As you may have read in my previous post The Business Plan is Dead, the pitch deck is the key to garnering an investor’s attention. If you cannot tell your story in 10 slides or less, you probably cannot sell an investor (or a customer). As I’ve been teaching my clients and students about the essentials of pitch decks over the past 15 years, I’ve run across a few free tools to help you build a pitch deck worthy of attention. For those of you who want to spend a few dollars, I’ve also included a resource that is worth it’s weight in gold. (PS – I have no affiliation or gain to be made from any of these recommendations).
Piktochart.com (An infographic creator)
This site offers a paid and a free program, but the free is more than enough to work with. One of the key parts to any pitch deck is the visual representation of information. Investors want to be able to see the opportunity in less than five seconds (yes, five seconds), and nothing does that better than an infographic. Infographics can also help you think beyond bullet points for a visual description of your concept or problem. Here is an example from contest of a pitch deck infographic for investors.
99designs.com
Sure, these points could have been in bullet form, but putting them in a visual way that helps the viewer walk through the problem with much more cognitive enthusiasm.
Google Slides and PowerPoints for Startups
If you have “writer’s block” on how to get started building a pitch deck, the folks at SlidesCarnival.com have compiled links of 17 pitch deck templates available for free from Google. The range of style and look and feel may differ enough to get you started with a draft. One note of caution, these templates do not prescribe what to actually put into the pitch deck, they simply provide various ways of presenting information. Here is a preview of one of their slides from the theme so you get the gist.
If you’d like a simple template for pitch deck offered by Google that prompts you for content, you can find that here.
Not Free, But Worth The Price – EnvatoMarket
If you do not want to risk having the same look and feel as everyone else, I highly recommend checking out Envato Market. They have a plethora of Google Slide, Keynote, and PowerPoint presentation templates. If you do a search for “investor” you will be directed to hundreds of investor pitch deck templates. Each template can run anywhere from $10 – $40, but you will typically get hundreds of slides for each purchase. I’ve purchased several and have never been disappointed.
If you know of any other resources for pitch decks, I’d love to hear about them!
Categories: Entrepreneurship, Pitching Your Idea, Raising Money, Uncategorized
