Design approach

I’ve created a structured design approach so investors will read your deck

Understand how custom decks are designed and structured

“Pitch decks are a communication competition,
not a design one”

Working as an investor, I know how painful it is to ‘read’ 50 decks a week. I created my own approach to design based on how I would want to read a pitch deck.

How it Works

Design matters for your pitch deck

Investors don't know you, so they judge on little things and extrapolate

First impressions matter

Messaging needs to be clear

  • Oh flark, another deck to read!” is what investors think when they’re emailed your deck. 
  • They open and your deck doesn’t look terrible, so maybe this startup might be good?
Design facilitates comprehension

You understand the game

  • Never assume VCs will read your deck. Unless your deck is easy to read, it won’t be. 
  • Assume your deck needs to be consumed in under one minute
You take the raise seriously

You're an elite player

  • A VC partner may do 3 deals a year and get emailed 1,000. 
  • A well-made deck stops you being filtered out immediately
It gives you confidence

You're a winner

  • As with dating, your confidence matters. 
  • When you know you are sending out a great deck you don’t act needy
Design approach

Design can negatively impact you if form is more than function

Startup decks are fundable and not fundable

Do not overpay and over-rely on pretty pitch deck design​
crap design

Valley of despair

Your deck isn’t taken seriously (unless the content is seriously good)
good enough

Plateau of productivity

Good enough and easy for investors to read
Annoys investors

Toxic tanking

Fancy design makes comprehension difficult for investors. You believe your deck is better than it is.
The Problem

Why do designers suck at fixing your pitch deck?

Hammers hit design nails
Pitch decks are a communication competition, not a design one. Designers' job is to make things pretty (not close a round)

Designers are paid to make things pretty. Pretty is not the same as selling​

It's too easy to see your crappy deck in a new pretty light and think it's better now​

You would like to think hiring someone fixes all things, designers only do design​

Lack of content is solved with a stock image, not calling BS on lack of narrative​

The Process

How do I approach design for pitch decks?

How investors read
As an investor sick of receiving thousands of decks, I know what will be read, and what is highly annoying. I invented a format to be read not ignored

Investors do not care about you until they do.

They don’t want to read your deck.

They want to get in and out as quickly as possible and make a triage decision whether to tell you to "come back with more traction" or to book a call and learn more.

By understanding eye tracking, information is presented to enable rapid consumption.

As much information is placed in the same location so investors can anticipate where to read, rather than seeing randomly constructed slides to make them look designed.

No stock images to make up for a lack of data driven content.

No background images which make content harder to read.

Every point to be made on a slide always has a header that tells investors what to think.

Thinking is bad as investors will draw their own conclusions, so control that and tell them the conclusion!

The narrative is the highlight.

The least important information cascades down the page to the source in the footer.

You take ownership of your deck without the need for a designer.

It needs to change after investor feedback, so no stress worrying you will 'ruin things'.

Your deck is made in PowerPoint with no Adobe nonsense.

There are consistent visual elements and text blocks to move, edit text, add columns to tables etc.

FAQs

Do you have some questions?

Having been asked so many questions over the years, here are answers to the questions that you might have!

My basic rule is that decks need to be designed OK and structured exceptionally. However, there are always exceptions to rules.
Why? Investors can look at anything you provide and use that to judge you.
If you are a DTC ecommerce company that is basically dependent on your branding (think Liquid Death), design matters a lot. I make great decks, but I don’t do branding.

It's quite likely you have done the basics wrong, or there is an issue with your business model. We can get into that if you want.

There is very little we can't talk about. If I don't know I will tell you and lie to save face. It's also a great way to figure out if you want more hands on help.

You leave the call with a clear action plan to improve your deck.

There are many reasons, and they’re not always obvious. Some quick reasons are:

  • Everyone has and knows how to use PowerPoint
  • You can edit it easily, as can anyone else on your team even if they aren’t on a Mac
  • Investors will reuse your deck to make internal presentations so it’s easier to reuse

There are many more reasons I’m not going to explain as this isn’t a blog.

Just don’t go there. Fancy is not better when raising. Be boring and stay in the lane of how investors work. Fancy stuff annoys and introduces new hoops to jump through you don’t get browny points for.

On the knowledge level, there is no one that won't benefit from a call. In fact, I find that more experienced people can benefit the most because: 1/ they have the foundation to engage at a higher level, and 2/ I can get into details that you they will never be able to Google.

The only people I don't recommend a call for are those that are really cash strapped and haven't spent much time reading. I can provide you with a reading list to level up for free first so when we talk you get real value add. I've been a poor founder so I don't want to take your money.

Never. If things are made in Adobe, they are converted to be native in PowerPoint.

The only reason I would do things in Adobe is because I know you won’t be able to fix it, so you will need to come back and pay me to change things for you.

Everything I do is designed to be founder friendly, not make money out of you.

You can go to ‘licence sites’ and get an Office licence for $20.

If you are serious about business you need Excel and PowerPoint.

Investors do not want to read your deck. I use all sorts of psychological tricks so your deck is actually read?

They make things hard to read. That means they won’t be.

If it doesn’t sell it doesn’t get included. You are only allowed these images on around 3 slides to fluff things, and if they explain something such as a process to aid comprehension.

My decks are better than pretty much anything you will see.

If you want more, get a designer. I focus on what will be read by investors. It will look good, but not what a designer will do because I focus on the investor not “looking nice” but being crap.

Yes. I have done this many times. Whilst I like how I do things, sometimes clients want to do things differently. It is your deck. You can do what you like.

I always ask for your branding guidelines which is mainly font and primary colors.

I have found a font which works well, which we can change if you are adamant about it.

I always create a custom colour palette in PowerPoint so everything is automatically formatted to your needs.

Yes. You can tell me I like green, blue, yellow, etc, and I’ll have it done for you.

I have subscriptions so I use icons and anything I can easily steal (under licence).

If you want fancy stuff then hire someone to make them for you, I’m not interested in doing this because you need to have 5 figure budgets and most don’t.

No. They are a waste of time and rarely add any value unless you are doing a TED talk and even then they aren’t needed.

You make your deck in PowerPoint. You convert it when ready into PDF and then send it. PDF do not have animations.

This is a huge waste of time and money and is pure vanity.

Learn more​​​

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