How Much Information Should You Include In A Pitch Deck You Email?
I hated, I mean, I really hated giving a pitch deck by email to an investor. I thought the odds of getting in front of an investor went way down if I gave them the pitch deck.
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“It’s like seeing a movie without the soundtrack was my reasoning.” The investor was just going to get my deck, but the investor would hear all of my commentary that added to the story.
So when I was introduced to “Raul”, a very well known VC in the Silicon Valley, I was really bummed when he asked for our deck before agreeing to meet.
I thought I’d never hear from Raul again. Instead, the next day Raul’s assistant asked me when I would be available for a meeting.
Three meetings later, Raul agreed to invest $6 million in our company. We could now close our $12 million series A funding.
I asked Raul after we closed our funding why he took the initial meeting based on the deck. His answer was insightful:
“I took the meeting because I could understand what you were doing, and it was something I was interested in investing in.”
In other words, your pitch deck needs to stand on its own.
That’s it. That’s what your deck needs to do.
You need to make three things instantly clear to your potential investors:
A. What's the big problem you are solving
B. How do you solve this big problem in a way no one else does
C. How big is the opportunity
Your deck needs to get to the point fast!
You’re sending something by email. You’ll be lucky if the investor spends two minutes looking at your deck.
So that very first slide better make a big impression. The test, in my humble opinion, is this:
Have someone that is unfamiliar with your business look at your first slide for maybe ten seconds.
Then take the slide away and ask them:
A. What do you do?
B. What's the big problem you are solving?
C. How much better do you think we are than the competition?
D. How big do you think the opportunity is?
You have more work to do if the answer doesn’t come back exactly with the answer you want.
The rest of the deck should support in more detail the promise of your first two slides.
This is exactly the same as your deck should always be. But it’s those first two slides that will get you to the face to face meeting you want.
Your first two slides need to pack a punch. They need to make your potential investors go, “Wow!”