Core deck vs. Appendix: What to include in your investor pitch deck
Since I started consulting 7 years ago, I’ve seen thousands of decks and personally worked with 350+ founders. I’ve spoken with and received feedback from hundreds of VCs. Over time, you collect enough data to know what’s expected in an early-stage investor pitch deck.
Note: This post is for Pre-Seed to Series A companies. The closer you are to Series A, the more data you’re expected to showcase.
From experience, here are two things I know to be true:
Investor pitch decks don’t raise money. Founders do. Investor pitch decks do; however, check the boxes for VCs and help ensure you do your homework: Do you know how to talk about your company in a clear, succinct, and compelling way? Going through the process of building a deck inevitably helps you craft your story if done well.
Investor pitch decks are highly iterative. They’re never “done” and you will be updating them even after the money is wired. Get to a place where you feel confident going into an investor meeting, consider their feedback, and then decide if you want to implement their feedback. Not all feedback is worth implementing - also remember that.
What to Include in Your Core Deck
Now that we know these two things to be true, there are a few things that investors expect to see in the core deck. And by “core deck”, I mean, the first 6-10 slides; the “teaser” deck you send out to investors right before or after an initial meeting. Those slides are: (not necessarily in this order):
Purpose (why your company exists)
Problem
Solution
Why Now
Product/Technology
Traction / Roadmap
Market Size
Go-to-Market
Team
Competition
These are “core” slides that should align with your narrative. Write the narrative first. Only then should you build out your slides.
What to Include in the Appendix
Throw an “Appendix Party”. Have a blast. Build slides “just in case”. It literally cannot hurt you to think through and anticipate questions from investors and have slides prepared in your Appendix to pull up on a Zoom call when they ask you about specific items. Having a slide already built out with a succinct answer will show them you’re prepared, thoughtful, and not wasting anyone’s time.
The Appendix is unique to your company’s stage and business; however, there are some common ones you can have prepared, including:
Projections. Sometimes laughable as they’re all graphics up and to the right, but have well-thought-out data regarding what numbers you feel comfortable projecting.
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). More details on who are your most valuable customers.
Technology. Dive deeper into the “how it works”. Definitely reference this slide if speaking with more technical investors.
The ask. Include how much you’re raising and how you plan to allocate those funds. Many folks like to include this in the core deck, but it depends on your stage and the context of the investor conversation.
Team (extended). Advisors, investors, etc. that you think would support the narrative.
Why Now (extended). Deeper dive into changes in regulations, technologies, etc. that make it so now is the best time to solve this problem.
And the list goes on…
For each slide–whether core deck or Appendix–ask yourself:
“What is the most important message I want investors to take away from this slide?”
Then remove 50% of the text you have on the slide, increase the font size 2x, and drop the jargon.
Good luck!