The document outlines the purpose and structure of a pitch deck in the startup fundraising process, emphasizing the importance of storytelling and a well-organized presentation. Key elements include creating a unique value proposition, a solid business plan, and an effective elevator pitch that captures interest quickly. It also discusses analyzing competitors and industry dynamics using the five forces model for assessing market attractiveness.

1. What’s a Pitch Deck and Why you are
Probably Doing it Wrong
Travis Lindsay
Professor, Entrepreneurship
Manager, CSUF Entrepreneurship
tlindsay@Fullerton.edu

2. THE PITCH DECK IS MORE THAN JUST
SOME SLIDES YOU USE WHILE
PITCHING – IT’S AN IMPORTANT PART
OF THE FUNDRAISING PROCESS AND
YOUR STARTUP STORY

3. THE BASICS
Before you raise money, you have to
have something worth investing in

4. Create Something Unique
• Technology
• Patents
• Process
• Clients
• Anything that separates you from the competition and
is defensible

5. Have an Opportunity
• Not an idea or merely a concept
• It’s a solution to a problem that you can make into a
thriving business
• To be investible, the opportunity has to be significant

6. Have a Plan
• A business plan is essential to giving a good pitch
• Forces you to think through all parts of your business
• And investors probably will ask for it at some point in
the due diligence process

7. The Plan
• Team
• Concept
• Business Model
• Marketing
• Operations
• Finances
• Competition

8. Executive Summary
• Up to 2 pages
• Summary of your business plan
• This is a written version of the story you are selling to
the investor
• Customize it for each investor

10. Growth
• Show traction
• Increasing user base
• Patents awarded
• Revenue growth
• Letters of intent
• Trials passed
• How else?

11. STEPS TO THE INVESTOR PITCH
First comes love

12. Introductions
• At a networking event
• A warm introduction from an associate
• Lawyers
• Accountants
• Consultants

13. Elevator Pitch
• First time telling someone about your idea
• Make it so you can give it in 60 seconds
• The purpose of the elevator pitch is to get the person
you are talking to interested and asking for more
information (executive summary, pitch deck, a
meeting, business plan, or any combination of those)

14. Elevator Pitch – The Problem
• An issue
• Ineffective
• Inefficient
• Too expensive
• Doesn’t exist
• Whatever the case may be, tell your listener what the
problem is and tell them quickly
• 10-15 seconds or less

15. Elevator Pitch – The Solution
• What are you creating?
• How will it solve the problem?
• Why are you the one, preferably the only one, who
can do this?
• 10-15 seconds or less

16. Elevator Pitch – The Opportunity
• Realistic optimism
• Market size
• Growth potential
• Why you?
• 15-20 seconds

17. Elevator Pitch - The Ask
• Money raised to date
• How much are you raising now (you don’t have to say
at what valuation)
• How you are going to use an investment to fund more
growth
• Remainder of the time

18. Investors – Get to Know Them
• Now that the investor has asked for more info:
• Do background research on the investor
• What kinds of companies have they invested in before
• How much money
• What do they look for in the companies that they invest in
• If possible, talk with founders they have invested in before
• This takes time, and maybe doesn’t all need to be done
upfront, but if you are selling to someone you should know
what they are looking for

19. PITCH DECK
Telling your Startup Story

20. Purpose of the Pitch Deck
• Communicate your story before and during your pitch
• Get to due diligence meetings
• Ultimately, your goal is to get an investment

21. General Tips – 1/3
• A way to visually communicate your startup story
• Remember you are trying to get an investment
• Tailor your pitch for each investor; research them
• If you have too much info about a particular section,
i.e. Solution, you can extend that section to two or
more slides
• Better yet, get better at editing

22. General Tips – 2/3
• Include contact information at the beginning and end
• Include extra slides at the end, like an appendix, with
more information in preparation for questions that
could be asked
• Tell, don’t show; as much as possible
• Use the slides to communicate very important things,
like your company’s impressive growth

23. General Tips – 3/3
• Large font
• Don’t make the background too busy
• Save the deck as a PowerPoint, PDF, and as any other
file you think you might need to use on the day of
• Print out enough copies for everyone in attendance
on the day of the presentation
• Bring along all kinds of adapters for your tech

