Crafting Your Pitch Deck

Tell Your Story in 10 Slides

A pitch deck is not a document. It is a story. The best pitch decks make investors feel the problem, see the opportunity, and believe in your team, all in under 15 minutes.

By the end of this lesson, you will have a clear structure for a pitch deck that communicates your startup’s vision, opportunity, and traction.

Quick Recall: In the previous lesson, we built an MVP scoped to test our riskiest assumption. Now we need to communicate everything we have learned and built to people who can help fund and grow it.

The 10-Slide Framework

This structure works for virtually every startup pitch:

Slide	Purpose	Time
1. Title	Company name, one-line description	15 sec
2. Problem	The pain your customers experience	90 sec
3. Solution	How you solve the problem	60 sec
4. Market	How big the opportunity is (TAM/SAM/SOM)	60 sec
5. Business model	How you make money	60 sec
6. Traction	Evidence that it is working	90 sec
7. Competition	Your positioning and differentiation	60 sec
8. Team	Why your team can execute	60 sec
9. Financials	Revenue projections and key metrics	60 sec
10. Ask	What you need and what you will do with it	60 sec

Total: about 10-12 minutes, leaving time for questions.

Slide by Slide: What to Include

Slide 1: Title

Company name and logo
One-line description (what you do in 10 words or fewer)
Your name and contact information

Slide 2: Problem This is your most important slide. Make the audience feel the pain.

Describe the problem from the customer’s perspective
Include a specific example or story
Quantify the cost of the problem (time, money, frustration)

Slide 3: Solution

Show, do not tell. Screenshot, demo, or product image
Explain how it works in 3 steps or fewer
Connect directly to the problem you just described

Slide 4: Market

TAM/SAM/SOM with clear methodology
Growth trends that make this market attractive
Why now? What has changed that makes this the right time?

Slide 5: Business Model

How do you charge? (Subscription, transaction fee, freemium, etc.)
What is the pricing?
Unit economics if available (customer acquisition cost, lifetime value)

Quick Check: Why is the problem slide the most important slide in your pitch deck?

Traction: The Make-or-Break Slide

Traction is the proof that your idea works in the real world. For investors, this is often the first slide they care about.

What counts as traction (ordered by strength):

Traction Type	Strength	Example
Revenue	Strongest	“$5K MRR, growing 20% month-over-month”
Paying customers	Very strong	“47 paying customers, 12% weekly growth”
Active users	Strong	“500 active users, 35% weekly retention”
Waitlist signups	Good	“2,000 waitlist signups in 2 weeks”
Letters of intent	Good	“3 enterprise clients signed LOIs”
Pilot results	Moderate	“Completed pilot with 50 users, NPS score 72”
Partnerships	Moderate	“Distribution partnership signed with [Name]”

If you have no traction yet: Be honest. Focus on validation evidence from customer conversations and landing page results.

Slide 7: Competition

Do not say “we have no competitors” (this signals naivety)
Show a 2x2 matrix with your positioning
Explain your unfair advantage: what you have that competitors cannot easily replicate

Slide 8: Team

Relevant experience that makes this team the right one to build this
Previous startup experience, domain expertise, or technical skills
Key advisors if they add credibility

Quick Check: What types of traction are strongest when pitching to investors, and why?

AI-Powered Pitch Deck Creation

Use AI to draft each slide’s content:

Create content for a 10-slide pitch deck:

Company: [NAME]
Problem: [WHAT PAIN YOU SOLVE]
Solution: [HOW YOU SOLVE IT]
Target customer: [WHO]
Market size: [TAM/SAM/SOM]
Business model: [HOW YOU MAKE MONEY]
Traction: [WHAT EVIDENCE YOU HAVE]
Competition: [KEY COMPETITORS AND YOUR DIFFERENTIATION]
Team: [KEY MEMBERS AND RELEVANT EXPERIENCE]
Funding ask: [HOW MUCH AND WHAT FOR]

For each slide, write:
- A clear headline (5-8 words)
- 3-4 bullet points of key content
- One visual suggestion (chart, screenshot, diagram)
- Speaker notes: what to say while this slide is showing

Design Principles for Pitch Decks

Layout rules:

One idea per slide
Maximum 5 bullet points per slide
Use visuals over text wherever possible
Consistent color scheme and font throughout
High contrast for readability

Common design mistakes:

Walls of text (nobody reads them during a pitch)
Inconsistent formatting
Low-quality images or screenshots
Tiny fonts that cannot be read from across a room
Animations and transitions (distracting)

The Pitch Delivery

A great deck with poor delivery fails. A good deck with great delivery wins.

Delivery tips:

Rehearse until the transitions feel natural, not memorized
Tell stories, not just facts. “One of our users, Sarah…” is more compelling than “Users report 40% time savings.”
Make eye contact with the audience, not the screen
Leave time for questions (the conversation matters more than the presentation)
End with a clear, specific ask

Try It Yourself

Build your pitch deck outline:

Write a one-sentence company description (10 words or fewer)
Describe the problem in three sentences from the customer’s perspective
Explain your solution in three bullet points
List your traction evidence (any and all proof points)
Use the AI prompt to generate content for all 10 slides

Key Takeaways

A pitch deck tells a story in 10 slides: problem, solution, market, business model, traction, competition, team, financials, and ask
Lead with the problem to make the audience feel the pain before presenting the cure
Traction is the most compelling slide: revenue and paying customers speak louder than slides of projections
One idea per slide, visuals over text, and consistent design make your deck professional and readable
Practice delivery until it feels natural; the conversation after the pitch matters as much as the pitch itself

Up Next

In Lesson 6: Funding Strategy, we will match your startup to the right funding sources and learn when to raise money, when to bootstrap, and how to approach investors.