As a Web3 early-stage founder, fundraising pitch decks are among the most important investment conversations you can have. It’s not easy to convince someone to pay us to do what we want to do, and it’s even tougher when they only spend five minutes looking at your pitch deck.
Yet, before you even enter the room, investors in the blockchain industry have already formed an opinion about the obvious industry’s inherent risks.
Therefore, to attract investors, a Web 3.0 business must present a pitch deck that differentiates itself from the competition. How to accomplish this?
This guide will provide you with helpful tips and step-by-step instructions for Web3 entrepreneurs to develop a “high-quality” investor pitch deck that is powerful, detailed, and interesting.
Why do we have to prepare a pitch deck?
Startup founders create pitch decks only when they are looking for initial funding for their businesses. The purpose of a pitch deck is to explain to potential investors why they should care about your company and donate/invest a huge amount of budget into your products. A strong pitch deck is often the founder’s solution to convincing a venture fund or private investor that their investment is worth the risk.
What is a pitch deck?
The pitch deck is a visual representation of data that typically has 15–20 slides and is used to introduce investors to a company’s products, technology, and team.
Most businesses, when attempting to present a pitch deck, fail. Because, their focus is to close the deal, but “introduce” (as the definition states) means to present the view, just to spark interest to investors.
What do we mean when we say “high-quality”?
High-quality, refers to making a pitch deck that is just convincing enough to get the interest of the investors. In most cases, when an investor sees a pitch deck, they want to know what they’ll get out of it, in your case, that is a Web3 solution.
However, according to TechCrunch, the average attention span is less than 5 minutes, and it can even fall below 2 minutes, according to other studies. As a result, your ultimate goal should be to persuade the investors to jump right into the points in that short amount of time and stay in their hearts.
That sounds difficult, indeed.
However, explaining in a short presentation (a “pitch deck”) why your company merits a sizable financial investment is much simpler in theory than in practice. Just like our favorite Tiktok, simple and clear content that is still interesting makes us want to watch rather than scroll down, and the same is true for a strong pitch deck.
The ability to construct a compelling pitch deck is a skill that founders should invest in as early as possible to maximize the return on the time spent by venture capitalists on their decks (typically 5 minutes or less).
How to create a High-Quality Pitch Deck for Investors?
1. Before jumping into creating a pitch deck
Know your customer
All the clever token comic models in the world won’t convince seasoned investors to take a risk on your product if you don’t know who you’re selling to.
“Falling in love with the customer’s problem” is one of the most helpful mindsets for a startup entrepreneur to adopt. Customers in the Web3 business are known as a “community,” and it is important to cultivate this group early on in the life of your startup. You should use it as a way to learn about and empathize with their issues and difficulties.
Therefore, a founder may be able to overcome the challenges of uncertainty by becoming more curious about customers’ perspectives.
Know your business model.
Many venture capital firms have been on record saying they invest in “less than 1 percent” of all pitches they consider. In many cases, this isn’t because the “concept” itself is bad, but rather because the business model supporting it isn’t solid.
Therefore, it may take several months of intensive study to develop a solid business model upon which to build an appealing investment proposal, and it’s okay. A billion-dollar sales forecast within three years of raising funding is unlikely to be considered credible by an investment team, especially if the company has a limited track record and has not yet produced and proved the product.
2. Choose the Right Tools
After preparing the resources, let’s start at the beginning: selecting the best presentation theme and tool for your pitch deck. This may appear to be a minor decision, but choosing the right tool will make your task more manageable and easier, while the pitch deck theme represents who you are and the vibe of your company to investors.
There are abundant tools to generate pitch decks that you can find online. Google Slides, Powerpoint, Canva, and Slidesmania are some potential tool options to consider. Every platform has advantages and disadvantages but in general,
- PowerPoint is preferable for those who want to feel classic and simple, as it does not allow for much customization or design-centricity.
- When working in a team, Google Slides is the best option because it is sharable and allows for simultaneous collaboration.
