Snagging Investors Part 1: Easy & Impactful Changes You Can Make to Your Start Up Pitch Deck

Oh the joys of the pitch deck.

One of the most fulfilling yet anxiety filling activities for most start ups. Or even for those in corporate, as pitching in an established organization is common.

Have you ever been in a pitch and feel like you are in defense mode?

Over explaining? Or the audience (investors) are not buying in?

This may be happening due common pitfalls when creating the pitch deck:

1. You jump into your solution first without building the need properly

2. The audience is confused with tons of irrelevant data and too much text in the slide body

Today we touch upon pitfall #1 above: jumping into the solution first without building the need.

Starting with Your Solution Without Building the Need

Many pitch decks start with market size, analysis & opportunities, gaps, competitors, and the solution right away to wow investors immediately so they know their money will be well spent.

The issue is that the market need—or rather the healthcare system’s and patient’s needs— is missing. The story behind your story is absent.

Connection and resonance starts with a “face and a place”—the patient and the healthcare setting that is impacted.

Getting to your story first, before the who (face) and where, (place) creates several risks.

If your audience does not know the therapeutic area and how it currently ‘malfunctions’, it is difficult for them to see what your product/service solves. This may adversely affect their desire to see your solution in the marketplace.

Also, it may leave you defensively backtracking with ‘JADE-ing’.

You want to steer clear from Justifying, Arguing, Defending & Explaining during a pitch. You want questions based in invested curiosity.

The worst is getting in your own way by accidentally creating objections. Neglecting the back story increases this risk.

Yet what is the process in mapping out the story to ensure impactful communication backed by relevant data?

Bridging the Need with the Solution: gain buy-in by mapping out your story and focus on the needs before the solution

As mentioned above, getting to your story before the market’s story puts you at risk of being on the defensive and creating objections.

One of the best ways to avoid this is by first starting with mapping your story out with 3 elements to prime the investors for your solution while identifying the data needed to support the story:

1. Current Healthcare Dynamics: how healthcare is ‘malfunctioning’

2. Current Healthcare Barriers: the malfunction “costs” in slightly more detail

3. Ideal Healthcare Scenario: cost/time/delay of care reductions

Then go continue with market size, market potential, key competitors, strategy followed by your solution.

Let’s say you have an insulin pen with a remote glucose monitoring device for patients with Type 1 diabetes.

Your product reduces costs, increases patient access to care and reduces medical errors in a very large market.

Using the 3 elements above, map out the story for your pitch deck first, identifying the data required to support, so you can see the story’s flow, ensuring that when it comes time to pitch the solution, your audience is ready.

Your story is in the header text of the slide, so the text there must be impactful, powerful and concise. Ideally, each slide header line should connect with the following slide header so the story is clear.

Spoiler alert: this makes the Executive Summary a breeze!

Below is an example of mapping out the story prior to discussing market size, competitors market potential and then the solution.

The colored boxes are the slide headers which tells the story. The white boxes are the data points/visuals required to support the story.

Simple, clean story telling. Your audience is now ready for market information, competitors, potential and your solution.

This approach works well as it reduces slides slaughtered with text and allows you to identify data to support

As for the Executive Summary, the text in the headers then can be pulled together in bullet points

Bringing it Together

Pitch decks can be painful when pulling them together, and even more so when your audience picks them apart, leaving you on the defensive as opposed to offensive in pitching your solution.

Minimize objections, confusion and ensure your pitch resonates with the following changes:

1. Use story telling to demonstrate the need first before your solution by focusing on healthcare dynamics, barriers and ideal scenarios

2. Map out the story first, using powerful and concise slide header text that connects from slide to slide

3. Find the data and visuals to support the story

There are additional changes that can be done, of which will be covered in a separate Part 2 article, including:

1. Support the story by using meaningful visuals and data in the body of the slide to reduce text overkill and confusion with the message focused in the header

2. Interpret data to cover all the bases as well as translate the data so it is meaningful, impactful and powerful for the bigger picture

By starting with mapping out your story, your solution pitch is effortless, easy to convey and captures your audience while minimizing objections and confusion.

After many years in the biotech / pharma / medtech / healthcare AI sectors in various international commercial roles, Jen continues her entrepreneurial passion in helping small companies, niche companies, new to market and start ups harness the power of smart commercialization strategies and tactics to increase business performance.