How To Create The Perfect Start-Up Pitch Deck The right Way for Entrepreneurs || From a VC perspective Founders who deeply follow those recommendations will have better chance to build a defining pitch deck for VCs. If you think you have a good pitch, send it through my way at eharfouche@polytechventures.ch

1. The Ultimate
Startup Pitch Deck
from a VC perspective | Eliott Harfouche

2. The Funding options
Venture Capital is one option. There are numerous other sources so make sure you evaluate the pros
and cons of each source
Family & Friends Debit & Credit
card/lines
GrantsYour customers Crowdfunding
Venture Capital

3. The seed is the setup round (s) where a startup venture approaches an angel or a VC firm
for funding their product/ MVP or Idea
The Seed Stage
Series A, B, C+
$2.5M - $10M+
Institutional Seed
$500K - $1.5M+
Accelerator
$20K-$150K
Angel
$25K-$250K
In scope Out scope

4. SET ROUND SIZE
1
2
1
3
Runway : Raise enough capital to give yourself 18 months. Keep in mind it
will likely take 3-6 months to raise a Series A
Dilution : Every time you raise a round, try to sell no more than 10-25 % of the company
Target : Set a modest raise amount. It’s always better to nail your target, say you’re
“oversubscribed” an then increase the size of round depending on investor interest and
terms/dilution

5. “
The “best”
Investor Pitch
deck outline

6. Pitch Deck outline
◉ Cover slide
◉ Elevator pitch
◉ Market Problem & current solutions
◉ Your Solution
◉ Team (if really impressive, potentially move slide after “elevator pitch” slide”
◉ Board member & advisors ( optional, or combine w/team slide)
◉ Traction & Awards
◉ Market fit/ competition
◉ Competitive Advantages
◉ Revenue Model : Key revenue streams & Business Model
◉ Expense model : Key expenses, time Efforts & strategy
◉ Financial projections
◉ Exit strategy (optional)
◉ The Ask : Capital raise & use of funds
◉ Closing slide : Questions ? Contact details

7. Potential Appendix slides
◉ VC Favorite slide : Life-time Values of Customer (LTV) vs. Cost to acquire Customer (CAC)
◉ Timeline : History, milestones & prior Investment rounds ( if any )
◉ Detailed value proposition to clients / users/ partners
◉ Additional screen shots from demo
◉ Average revenue per user or customer ( ARPU)
◉ Pipeline of potential clients, % likelihood of closing, revenue potential from pipeline
◉ Churn rate by cohort analysis
◉ Detailed financial breakdown
◉ Breakeven analysis : # client/ $ revenue
◉ Partnership agreements / structures
◉ List of competitors capital raises & Investors
◉ Capital structure : Ownership of founders & current investors
◉ Cash runway ( # of months @ burn rate $)

8. Slide One
Cover Slide

9. Logo / Name of Compay
Cover Slide
Purpose of presentation
Investor Presentation
Date: Optional
Make sure if you put one, the
date should always be updated
Other potential
Additions
Logos of accelerator, awards,
publications featuring company,
slogan

10. Elevator Pitch slide
Service/ product
What is the service
or product?
Problem
Wat’s the core problem
(describe pain) or need
that you’re solving?
Vision
What’s your big
vision?
Create a brief one liner that describes :

11. Market Problem/ Current Solutions
What’s the problem or unmet
need you’re solving?
◉ Clearly show the pain of the problem or
convey the strong need that is currently
unfulfilled. Don’t just say it!
◉ You can’t create demand (usually only
market leaders can)
Current Solutions=
Current Problems
Biggest competition – status quo,
changing customers behavior, even
if old systems are inferior, they exist
everywhere, you don’t
Solve your client’s
number- one
problem
Not their 4th or 6th problem

12. Market opportunity
Total Addressable
Market
What’s your real target market
size? The sub=sector of the
general market? Size it: name it
in units/ and or revenue with
growth rate
Target Client & key
characteristics
Enterprises vs Consumers,
demographic target vs type of
business( small vs large) example
of your ideal clients
Current demands
& unique needs
Describe any important
market evolutions and
why we’re now at an
inflection point

13. Logo / Name of Company
Traction / Performance /
Awards
Purpose of presentation
Investor Presentation
Date: Optional
Make sure if you put one, the date is
updated
Other potential Additions
Logos of accelerator, awards,
publications featuring company,
slogan

14. Core Team
The founders and co-founders
Team
Relevant Experiences
Successes ( Exits)
Failures ( Good war stories)
Education
Leadership Experience
At least one of the core team should
demonstrate a previous leadership
experience
Do’s & Don’t
◉ Do Put photos of the team
◉ Don’t write sentences
◉ Do 1-3 Bullet per person, or 1 key
bullet per person