24. The Slides
1. Introduction
2. Overview
3. Problem
4. Solution
5. Opportunity
6. Competitors
7. Customers/Revenue
Model
8. Go to Market
9. Milestones
10. Team
11. Financials
12. Summary/Ask

25. Introduction
• Logo
• Name of company
• Name of presenter
• Contact information
• Don’t communicate much (if anything) else here

26. Overview
• The story up to now
• Who you are
• How long have you been in business
• How much you have raised to date
• Major Milestones

27. The Problem
• Lay it out for them
• Necessity versus Want
• Focus on WHY this is an important problem
• If you have a personal connection to this problem, use it as
part of your startup story
• Don’t discuss the size of the opportunity yet
• Don’t go on at length in a technical manner to a non-
technical crowd

28. The Solution
• Show it; people like pictures
• Explain why it’s special, unique
• What it does
• How it improves the lives of your customers
• Talk about patents, IP
• Don’t get too detailed about how the solution works, the “why” of it
all is better to communicate
• Don’t spend most of your presentation time on talking about this;
there’ll be time during due diligence to go into more detail

29. Opportunity
• Bottom-up approach
• Realistic optimism
• Show that you are at an inflection point
• Show numbers, show your work
• Talk about the market size and whether it is growing or not
• Don’t say “If we only get 1% of the market…”
• Don’t undersell the opportunity, don’t oversell it
• Don’t get your industry size wrong; if you’re selling Jeeps don’t use
the overall car industry as your metric

30. Competition
• Direct and indirect competitors
• How competitive is the industry
• Are there any important developments that are unique to your
industry?
• How are you positioning your company? (Low cost leader?
Technological trailblazer?)
• Don’t say you have no competition
• 5 Forces Lecture included in appendix of this deck

31. Customers/Revenue Model
• Who are your customers? Be specific
• Existing clients
• Customer acquisition cost, lifetime value of customers
• Your profitability by customer segment

32. Go To Market
• How you reach your customers
• Distribution strategy
• Channel strategy
• Key partnerships
• Plan for growth

33. Milestones
• Stage of your business
• How much have you raised and from whom
• Patents, IP
• Product launches
• Key contracts
• Any big thing that advances your startup story
• Don’t list everything as a milestone
• Don’t put too much emphasis milestones that are too far in the past

34. Team
• Who are the key players on the team?
• Why are they qualified?
• Experience
• Education
• Previous startup experience
• What holes do you have in your team?
• How many employees total?
• Don’t say your team is complete, it almost never is
• Don’t include CVs in the main part of the pitch deck, you can include
that info in the appendix or send that info separately

35. Financials
• Previous and current year financials
• At least 3 years, preferably 5 years, of projections
• Top line
• Revenue
• Costs
• Margins
• Keep it visually interesting
• Don’t include too many numbers; they’re hard to read

36. Summary/Ask
• Summarize your key point
• Reiterate how you will use funding to accelerate
growth
• Your ask
• How much money you are raising
• Terms

37. Appendix
• These are slides that give more information on topics
you think people will bring up
• Take note during pitch of what questions people are
asking
• Detailed financials
• Team resumes
• Product schematics
• Anything else of importance

38. What’s a Pitch Deck and Why you are
Probably Doing it Wrong
Travis Lindsay
Professor, Entrepreneurship
Manager, CSUF Entrepreneurship
tlindsay@Fullerton.edu

39. APPENDIX

40. Sample Presentations by VCs
•Baris Karadogan-
http://baris.typepad.com/venture_capitalist/2
006/11/pitching_to_vcs.html

41. Sample Presentations by VCs
•Marc Friend –
http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dxhqv
mk_18dh32shgz&skipauth=true

42. Sample Presentations by VCs
• Dave McClure -
http://500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2009/0
3/how-to-pitch-a-vc-aka-startup-viagra-how-
to-give-a-vc-a-hardon.html

43. INDUSTRY ANALYSIS
5 FORCES ANALYSIS  HOW YOUR
STARTUP FITS INTO YOUR INDUSTRY

44. Five Forces Model
• This is a popular way to get a better understanding of
how a particular industry operates and how profitable
it is by focusing on five common components of every
industry:
• Threat of Substitutes
• Threat of New Entrants
• Rivalry Among Existing Firms
• Bargaining Power of Suppliers
• Bargaining Power of Buyers

45. Five Forces Explained 1/2
• Explanation of the Five Forces Model
• The five competitive forces model is a framework for
understanding the structure of an industry.
• The model is composed of the forces that determine
industry profitability.
• They help determine the average rate of return for the
firms in an industry.

