Team Slide
Learn how to build a winning team slide for your pitch deck with this step-by-step guide.
The success of any given startup is closely tied to the team behind it – with the founders playing the most crucial role. The importance of the team slide when pitching a startup can’t be overstated. You can have the most impressive product in the galaxy, but if you don’t have a right team behind it to execute on the roadmap, it will eventually fail.
This is the reason that investors care so much about the team slide: many startups pivot in their formative years, so early-stage investors are often more concerned about the team than the product. A team slide typically should include photos, names, job titles, and can even include information about your team’s credentials or experience. An effective team slide makes it simple for your audience to understand the role of every team member, and why your team is the best-qualified to build & grow this startup.
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Instructions
How to create a team slide for your pitch deck
Follow along with this brief guide for what you should include in your pitch deck’s team slide:
1. Content of the team slide
- The name & role of every key team member (esp. founders)
- Prior experience and/or notable accomplishments & awards
- Headshot photos (or an all-in-1 photo of the whole team)
- Summary of expertise (ie. Former affiliations & roles)
2. Questions the team slide should address
- Who are the founders? Who is the core team?
- What are the roles & prior experiences of each team member?
- Are there any roles or competencies that you need to recruit for?
- Why you? What makes you the right team for this opportunity?
3. Common team slide blunders
- x00 years of combined experience (a relatively meaningless stat)
- Verbose / long-winded bios with irrelevant details
- Assigning C-level titles (CFO, CEO) at an early-stage
- Fancy or meaningless titles (ie. “Marketing ninja”)
- Using phone selfies instead of professional headshots
- Too many team members or too much content crammed on one slide
4. Design tips for team slides
- Use no more than <500 characters text for each bio
- Use logos instead of text where possible (ie. instead of “former Google & Apple employee”, just include logos below the person’s name & title)
- Choose clear, readable fonts and colors
- Keep it concise & to-the-point (see Guy Kawasaki‘s 10/20/30 rule)
Inspiration from the experts
Example pitch deck team slides from Airbnb, Brex, Canva & more
The best team slides should thoroughly answer, “Why Us?” for investors – including all the essential details from names & headshots to bios, prior experience, and more.
Most team slides include the name, title, and a brief overview of the founding team’s experience and why they are the right team to launch this startup. Below are some examples of winning team slides from pitch decks for household names like Airbnb, Brex, Mint, and Canva:
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