Pitch Deck Guide: Contents of Great Slides

How to build winning pitch deck slides

Learn how to build a winning pitch deck with this step-by-step guide for all the slides you should include in a successful investor presentation.

A pitch deck is a collection of slides, usually made with PowerPoint, Keynote, or any other software, that gives your audience a high-level overview of your business idea. As the name implies, the purpose of a pitch deck is to pitch your ideas to potential investors, customers, partners, and co-founder. The best pitch decks can function as both a “presenter” deck (meant to accompany an oral pitch) or “reader deck” (something that investors can read and understand on their own). The key to a successful pitch is to address the right topics in your deck:

Why do you need a pitch deck to explain your idea? A pitch deck is created strategically to answer all the questions the audience might have without overloading them with excessive details.

At many points in your journey as a startup founder, you will have to present your ideas to key stakeholders: creating & delivering a pitch presentation is a valuable skill that will come in handy. In this article, we will dive deeply and explain how to create a jaw-dropping pitch deck. 

Investors see hundreds of pitch decks every week (5,000 per annum, on average) and the only way to stand out is to be concise and straightforward with the information they want to see. Here’s are the slides you should include in your pitch deck:

Cover Slide

First impressions last the longest. A compelling, visual cover slide will define the tone of the rest of your presentation. Most title slides will include the logo, slogan with an eye-catching image or minimalist slide design.

Problem Slide

What is the core problem that your startup solves? Sustainable businesses solve critical and expensive pain points. Some startups don’t solve a specific problem and may instead offer a specialized solution to fill a gap in the market.

Solution Slide

How does your product or service solve the problem framed in the previous slide? Focus on how your product or service would benefit the customer and solve their pain points, and avoid getting lost in the minutiae of the technical feature set.

Market Slide

How big is this opportunity? Analyze the current state of the market with industry metrics and trends, as well as the target audience for your product. Investors are most interested in billion-dollar opportunities (“unicorn” startups) because their returns are governed by power laws.

Competition Slide

What is your secret to success? Describe what makes your solution different & superior from the alternatives available today. Highlight how your solution stands out in the competitive market landscape.

Traction Slide

Showcase the success of your business and demonstrate experience, with metrics, growth charts, and/or logos to show what you have achieved.

Business Model Slide

How will your business earn money? Breakdown your business plan and revenue streams so investors can easily understand how your startup generates income.

Team Slide

What makes your team right for this business? The team slide should highlight the abilities and experience of the founders &/or management.

Financials Slide

Showcase the success of your business and demonstrate experience, with metrics, growth charts, and/or logos to show what you have achieved.

Investment Ask Slide

Once you’ve finished pitching your product, the last topic to mention is your funding requirements. Explain the terms of your deal, use of funds and key milestones.

Roadmap Slide

What is your story, and where are you going? The roadmap slide is generally formatted as a timeline of the company’s history and future milestones. Help investors understand what you aim to achieve with their capital, as well as your path to the next fundraise or exit.

Contact Slide

Make it easy for your audience to proceed with next steps: every presentation should conclude with a clear call-to-action.

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The perfect pitch deck recipe

While there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for creating the perfect pitch deck, many successful startups have relied on proven formulas to create winning presentations. In this post, we’ll take a look at some of the most popular pitch deck formulas espoused by names like Airbnb, Sequoia, and Y-Combinator, and explore how you can adapt these strategies to create a winning pitch deck for your own startup.

As you can see in the pitch deck formula comparison infographic, there are minor differences between each recipe. However, some slides (highlighted green) are present in all recipes: it seems that top investors agree every pitch deck should include a Problem, Solution, Advantage, Business Model, Team, Traction, and Ask slide. While these pages are a “must” for any compelling pitch deck, you will likely want to include some of the other suggested slides to round out your pitch:

Target Customer Slide

The target customer slide describes your startup’s ideal customer profile (ICP) and target market segments.

Product Slide

The product slide is distinct from the solution slide: briefly put, the solution focuses on how you solve the problem, whereas the product slide describes what you’ve built.

Go-to-Market Slide

The go-to-market (GTM) slide presents the methods by which you intend to reach and acquire your target customers.