A simple deck framework
David Peterson

It must be fundraising season, because last week I spent what felt like half my time just workshopping decks with founders. I’m not complaining, though. Reviewing decks might be my favorite part of the job. Decks, especially at our stage, are more about story than they are about hard numbers. They’re about convincing someone that your vision for the future, however unlikely, is the right one. That’s inspiring stuff! All of which is to say…if you’re workshopping a deck right now, let me know! Happy to help.

Anyway, while I firmly believe that there’s no “perfect” deck framework, and that the right narrative depends on what you're building, I find myself recommending something very similar to the following again and again:

Slide 1: What the world is going to look like 5-10 years

Slide 2: Your novel solution as part of that world

Slide 3: The unique wedge or product hook that will get you in the front door

Slide 4: Your distribution edge

Slide 5: Competitive landscape

Slide 6: What could go wrong

Slide 7: What you're raising and what you'll prove with that money

Slide 8: Team

It's not perfect for every company out there. But it hits on a few things that many pitches miss.

First, the initial slide enables you to showcase your vision for the future (which gives you an opportunity to highlight both your expertise and what you believe to be true that others may disagree with) and place the problem you’re trying to solve within that context. With that framing, your solution, which you discuss in your second slide, has a feeling of inevitability around it. Strong start.

Second, the third and fourth slides force you to think through both your wedge and your distribution edge. As I’ve written about before, I think both of these topics are critical to think about even at the earlier stages. You should be able to clearly explain what it is about your product that will get people hooked quickly (others might call this the “killer feature” or something like that). Depending on how early you are, your distribution edge may be more of a distribution hypothesis. That’s fine. But you should come to the table with some thoughts. Most decks don't do this. They instead spend a ton of time describing the solution in minute detail, but don’t engage with the realities of a complex world, with many competing solutions, and busy people who most of the time would rather not buy anything at all.

Third, the competitive landscape. Whether you go for the 2x2 matrix we’ve all come to know and love, or the feature comparison table, or something else entirely, I don’t care. The point of this slide is two fold: (1) give the investor you’re speaking with a framework for thinking about the competitive landscape, and (2) show that you have a deep understanding of the competition. Because the investor most often knows nothing about the space you’re in, you have an opportunity to frame how they think about the landscape overall. That’s powerful, especially if your framing supports your vision for the future. You want them thinking about the world as you do. And showing that you have mastery over the competition just further reinforces that you know your stuff.

Fourth, the "what could go wrong" slide is a direct crib from the folks at Slow Ventures. It's super smart. For better or for worse, every investor sits on a pitch call trying to come up with smart sounding reasons that they can't invest. By listing out all the easy reasons they'll likely come up with, you will force them to actually think. Some of the reasons you come up with will just be descriptions of the risk you’re asking the investor to take. There’s nothing you can do about those, except try to minimize them in the investor’s mind. But there will be others that you can pre-empt, handle earlier in the pitch, or even start to plan around outside of the pitch. So by forcing yourself to write them out, the rest of the pitch will improve. Even if you never get to that slide.

The next slide about “what you’ll prove” with the money you raise is the opposite side of the same coin. Often, what you’re derisking are the things that could go wrong. So, by listing them out in slide 6, you’ve defanged the investor. And by explaining that you have a plan to mitigate those risks in slide 7, you’ve shown that you’re all over it.

As I always say when discussing deck structure, there are a bunch of other things you could quibble about. But these are the basics. Do this and you'll already be better than 90% of what's out there.

David

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