What Your Pitch Deck Should Achieve Before, During, and After Your Pitch 

Pitch decks aren’t just for pitching investors.

In fact, the few seconds you spend pitching with your deck is just one of many reasons you need one. As well as just a fraction of the value you’ll get out of creating a great pitch deck. 

Your deck ought to be working for you before, during, and after your actual pitches. 

Here are just some of the valuable and important things you should be demanding from your pitch deck at every stage. Side by side, you should also learn how does a safe note work.

What Your Pitch Deck Should Achieve Before You Pitch

Even before you ever stand up to present your deck, or join that zoom meeting with a potential investor, there is a lot this tool can be doing for your startup.

Helping You Validate & Think Through Your Business Plan

Old school business plans are burdensome and inefficient. While creating a plan with many pages can help you think and work through the details, it can also cost you everything.

It can cost you your first mover advantage and time to go to market and fundraise ahead of the competition. It can drain months of your time. All to never be looked at by anyone ever again. 

While business planning is important. Creating your first pitch deck is a great way to work through your planning, be sure you’ve done your research, answered the important questions, and really have a viable business idea. 

This rapid approach can save many months, thousands of dollars, and a lot of heartbreak. 

Helping You Focus & Stay On Track

Execution and the ability to focus are essential for startup entrepreneurs. 

A good pitch deck will help you hone in on the top priority tasks so that you can make meaningful and valuable progress quickly. While getting a much higher ROI on your time. 

You’ll instantly be able to identify the most valuable thing to do next and be compelled to do it by referring to your deck in a few seconds. 

Recruiting Cofounders & Business Partners

Well before you go out pitching VCs, you are probably going to want to bring in some cofounders, or even friends and family members as business partners. 

Anyone worth bringing in is going to want to see your pitch deck before they will have a serious conversation about it. Even more so if you are hoping they will bring some startup capital along as well. 

Recruiting Talent

You have to have the best team in the business to win your space, and win over investors. 

Today’s top talent is inundated with offers from employers and clients all over the world. They can be bombarded with multiple job and gig offers every day. 

So, before you can even expect them to give you a few minutes for a voice call, they are likely to want to see your pitch deck. They want to make sure you are onto something good, and it is a fit.

Be sure you don’t have sensitive data in your deck that you think warrants an NDA first. No great talent or investors have the time to deal with that. Save sharing your secret sauce for later. 

Recruiting Advisors & Consultants

The same applies to recruiting notable advisors and consultants. They are busy, constantly in demand, and conscientious about their time. 

Since you may also need to offer them a small percentage of your equity to get involved and allow their name to be used in conjunction with your startup, it should be obvious they will want to see your deck before speaking with you. 

Practicing Your Pitch

You need your pitch deck created plenty early so that you can spend sufficient time practicing your presentation, and getting it to sound natural. 

Spreading The Word

One of the most powerful uses of your pitch deck is to start sharing it before you are actively fundraising. Use it to introduce yourself, get feedback to improve it, and get introductions to investors who may be a good fit.  

What Your Pitch Deck Should Achieve During Your Pitch

Convey The Investment Opportunity Clearly

This is really the purpose of a pitch deck. Yet, it is the one thing that most get horribly wrong.  Your pitch deck needs to be concise and simple, and speedily convey the importance of this investment opportunity in less than four minutes. 

Spark Interest & Be Memorable

Investors may receive 1,000 or more pitches each week. In order to be remembered and stand a chance at getting funded, you need to be interesting. Focus on getting across one main point that will stick in their minds, and keep you there. 

Compel Your Audience To Take Immediate Action

The outcome of delivering your pitch should be for your investors to take the next action in the funnel, right away. 

That may be setting up an investor meeting online or at their office, or providing you a term sheet. 

Establish Your Credibility & Raise Awareness

No pitch is wasted. If you do it well and get in front of the right investors, you will at least show your credibility, and make them aware of your brand and product for the future. They may become customers themselves or tell others about you. If they don’t invest now, they may be twice as eager to get involved for the next round.  

What Your Pitch Deck Should Achieve After Your Pitch

1. Keep You On Track To Your Promised Milestones
2. Work As A Reference Point For How Far You’ve Come 
3. Be A Marketing & Branding Tool (like other notable startups)
4. Be The Framework For Quickly Updating & Creating A New Deck For Your Next Fundraising Round

Summary

Pitch decks are far more pivotal and valuable than most new entrepreneurs appreciate. They should be working for you from even before you launch the business, through your Series C round, and beyond.

With this in mind, be sure you are investing in your pitch deck accordingly, and are making the most use of it. It could be the best tool you ever build.

BIO

Alejandro Cremades is a serial entrepreneur and the author of The Art of Startup Fundraising. With a foreword by ‘Shark Tank‘ star, Barbara Corcoran and published by John Wiley & Sons, the book was named one of the best books for entrepreneurs. The book offers a step-by-step guide to today‘s way of raising money for entrepreneurs. 

Most recently, Alejandro built and exited CoFoundersLab, which is one of the largest communities of founders online. 

Prior to CoFoundersLab, Alejandro worked as a lawyer at King & Spalding, where he was involved in one of the biggest investment arbitration cases in history ($113 billion at stake). 

Alejandro is an active speaker and has given guest lectures at the Wharton School of Business, Columbia Business School, and NYU Stern School of Business. 

Alejandro has been involved with the JOBS Act since its inception and was invited to the White House and the US House of Representatives to provide his stands on the new regulatory changes concerning fundraising online.