Designing an Amazing Pitch Deck
How to capture your reader’s attention in 15 seconds or less
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I have spent half of my career working in the FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) industry as the CFO of a brewery. The challenge, when selling a physical product in large retail stores, is to stand out on the shelves. Companies do not only compete for shelf-space, but also for consumer attention, and boy is the attention span short!
Research in the field of consumer decision-making tells us that people in stores make their purchasing decisions in as little a 1/30th of a second. This extremely short process is guided by three elements:
Specific purchasing requirements (bottles or cans, lager or IPA);
Brand recognition; and
Packaging design.
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but that’s exactly what we do in the supermarket every day. We stroll through the aisles and purchase things we need, brands we know, and products that just look appealing.
So right now you might be thinking, where is he getting at?
Where am I getting at?
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When you send a pitch deck to a prospective investor, you fall in the “products that just look appealing” category. Unless you’re an established company with a solid track record, chances are that (a) the investors aren’t familiar with you and your brand, and (b) they aren’t specifically looking to invest in your industry at the moment.
Build your pitch deck as if it were a product on a shelf in a supermarket
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If you want your pitch deck to succeed whatever the circumstances, build it as if it were a product on a shelf in a supermarket, in front of which your investor will only stay a second or less.
In all fairness, you have a little more time than this. According to Docsend research, VCs spend an average of 3 minutes and 44 seconds on a pitch deck. Assuming it is 15 slides long, that’s 15 seconds per slide.
But the logic stands:
You need to grab the attention immediately. Your pitch deck needs to make a statement from the preview image in the email, and deliver on its promises in fewer than 15 seconds per slide.
To do this, you need visually striking slides that deliver your content clearly and coherently in a single look.
The design of the slides must fit your brand message, reflect your personality and that of your co-founders, and, of course, it must align with your values and aesthetics.
Before we get into the design proper and look at the fundamental principles you must follow to create amazing decks, an important distinction must be made:
It’s an investor deck, not a presentation
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This article focuses on investor slide decks. Those are meant to be shared with prospective investors, existing shareholders, with your banks, and with other stakeholders.
In the vast majority of cases, your investor slide deck will be sent by email and read.
It will not be presented to an audience.
This means that you cannot design an investor slide deck as you would a presentation.
Outlined below are the key differences between these two documents
You’re writing a document that will be read by a targeted audience with a specific business interest. You can assume they understand the financial and technical aspects of what you do.
The goal of your slide deck is to deliver all the necessary information in the most pleasing, awe-inspiring way possible.
Now that this is said, let’s look at the design principles I mentioned above.
Principle 1 — K.I.S.S.
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Keep It Short and Simple.
The most common mistake people make in their decks is to cram too much information and data on each slide.
A slide should tackle one issue and no more.
This is the same advice you will find about presentations. The key difference here is that you are allowed more words per slide, and therefore you can explore ideas deeper.
However, and I’ll repeat myself, stick to the rule of one idea/issue/data type per slide.
Principle 2 — C.R.A.P.
Your deck shouldn’t be CRAP, but it should follow the CRAP principle.
CRAP stands for Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity.
These are the four qualities of good visual design. They are used in UI and web design, and there is no reason they shouldn’t be used in slide deck design too.
Contrast
Contrast is the most important visual technique you must master. Using contrast intelligently will allow you to differentiate easily between different elements and make the important content stand out.
Contrast also helps your presentation by making it more exciting, more visually intriguing/appealing.
Repetition
Repetition helps reinforce your message and your brand. In the context of slide-deck design, repetition also includes coherence. Your design must repeat between slides, using the same colour palette and fonts.
Use a single layout for all your slides, positioning your logo, slide title, slide number, and content at the exact same place. If you have two consecutive slides with charts, one of the charts being off by a few pixels, people will notice.
You might think I am too extreme here, but the feeling of satisfaction one gets after reading a perfectly laid out document is what you’re aiming for here. It is the little details and incoherence that make your document look amateurish and rushed.
Alignment
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This ties to the point we made above about the exact positioning of elements across slides.
Within a slide, aim to align the elements together horizontally and vertically to create a pleasing visual sensation.
Leave some blank space around your text/data to let it breathe.
Proximity
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Items that go together should be presented close to one another. Visual proximity creates, in the brain of the reader, a tacit link between the elements.
You can use this wisely to carry meaning to your reader in a more subtle way (like associating your brand with another, for example).
Conclusion & Learnings
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Your slide deck is an essential corporate document that you will share with many people. They will read it and judge it in a matter of seconds. It is therefore crucial that you make it visually striking and awe-inspiring from the first slide on.
Treat your deck as a product on a shelf. It needs to stand out and show the best of you and your story. You have amazing ideas, they deserve to be presented in a beautiful way.
Following the KISS & CRAP principles, your deck will be concise, coherent, and well-built. You then need to let your creativity work and build visual content that matches your branding and your values.
Great stuff. loved the elaboration on importance of aesthetics!