What to include in an investor pitch deck

What a pitch deck is for

The deck is a talking document for a meeting, not a replacement for a full business plan. It should be short enough to present, clear enough to be forwarded, and consistent with your financial model. If you need both a plan and a deck, write the story once and let the slides summarise it.

Slides worth including

There is no single mandated template, but investors routinely expect some version of the following. A 10-slide deck can cover this ground; a 15-slide deck has room for a little more detail on product, go-to-market or financials.

1. Title

The business name, a one-line description, your name, and the date or funding round. Keep it quiet and legible. This is not the place for a manifesto.

2. The problem

Who has the problem, and why it is painful enough that they might pay to solve it. Be concrete. A problem slide that could apply to any industry is too vague.

3. The solution

What you offer and why it helps. Explain the product or service in plain language. Leave feature lists that need a demo to a later slide or an appendix.

4. The market

The geography and the customer. If you quote a market size, say where the figure comes from and whether it is the broad industry or the segment you can actually reach. A modest, sourced number is more useful than an unsourced global total.

5. The product or service in a little more detail

How it works, what stage it is at (idea, prototype, already selling), and what is genuinely different. Do not pretend a slide is a patent.

6. Business model

How you make money: price, cost, and the path from first sale to repeat revenue. This should agree with the financial projections.

7. Competition

A clear comparison with the alternatives a customer already has — including “do nothing”. Avoid a diagram that places you alone in a magic empty quadrant. A simple table is often enough. For a deeper competitor write-up, see market research and competitor analysis.

8. Traction — only if you have it

Revenue, customers, pre-orders, pilots or signed letters of intent. If you do not have traction yet, do not invent it. A short note on what you have learned so far is more credible than a vanity metric.

9. The team

The people doing the work, and why they are able to deliver this plan. Relevant experience belongs here; long CVs do not.

10. Financials and the ask

A few years of projected revenue, costs and cash, the amount you are raising, and a simple use of funds. These figures must match the spreadsheet. If a meeting is with a bank rather than an equity investor, the “ask” may be a loan amount and repayment term rather than a share of the company — change the slide accordingly.

What to leave out

Skip fake testimonials, stock-photo customer quotes, logos of companies that are not actually customers, and confidential figures you are not ready to share. Skip dense paragraph slides. One idea per slide is enough. If a chart needs a 200-word footnote, the chart is trying to do too much.

How I write and design decks

On Fiverr, an investor pitch deck is included in the Standard package (10 slides, with a 20-page plan and three-year projections, $120) and the Premium package (15 slides, with a 30-page plan and a five-year model, $220). I write the story, take the numbers from the model, and design a clean deck in PowerPoint or Google Slides. Samples — clearly labelled as fictional projects — are on the pitch deck page and in the sample work gallery.