Crafting an effective investor pitch deck is critical for securing the capital required for your IVD or life science tools startup company. Without financing, the company can’t execute their plan. I did a post on crafting a winning investor pitch deck based on the Sequoia template – see here.
Winning over investors is challenging. Unfortunately, 99% of investor pitch decks fail to secure financing. Clearly the bar is very high for getting into the 1% that do.
Based on my work with several companies on their pitch deck, I have seen some common mistakes and areas that need improvement. These are outlined below in two categories – specific to the Sequoia investor pitch deck template, and, not specific to any pitch deck template.
Common Mistakes (Not Specific to Any Pitch Deck Template)
Length:
- Too many slides
- One deck that I reviewed had 45 slides.
- I recommend 10-15 content slides.
Design:
- Complex or busy design
- Different design or color scheme used on different slides
- I recommend creating your deck and then using a professional designer to create the final version the incorporates optimal design and formatting.
Formatting (Text):
- Too much text
- Small font size (often to accommodate lots of text)
- Guy Kawasaki recommends a minimum font size of 30 points. Some people think that this is too large.
- I recommend a font size in the range of 24-30 points.
Formatting (Visual Elements):
- Not using enough visual elements to complement text content
Content:
- Using a lot of industry-specific jargon
- Getting very deep into the technology (investors aren’t experts in our industry – so keep it simple)
- Not having clear takeaways for each slide
- Not proactively addressing predictable questions and objections
Capturing Attention Early:
- Not capturing the attention of your audience in the first few minutes of your presentation
- Thinking that you will have the investor’s presentation for the full meeting time
Common Mistakes (Specific to Sequoia Pitch Deck Template)
1) Company Purpose Slide
- Not defining your company/business clearly in a single declarative statement
- What do you do? Who do you help? How do you help them?
- Sequoia Capital says that only 7% of entrepreneurs can do this successfully.
- Ambiguity on this item at the beginning of your presentation can send things right off the rails.
2) Problem Slide
- Not convincing the investor that there is a big problem which needs fixing
- If you are unable to do this, then you run the risk of appearing to be a company with a solution looking for a problem.
3) Solution Slide
- Not succinctly articulating your company’s value proposition or providing specific use cases
4) Why Now Slide
- Not creating a sense of urgency that the big problem you identified on the Problem Slide needs to be solved now
- Not effectively laying out how the market segment you’re targeting has evolved, including recent trends and events that create an urgent need for your solution
5) Market Size Slide
- Not clearly identifying or profiling the customers that your company caters to
- Not using credible sources for market size information presented
6) Competition Slide
- Having a comparison to competitors that includes too many criteria
- Not identifying which comparative criteria are critical
- I have seen examples of tables that include 12 comparative criteria with no indication on what matters most
- Not using simple color schemes such as green, yellow and red to visually convey messages
- Not stating key takeaways
- Excluding emerging competitors
7) Product Slide
- Excluding your development roadmap
8) Business Model Slide
- Leaving out information on any of the critical elements below for this slide conveys that the company does not have a clear commercialization plan.
- Revenue model
- Pricing
- Average account size and/or lifetime value
- Sales & distribution model
- Customer/pipeline list
9) Team Slide
- Failing to highlight what relevant expertise and experience each of your team members brings
- Providing an excessive amount of information on team members
10) Financials Slide
- Including a P&L that has unrealistically high annual revenue and build rate during the first few years
Need Help?
We provide Investor Pitch Deck Development for life science tools and IVD companies.
If you need help with yours, please reach out to me at david@bournestrategic.com.