15. Market Fit/ Competition
◉Show how you fit into the Market Landscape
◉Direct Competitors Vs . Indirect Competitors
• How much capital raised? Which investors ? Revenues? Key stats ?
• Why won’t indirect become direct if they see what you’re doing works ?
◉Your Biggest competitor is the STATUS QUO ! Why will customers switch
to you ?
◉Are you changing customer behavior ?
◉Types of diagram/ Charts :
• Market Landscape : X/ Y axis charts or Venn Diagrams ( easy to understand )
• Feature list comparison ( often weaker looking, more confusing, takes longer time to understand)
“Pitch why you are 10X better not just 3X better ( Peter Thiel )”

16. Market Landscape ( Example
1 )
Quality
Economical
Your
Logo
Co. C
Co. D
Co. A
Co. B
Quality
HighLow
Expensive Discounted
Economical
Your
Logo
Co. A
Co. B Co. C
Co. D
Put your company’s logo on the right corner

17. Industry
Segment3
Industry
Segment2
YourLogo
Indirect
Competitor
Logos
Indirect
Competitor
Logos
Industry Segment1
Indirect
Competitor
Logos
Indirect
Competitor
Logos
Industry Segment4
Direct
Competitor
Logos
Direct
Competitor
Logos
Direct
Logos
Direct
Competitor Competitor
Competitor
Logos
Competitor
Logos
Market Landscape ( Example 2 )

18. Feature a Comparison List
Company Feature 1 Feature 2 Feature 3 Feature 4 Feature 5 Feature 6 Feature 7 Total
Your Company 7
Competi torA 4
Competi torB 4
Competi torC 3
Competi torD 2
Competi torE 2
Indirect Competitor A 2
Indirect Competitor B 3
Indirect Competitor C 3
Indirect Competitor D 3
Indirect Competitor E 3
This often makes you look 2x- 3x better, so maybe only have as an appendix slide

19. Current Competitive advantages
Are they relative ? Absolute ? How sustainable are
they ?
Competitor’s competitive advantages / weaknesses ?
Competitive Advantage
Patents
List all your pending/acquired patents with the
reason behind them
Key relationship/ Partnership
State any relationship that is strategic to your
business : client, supplier, horizontal partner…
Barriers to Entry
Money, time, expertise, relationships, patents..

20. Revenue Model
◉State the Key revenue streams. How you make money
◉Pricing : Is if flat fee or % ? Why that rate
◉Recurring Revenue frequency
◉If there’s a big difference between gross vs net revenue, state why !
◉High volume vs low volume business
◉Expected conversion rate
◉Expected ARPU ( Average revenue per user ) ?
◉Life time Value of Customers ( LTV ) ?
◉Extras : apply multiples if possible, show basic math with examples

21. VC Favorite
Show your LTV / CAC multiple (
higher the better) and explain how
you plan to increase LTV and
decrease CAC overtime.

22. Number of Years projected
◉ Early-mid stage: 1-2 years historical, 3-5 year
projections
◉ Seed stage : show 6-year projections
Financial Projections
Target Market size vs acquired
clients
◉ Show total # potential clients in target market per year.
Show growing market size
◉ # of free users vs # of Revenue generating users
◉ Show total # clients per year and % market penetration
VC hack : show sanity in growth & penetration
over the years. Be conservative rather than
aggressive !
High Level financials
◉ Main line items : Revenue, COGS, gross
profit, OPEX, EBITDA
◉ Optional : Break out key revenue streams,
Gross vs Net. Revenue

23. Financial Projections (
Example )
Year 1(Actual) Year 2(Est) Year 3(Est) Year 4(Est) Year 5(Est)
Target Market 14,000,000 14,140,000 14,281,400 14,424,000 14,568,456
Total Users 47,542 180,000 450,000 850,000 1,300,000
Paying Customers, AfterChurn 3,450 15,500 37,000 64000 125,000
% MarketPenetration 0.02% 0.11% 0.26% 0.44% 0.86%
Gross Revenue $ 800,000 $ 4,000,000 $ 12,000,000 $ 25,000,000 $ 50,000,000
Net Revenue $ 720,000 $ 3,400,000 $ 10,200,000 $ 21,250,000 $ 42,500,000
% Net Revenue 90% 85% 85% 85% 85%
COGS $ 1,070,000 $ 2,900,000 $ 7,700,000 $ 13,750,000 $ 25,500,000
Gross Profit $ (350,000) $ 500,000 $ 2,500,000 $ 7,500,000 $ 17,000,000
Gross Margin -49% 15% 25% 35% 40%
Operating Expenses $ 1,500,000 $3,000,000 $ 4,000,000 $ 6,000,000 $ 10,000,000
EBITDA $ (1,850,000) $(2,500,000) $ (1,500,000) $ 1,500,000 $ 7,000,000
EBITDA Margin -257% -74% -15% 7% 16%