- Canva and Slidesmania are most recommended for those who need to create their own vibe designs, though the disadvantage of smooth line effects is still apparent.
3. Preparing a pitch deck flow and information
Once you’ve decided on a pitch deck creation tool, you can begin researching templates and popular pitch deck flows used by successful startups. The key points and order can be changed depending on how and what your greatest strengths are (which should be obvious from a SWOT analysis). However, I simply preferred the flow proposed by a content writer named David Phelps, who proposed the following:
1. Urgent problem and solution/product
After having an initial idea of what you can do for your customers, you’ll be struggling to keep up with your business if it isn’t addressing an urgent social issue.
When explaining the issue, it is helpful to provide a story that people can relate to. Investors will have a better grasp of your firm and your objectives if you can make the problem as tangible as possible for them.
Respecting the constraints of a subject’s attention by presenting an issue and its solution immediately. They will remember that “someone” has a fantastic answer to a pressing issue, even if they depart after only 5 minutes.
2. Go-to-market strategy
Using a web3 wallet for user access, governance, or incentivization is a neat idea, but it doesn’t guarantee it’s a product that will attract huge numbers of customers any time soon. This can make it tough to predict how successful a business will be in the long run.
Therefore, a realistic business model (based on a product with a reasonable expectation of user uptake) is vital for winning over investors, even more so than the ‘tech’ itself.
3. Business model & Competition analysis
The pitch deck and the business model are two essential components of every investment presentation. A detailed financial model (spreadsheet) displays the data-driven forecasts of costs, sales, and growth for the project over the next several years; this is complemented by a concise description of the business model shown in the deck.
4. Team background
Simple, easy, and clean. More often, it is contained only in 1 slide with 1-2 sentences. The goal is to persuade potential sponsors that your team has what it takes to develop, market, and sell a product. Use testimonials, case studies, and marketing materials to back up your comparative advantages.
Most businesses would put it in front, but David pushed it back. As a matter of fact, they don’t need to remember you unless you’re interested, so it’s only offered after all the other options have been presented.
5. Target market
Realistic assumptions about the price of acquiring customers (as opposed to just getting one “token” customer) are essential to building a sustainable business, as is knowledge of whom those customers are and how to get in front of them through targeted marketing and a profitable pricing structure that allows the company to break even or make a profit for growth investment.
6. “Why us?”
Anyone can create their token today with some simple arithmetic on white paper, a fancy one-page website, and a rapid launch campaign.
There are a lot of token launches that are poorly thought out businesses (often with limited founder experience for the product category)… then they take the rug out from under their investors (a rug pull) by suddenly abandoning a project and vanishing with their money. If you want to show them that you can deliver on your promises, you need to know what sets you apart from the competition and how to use that to your advantage.
Hence, the last words you say are the most important and remembered. As a result, sending the message of your distinct differentiation will certainly kill your pitch deck.
Nevertheless, feel free to modify and use references from other Web3 successful pitch decks to make them more suitable for your company.
Small Tips
Keeping in mind that your pitch deck will probably only get 5 minutes or less of review time, it’s important to convey your company’s story and business plan clearly and concisely.
It’s also a good idea to have two versions of your business pitch presentation ready for investors to review: one that doesn’t go over 5 minutes and one that does.
4. Read and Revise (And do it again if needed)
Keep in mind that your goal with each meeting is to get a fund of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It would not be mercy if some careless mistakes cost you a fantastic opportunity, so, be careful with this.
Your pitch deck should not be done until you’ve read through it and revised it to perfection. Repeat that last step. You should spend as much time as you can checking for typos, illogical layouts, and unclear presentations so that it can be understood by any sort of investor.
If you want to receive as many opinions and suggestions as possible before delivering the pitch, it’s best to practice it as many times as possible with different people as well.
If you are a Web3 founder looking for support in creating a pitch deck, Satom can make it achievable. Satom Venture Studio is evolving to support Web3 founders in investment cash and a tailored set of supporting services needed to get off the ground. Keep in touch with us at hello@satom.vc.
