How to pitch to investors: advice for founders

We have seen many startup pitches. This guide collects what works, from our own experience and from well-known investors.

We have seen many startup pitches. This guide collects what works, from our own experience and from well-known investors.

Craft Your Storyline

• People remember stories better than numbers. Start your pitch with one. (data storytelling)
• Describe your customer's problem and how your startup solves it
• Check out Simon Sinek's TED Talk on "Start with Why"
• Learn from this blog post on storyboarding your pitch deck
• Present your traction effectively: read this article

Pitch Deck Essentials

1. Introduction & High-Level Pitch: Say what the company does in one sentence. Include a simple graphic that describes your business model.
2. Problem: Describe the pain of your customer, explain how it's currently addressed, and show why existing market offerings are inadequate.
3. Solution: Highlight your unique value proposition, showcase product features that address the pain, and provide evidence of traction (testimonials, customer numbers, etc.).
4. Market Size: Communicate both the bottom-up (how many people you can sell to) and top-down (total market revenue) market size.
5. Business Model: Explain your customer acquisition costs, delivery costs, and revenue (or lifetime value). Make sure your bottom-up market sizing multiplied by your business model equals your top-down market size.
6. Proprietary Tech/Expertise: Highlight your unique advantages, whether it's IP, special access to customers, lower costs, higher prices, or something else.
7. Competition: Explain why your customers choose you over others. Avoid feature comparison grids and focus on customer testimonials or visual representations.
8. Marketing Plan: Show who your customers are, how you reach them and what has worked so far.
9. Team: Show the team has the skills this stage needs, and what each person and the team have already done.
10. Money / Milestones: Communicate the milestone you will achieve with the investment and how it will take risk out of the business. Never put valuation metrics on the slide.

Preparing Your Elevator Pitch

• Create a 1-sentence pitch using this Madlibs template: https://fi.co/madlibs
• Use your 1-sentence pitch for introductions and 30-second pitches to investors, partners, customers, or recruits
• For investors, follow up with a crisp statement of your traction

Pitching Dos and Don'ts

✅ DO iterate and practice your pitch

✅ DO keep animations simple or avoid them altogether

✅ DO think of your pitch as an advertisement

✅ DO use screenshots instead of live demos

✅ DO convey passion and excitement

✅ DO finish with a specific ask

⛔ DON'T use animated transitions between slides

⛔ DON'T deep dive into the product during the pitch

⛔ DON'T read your slides; use them as backup and provide context or stories

Extra Tips for Pitch Events

• Leave "openings" in your presentation to prompt questions from judges, allowing you to explain intriguing aspects of your business
• Give the pitch many times, get feedback and change it each time

Additional tips on slide design

• Keep your pitch deck basic and light on details to capture investor attention.
• Follow the 1 slide=1 message rule and spell out the message in the headline.
• Use minimal text, no more than 1 datapoint and/or sentence per slide.
• Split content into Headline 1, Headline 2 and body text, each having a distinct font size from bigger to smaller. Ensure consistent font sizes throughout the deck.
• Include your company website, ideally as a hyperlink, and contact information on every slide.

Extra resources:

• What to include in a pitch
• How to Build Your Seed Round Pitch Deck
• How to Design a Better Pitch Deck