How to Create an Early Stage Pitch Deck 0

I saw this great post by Ryan Spoon of Polaris on how to create an early stage pitch deck.   It contains really good advice, and while you don’t have to follow it exactly, I’d say it’s directionally dead-on for early stage investors like First Round.

Ryan’s deck for how to create a great pitch deck is below – another short video from from Guy Kawasaki on his 10/20/30 Rule is here.  For bonus points here’s a great 10 slide guide from an Mike Butcher from a TechCrunch UK event.

The only things I’d add are some things NOT to do.  Don’t use the standard boilerplate form that’s two pages, all text, with all your bankers and lawyers and advisors listed in a vertical box on the left side -  they don’t represent you uniquely or very well, and look a newsletter from the 1990s.  The other thing to NOT do is send your 50 page double-spaced business plan with 10 year projections – at least not for the first meeting.

Take a look at what Ryan recommends below – companies that end up getting funding by VCs like us tend to use decks like these.