46. Five Forces Explained 2/2
• Each of the five forces impacts the average rate of
return for the firms in an industry by applying
pressure on industry profitability.
• Well managed firms try to position their firms in a way
that avoids or diminishes these forces—in an attempt
to beat the average rate of return of the industry.

47. Five Forces: Threat of Substitutes 1/2
• The price that consumers are willing to pay for a
product depends in part on the availability of
substitute products.
• For example, there are few, if any, substitutes for
prescription medicines, which is one of the reasons
the pharmaceutical industry is so profitable.
• In contrast, when close substitutes for a product exist,
industry profitability is suppressed, because
consumers will opt out if the price gets too high.

48. Five Forces: Threat of Substitutes 2/2
• The extent to which substitutes suppress the
profitability of an industry depends on the propensity
for buyers to substitute between alternatives.
• This is why firms in an industry often offer their
customers amenities to reduce the likelihood that
they will switch to a substitute product, even in light
of a price increase.

49. Your Startup: Threat of Substitutes
• What kinds of substitutes exist for your product or
service?

50. Five Forces: Threat of New Entrants 1/4
• If the firms in an industry are highly profitable, the industry
becomes a magnet to new entrants.
• Unless something is done to stop this, the competition in
the industry will increase, and average industry profitability
will decline.
• Firms in an industry try to keep the number of new
entrants low by erecting barriers to entry.
• A barrier to entry is a condition that creates a disincentive
for a new firm to enter an industry.

51. Five Forces: Threat of New Entrants 2/4

52. Five Forces: Threat of New Entrants 3/4

53. Five Forces: Threat of New Entrants 4/4
• Nontraditional Barriers to Entry
• It is difficult for start-ups to execute barriers to entry that
are expensive, such as economies of scale, because
money is usually tight.
• Startups have to rely on nontraditional barriers to entry to
discourage new entrants, such as assembling a world-class
management team that would be difficult for another
company to replicate.

54. Five Forces: Rivalry Among Existing Firms
• In most industries, the major determinant of industry
profitability is the level of competition among existing
firms.
• Some industries are fiercely competitive, to the point
where prices are pushed below the level of costs, and
industry-wide losses occur.
• In other industries, competition is much less intense
and price competition is subdued.

55. Five Forces: Bargaining Power of
Suppliers
• Suppliers can suppress the profitability of the industries to
which they sell by raising prices or reducing the quality of
the components they provide.
• If a supplier reduces the quality of the components it
supplies, the quality of the finished product will suffer, and
the manufacturer will eventually have to lower its price.
• If the suppliers are powerful relative to the firms in the
industry to which they sell, industry profitability can suffer.

56. Five Forces: Bargaining Power of Buyers
• Buyers can suppress the profitability of the industries
from which they purchase by demanding price
concessions or increases in quality.
• For example, the automobile industry is dominated by
a handful of large companies that buy products from
thousands of suppliers in different industries. This
allows the automakers to suppress the profitability of
the industries from which they buy by demanding
price reductions.

57. First Application of the Five Forces Model
• The five forces model can be used to assess the
attractiveness of an industry by determining the level
of threat to industry profitability for each of the
forces.
• If a firm fills out the form shown on the next slide and
several of the threats to industry profitability are high,
the firm may want to reconsider entering the industry
or think carefully about the position it would occupy.

59. Second Application of the Five Forces
Model

61. Types of Competitors
• Direct Competitors: Businesses offering identical or
similar products
• Indirect Competitors: Businesses offering close
substitute products
• Future Competitors: Businesses that are not yet direct
or indirect competitors but could be at any time

62. Types of Industries
• Emerging: a new industry in which standard operating
procedures have yet to be developed
• Fragmented: one that is characterized by a large number of
firms or approximately equal size
• Mature: an industry that is experiencing slow or no increase in
demand, has numerous repeat (rather than new) customers,
and has limited product innovation
• Declining: an industry or a part of an industry that is
experiencing a reduction in demand
• Global: an industry that is experiencing significant international
sales