{"id":44996,"date":"2023-10-20T15:40:16","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:40:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/looking-for-investment-heres-what-you-need-to-include-in-your-pitch-deck-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:40:16","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:40:16","slug":"looking-for-investment-heres-what-you-need-to-include-in-your-pitch-deck-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/looking-for-investment-heres-what-you-need-to-include-in-your-pitch-deck-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking for investment? Here\u2019s what you need to include in your pitch deck – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There comes a time in the lives of many start-ups when they need to tap investors for funds to grow.<\/p>\n

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They may need to bring on board expertise they haven\u2019t had by hiring new talent, buy equipment or move out of the garage and into office space.<\/p>\n

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Whatever the reasons, they need to pitch their business to investors and outline why they should part with their money and take a slice of the company.<\/p>\n

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A critical part of any pitch is the pitch deck, a slide show that outlines the essential details of what the business is about.<\/p>\n

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For Gavin Appel from venture capital firm Square Peg Capital, it\u2019s important that entrepreneurs look professional without going over the top with information overload when it comes to pitch decks.<\/p>\n

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\u201cA simple slide deck outlining the key points that investors want to see will lead to sparks of interest and engagement in a conversation to learn more,\u201d he tells StartupSmart<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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We asked three leading venture capital investors, Appel, Anne-Marie Birkill from OneVentures, and Benjamin Chong from Right Click Capital, what are the key things they want to see in any pitch deck. Here are their responses.<\/p>\n

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Problem<\/b><\/p>\n

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Appel says a key question is what is the specific problem a business is looking to solve?<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat makes them unique in their approach, how defensible is it, and what does the competitive landscape look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Chong says investors wants to know whether the problem is real.<\/p>\n

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\u201cInvestors want to know if the problem you\u2019re solving is a big one. They want to know if it\u2019s a large market. They want to know who your customer is. Some investors are very keen to know if it\u2019s a global problem you\u2019re solving.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Solution<\/b><\/p>\n

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Birkill says investors want to know how an entrepreneur\u2019s solution will meet a market need.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is important that the company has a solution that stands well ahead of its competitors to give it the best chance of capturing market share,\u201d she says. \u201cWe also need to have a realistic understanding of the state of readiness of the product, as obviously this impacts on the capital requirements of the company.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Birkill also says she wants to see how the solution sits alongside competitive solutions.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI like to see a simple matrix that compares the solution against competitors based on key characteristics that are important to future customers,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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Chong says investors want to know if a solution will really solve the problem and if it\u2019ll be difficult for competitors to replicate it.<\/p>\n

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Market size<\/b><\/p>\n

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How big is the market opportunity?<\/p>\n

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Birkill says answering how big the market opportunity is, why it is unmet and what portion of the total market a business can address should be part of a pitch deck.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe aren\u2019t interested in investing to address niche markets \u2013 we want to know there is a significant market opportunity and that this has been validated through thorough market research,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe don\u2019t want to hear motherhood statements like `the market opportunity is $1 billion and if we just get 2% of that \u2026\u2019 We want evidence that there has been a thorough and considered evaluation of the market to give us confidence that the opportunity is significant.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Story continues on page 2. Please click below.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There comes a time in the lives of many start-ups when they need to tap investors for funds to grow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44996"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}