective pitch deck
Follow these tips when creating your winning pitch deck:
Keep it simple
Use clear, easy to understand language. Avoid jargon and keep text minimal with more visuals. bullets and graphics.
Focus on the big picture
Don’t get bogged down in minor details. Concentrate on summarizing the core elements of your business.
Tell a compelling story
Take your audience on a journey, building up interest and anticipation.
Grab attention quickly
Your first few slides are critical. Hook them with a bold statement or eye-catching visual.
Show don’t just tell
Use charts, info-graphics, and images alongside minimal text to visually convey key data.
Highlight the problem
Emphasize the pain points your target customers experience. This builds a need for your solution.
Demonstrate your solution
Explain precisely how your product/service addresses the problem better than alternatives.
Convey your value proposition
Summarize the tangible benefits and outcomes you provide customers.
Size up the market opportunity
Use data to showcase the revenue potential in your target market.
Introduce your management team
Build confidence by highlighting your team’s experience and talents.
Display impressive traction
Prove market acceptance and demand by sharing your customer and revenue growth.
Outline financial projections
Present key indicators like revenue, expenses, and profitability over a 3-5 year timeline.
Specify funding needs
Ask for a precise investment amount and state how you will use the capital.
End with a call-to-action
Close by recapping your ask and prompting the desired next step.
Pitch deck design best practices
Your slide design should be clean, consistent, minimalist, and visually appealing. Here are some pitch deck design tips:
- Choose a simple, easy to read font like Arial or Helvetica.
- Make your font size large enough – aim for at least 24pt.
- Stick to 1-2 colors max to maintain cohesion.
- Leave ample white space instead of cramming content.
- Use high-quality images and graphics that enhance your message.
- Pick a professional template as a starting point.
- Be consistent with formatting, fonts, colors, and styles.
- Every slide should have a single clear headline.
- Avoid distracting animations or transitions between slides.
Keep the focus on your content, not fancy design flourishes. Prototyping tools like Sketch, Figma, and Canva are useful for creating clean and modern pitch decks.
How to deliver your pitch
Your pitch deck is just one aspect of the presentation. How you deliver your pitch also matters immensely:
Practice extensively
Rehearse your pitch until the flow, timing, and delivery feels natural. Refine and tighten it with each practice round.
Hook your audience quickly
You have just 2-3 minutes to grab their attention. Lead with your most compelling facts.
Use concise, conversational language
Avoid reading directly from slides. Speak passionately as if telling a friend about your business.
Maintain energetic body language
Use natural hand gestures and movements. Avoid pacing or nervous ticks. Make steady eye contact.
Engage your audience
Welcome questions. Read their body language. Tailor your content based on their reactions.
Tell stories and use analogies
Anecdotes and comparisons help simplify complex concepts and make them more memorable.
Clearly reiterate your ask
Close by recapping exactly what you want from your audience. Give a strong call to action.
Have a concise reply to common questions
Anticipate and prepare responses to frequent inquiries about your competition, go-to-market strategy, projections and more.
Bring passion and authenticity
It’s not just what you say but how you say it. Sincerity, conviction and enthusiasm are compelling.
Mastering your pitch delivery is vital to effectively sell your business idea and persuade your audience.
Common pitch deck mistakes to avoid
While creating your pitch, beware of these frequent missteps:
- Providing too much text instead of more visuals.
- Making it too long with unimportant data.
- Using confusing industry jargon.
- Not tailoring your message to the specific audience.
- Forgetting to communicate the benefit and value.
- Failing to adequately highlight the problem being solved.
- Neglecting details about the target market size and opportunity.
- Not having a specific funding ask with rationale.
- Talking too fast and not properly rehearsing delivery.
Constantly put yourself in the shoes of your audience. Evaluate if your chosen content and delivery style would convince you if you were them. Refine until your pitch is focused, clear, and compelling above all else.
Pitch deck examples
It can be helpful to look at real-world examples of successful pitch decks for inspiration. Here are two top-notch decks:
Airbnb Pitch Deck
Airbnb’s early pitch deck effectively conveyed their unique value proposition, growth traction, business model, and team. Key highlights:
- Clean, simple design and easy to scan layout.
- Bold unique hook “Book rooms with locals, not hotels”.
- Emphasis on large market opportunity.
- Benefits clearly shown – experience, belonging, adventure.
- Social proof through positive customer quotes.
- Impressive early traction highlighted.
- Business model explained visually.
- Ask amount, use of funds, and terms clearly stated.
This deck helped Airbnb raise their seminal $600k seed round in 2009.
Uber Pitch Deck
Uber’s deck focuses heavily on conveying massive market potential. Key elements:
- Upfront outline of enormous market opportunity.
- Value proposition calling out convenience and cost savings.
- Easy to understand business model diagram.
- Stats showing demand and fast growth.
- Traction proven across multiple cities.
- Ends with hockey stick growth projections.
This compelling deck secured Uber $1.25M in seed funding in 2010. It paints a vivid picture of Uber’s ability to dominate a huge untapped market.
Studying pitch examples from today’s unicorns reveals common traits effective decks should emulate.
Pitching alternatives and supplemental materials
A pitch deck is not always required for every business situation. Here are some other options you may use instead of or in addition to a traditional slide presentation:
One Pager
A one-page summary document hitting all the key highlights. Easy to share and digest.
Executive Summary
A 1-2 page high-level overview of your business often included in pitch decks.
Pitch Video
A 2-3 minute video pitch conveying all the main details and benefits. Can be widely shared.
Financial Models
Detailed projections and assumptions to back up your summary numbers in the deck.
Product Demo
A live or recorded demo showing your product/technology in action.
White Paper
An in-depth report to provide extended technical, scientific or financial details.
Company Overview
Additional slides about your startup origins, team, culture, values, roadmap.
Appendix
Extra slides with more granular data for after you initially pitch.
Beyond your core slide deck, these types of documents and multimedia can reinforce and complement your pitch content.
How Anthropic can help with pitching
As an AI assistant created by Anthropic to be helpful, harmless, and honest, here are some ways I can assist with developing a strong business pitch:
- Research your industry data to validate your market claims and projections.
- Analyze competitors to help position against them.
- Outline your pitch deck based on proven best practices.
- Provide initial drafts of pitch deck content for you to refine.
- Review your deck drafts and make improvement suggestions.
- Generate compelling charts and graphics to visualize your data.
- Create or refine your financial model projections.
- Help prepare replies to anticipated investor questions.
- Assist practicing your pitch delivery for smoothness and impact.
I’m happy to collaborate and lend my knowledge to craft an outstanding pitch deck tailored to your specific business. My goal is to provide helpful support so you can convey the key details investors need to make funding your startup a reality. Please let me know how I can assist further!