24. Potential Appendix slides
◉ Acquisition: Most likely exit option for companies
• Name potential companies (any unique relationships with them?)
• Name types / categories of companies that could acquire you
• Why would they acquire you, how do you fit into their strategy?
• Why won’t they try to build it themselves?
◉ Trade sale/ Financial Buyer : Will the company generate excess cash flow
that could make it attractive to financial buyers to generate a return? Often
buys for lower multiples ( not as high exits)
◉ IPO : The least likely exit for a company, but a possibility. Note that almost
80% of VC exits are via acquisition, and only 20% IPO

25. Capital Raise & Uses of Funds
◉ The ask : How much Capital are you looking for?
◉Capital Raise
• Stage/ Size (eg. : Seed round: 500K CHF, Series A : 2M-3M CHF
• Investment terms
• Preferred Equity ( convertible into common) @ XCHF Pre-money valuation
• Convertible note @ XCHF Valuation Cap, Y% discount into next round, Z% interest
rate
• Investors in round: Previous investors? New investors? Founders? Strategic angels ?
• How long will new round last ? ( runway)
• Prior Investment rounds : Size? Investors? Valuation? Key terms ?
◉ Use of Funds
• Sales & Marketing( commercial) , hire high profile( key) employees, Founders salaries(
should never be very high- it’s a deal breaker)
• File patents, further develop technology
st

26. Closing slide
The logo (Big & in the middle) link to website
Any questions ?
Contact info : Name / email/ phone

27. Words of Wisdom
There are no right number of
slides
However, if you plan to have many
slide, its better to do short vs long
version
Be 10x Better better
Because as the Founder of
PayPal said once: being 2-3x
better isn’t good enough
Focus on your #1 Customer
Again and again, don’t focus on
the 10th problem, it means there
no critical need for that
There are lots of great ideas
But only few can execute them
Biggest competition to
raising
Companies with equally great (
or better ideas, but more
traction) which one would you
pick?
Best Opportunity
A big growing market, with a
big problem, and an elegant
solution, where you can
achieve LTV > CAC

28. Design Tips*
Make it legible. – Make it simple. – Make it obvious!
*Credits to: Kevin Hale from Y Combinator
https://blog.ycombinator.com/how-to-design-a-better-pitch-deck/

29. Design Tips
Here’s how you do that:
Use large type.
Bold text.
A simple font.
With good contrast from the background.
Make it legible. – Make it simple. – Make it obvious.

30. Design Tips
Legible slides are ones that even old people sitting in the back row with bad eyesight can read. Here’s
how you do that:
•Use large type.
•Bold text.
•A simple font.
•With good contrast from the background.

31. Design Tips
Simplicity
Let’s talk about simple slides.
Simple ideas are easy to understand.
Do not crowd your slides with multiple ideas.
A simple slide, expresses one idea.

32. Design Tips
Obvious slides are ones that can be
understood at a glance
Avoid distractions in your slides. I
mean information distractions :
Too much text.
Excessive explanations and caveats.
Excessive branding per slide.
Photos with no titles or captions.
Animations.
Transitions.
Memes.
Subtle humor / Accidental humor.
Example of how DropBox Works
All that information takes time to comprehend

33. Design Tips
F*cking Screenshots
Screenshots are almost always
illegible, complex, and non-obvious.
They break all 3 rules!
So, If you’re trying to show what you
do, try the most simplified version of
it. A bulleted list of steps is Kevin’s
favorites techniques
Can you understand any of those images immediately? Nay.

34. About me
◉ My career path has taken me toward the Venture space with domain expertise in
emerging technology start-ups. My focus at Polytech Ventures is on assisting
portfolio companies in Strategy related decisions generating growth, monetization
and scale.
◉ Most often I dedicate my time focusing on helping founders & great entrepreneurs
achieve their full potential and build the next-gen product and services that will help
our societies shift to new business models with today's disruptive technologies.
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35. Thanks!If you liked this pres. You can follow me on Linkedin, Twitter and Medium.
I usually write about Venture Capital, SaaS, Marketplace, metrics, monetization, and
growth.
If you have any comment please feel free to reach out to
eharfouche@polytechventures.ch
@eliottxharf
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliottharfouche/
@summitgva