5 Tips to Structure a Successful Seed Funding Pitch Deck that Investors will love.

I went through two successful seed funding rounds less than one year apart. One of them was with Atlassian as an investor and I want to share my 5 best tips to ensure your deck doesn't get rejected and you secure that investment!

Who am I, and why am I telling you this?

I'm Biro, Co-founder of Jexo.io. My co-founder Nikki, our team, and I grew Jexo.io to $300k ARR in less than 2 years. Today, we serve more than 1000 companies, and our apps are used by close to 100,000 Jira users!

👇 Enough with the intro. Let's get right into what interests you:

• Tip 1 – Early validation is critical

I'll put it plain and simple, how you introduce yourself can make or break your chance to get funded.

If you don't have a strong positioning statement very early on in your slides, you'll have a confused potential investor scanning through slides trying to figure out why you exist.

Mistake number 1:
Not taking advantage of the real estate on the cover of your pitch deck!

How to fix it:
Treat your pitch cover as the title of a youtube video or the subject of a marketing email. Make investors curious and eager. Take advantage of the cover to add a punchy tagline under your company name or logo.
For example: "Jexo" > "Making work management delightful", "Acme Inc" > "Taking X to the next level".

Tip #2 – Tell a Coherent story

I've heard this so many times: "I can't send you the deck. I need to explain it to you..."

Your investment deck needs to speak for itself because you're not going to be there to read it out and guide every person who needs to see it. Even if you only share the pitch in person and run it through.

Consider the following:
• The investor will want to revisit the deck in detail later after your pitch
• They might share it with a board of advisors
• If your deck has no organic flow, even you narrating it will still make it feel disjointed

👉 If you're not confident in emailing just the pitch to an investor without explaining it, you need to go back to the drawing board.

How to tell a coherent story:

1. Create a Table of Contents at the very start, just after the cover. Help the reader understand what sections are included but, most importantly, the order and placement.

2. Help the reader know what the page wants to communicate quickly.
   Make sure you title each of your slides with a proper header representing the section the slide belongs to. It seems like common sense, but I've seen plenty of decks where there was no heading.

3. Each of your pitch headers should be part of one or more coherent phrases or statements. If you read aloud the headers of each slide, the words should have continuity and form phrases. Here's an example:

"There is [the problem], so we have our mission and a vision, and here's our [solution], which stands out from the competition in a market with a large opportunity size. So our impressive team needs investment funds to [execute the plan and invest in marketing and team expansion and grow our revenue by the time we reach the next inflection point.]"

Tip #3 – The real value is you

Add a slide to talk about you and your founding team. The majority of private investors at this stage invest in your potential more than your startup.

I get it; you have a brilliant bulletproof idea, but what validates you and your other founders as the best fit team to execute the plan?

Add at least a slide or two talking about yourself, your experience, and achievements in previous ventures or employment. Your background, as well as what you contribute to the business so far.

Tip #4 – Why do you need help

Vocalize why you need help and how you plan to spend the investment money. And no, just saying sales & marketing will not cut it.

No investor will trust you with their money if you're unsure how to put funds to good work and grow your startup.

Do research upfront, look at similar companies that are successful, and try and reverse engineer their growth tactics. Then put together a grounded plan with steps for at least the next 6 months and how results will impact your growth.

Have a mission for the funding budget, an inflection point to reach. For example, your plan can culminate with your startup transitioning to be self-sustained or profitable, fuelled only by the revenue. OR you use the seed funding to grow the company to a specific valuation and enable you to go for another round of investment.

Tip #5 – Have a Contingency plan

Now, this last one is not a typical section in seed funding decks but having a plan B for if things don't work out will be very well received by investors.

It shows you're not planning to close shop if things don't go according to plan and It is also a sign of mature thinking and positions you as a well-calculated entrepreneur. One that people would like to partner with.🤝

👉👉 If this was helpful consider checking out my Youtube Video series with Startup Insights that have worked for me to make my company grow!
Subscribe here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtMtxsZj2wg