In case you have a powerful traction slide, nothing else about your pitch deck issues
It’s a generally accepted knowledge that you simply want between 10 and 20 slides to inform the story of your startup. Loads of founders don’t appear to appreciate that not all slides are the identical, nevertheless. Some slides carry extra weight than others — and three of them are completely essential. Immediately, I’m taking you thru why these three slides are so vital.
The way in which to make use of this text is to consider which of those attributes you might have in your startup to assist arrange your pitch deck. For instance, No. 1 on this record is traction. In case you have superb traction, that ought to most likely be the primary slide in your deck. In case your traction is flat (i.e., not rising, and even shrinking), poor or non-existent — possibly don’t spotlight that and assume as an alternative about how else you may inform your story.
1 — Traction is king
Up and to the best. Which is sensible. Up and to the left could be time journey, and if you are able to do that, you might have an much more priceless firm than you thought.
Your traction slide is, by some appreciable margin, your trump card. If you’re exhibiting an enormous quantity of income and speedy progress, all different sins are forgiven.
It doesn’t matter when you’ve got an inexperienced staff, a horrible product or a doubtful market. In the event you can present that you’ve got cash coming in and rising at 9% or extra week over week, you’ll increase cash.
There’s a hierarchy by way of what sort of traction helps:
- Revenue. If you’re cash-positive and rising quickly, you most likely don’t even want enterprise capital — but when elevating money helps you develop even sooner, you’re in an incredible place.
- ARR. In case your annual recurring income is rising quickly, you’re in luck. Recurring revenues and SaaS dynamics imply that you’re onto one thing.
- Lively customers. In the event you’re rising your variety of customers exponentially, with out essentially figuring out find out how to monetize them, that’s nonetheless a formidable feat. In the event you can present that you would be able to construct an enormous, sticky viewers, you may most likely discover a option to earn a living off that down the road.
- Signal-ups. In the event you’re seeing large progress within the variety of sign-ups to your services or products, however they aren’t producing income or sticking round, there’s nonetheless worth in that — though your traction slide needs to be paired with a stable “How is that this going to earn a living?” slide.
