03 – PITCH DECK MARKET SLIDE – 10 SLIDES TO VC FUNDING SUCCESS

3: Pitch Deck Market Slide: 10 Slides to VC Funding Success

❏ Today in Part 3 of my series on 10 Slides to VC Funding Success, I’ll speak on 3: Pitch Deck Market Slide: 10 Slides to VC Funding Success.

The market slide is the third page of every successful VC pitch deck. Start by outlining the market you will attack in your cover slide, which should come after your problem slide and introduction. The size and scope of the market for your good or service must be understood. You will probably waste money and time if you don’t. Do not waste time or money. Learn how to accurately assess your market space and be able to share the vital details on this slide.

What is the market? You will be able to learn the answer to this question and what you need to show on your Pitch Deck Market Slide in this article.

My History:

One of my responsibilities as an executive coach is to assist company founders with creating their investor pitch deck. Throughout my career, I have made and reviewed many investor pitch decks. Upon reflection, I realized that some of our team’s investor pitch decks, especially early in my startup career, were “horrible.”

Sometimes, our teams were successful in raising money from investors. Many times, they were not.

I never thought that the content and presentation style of the investor pitch deck might be hurting us. Boy, was I ever wrong? Working with many investors taught me what they want in an investor pitch deck. In my last company, we raised $87 million over rounds A, B, and C.

So, in this series and an upcoming book, I look to share my hard-learned lessons from 20+ years of being an entrepreneur.

The Investor Pitch Deck Series:

In this series, you will learn the order and importance of each of the following pitch deck slides:

1. Cover Slide
2. Problem Slide
3. Market Slide
4. Solution
5. Traction
6. Competition
7. Monetization
8. Financials
9. Team
10. Ask

This 10-part series covers the ten investor pitch deck slides’ ideal content, order, and flow. You’ll have learned how to craft your story into a successful ten-page investor pitch deck that can get you funded!

When an entrepreneur assembles their investor pitch deck, they usually make a hoard of information. Sadly, they often construct a “book” that is 20, 30, or even as much as 80 pages in length! Most of us humans have a concise attention span. Even ad networks know that most ads over 30 seconds don’t work with consumers. For investors, the successful length of an investor pitch deck is about ten pages and 7 to 15 minutes in presentation length.

Pitch Deck Market Slide: Why Is It Important?

Last week in Pitch Deck Problem Slide: 10 Slides to VC Funding Success, I spoke about the problem slide and its importance. This week I’m talking about the market slide, the third page of every presentation, and its significance. After your introductory cover slide, followed by your problem slide, launch into describing the market you are going to attack!

Why? You’ve engaged their minds with your “big, hairy problem.” Now they want to know “how big” the market you’re going after is. Earlier, I commented that small markets rarely attract investors. For example, if there is a disease that causes 100 people worldwide to die each year, no investor, except one with a family member with the disease, is likely to “invest” in looking for a cure. However, let’s say you’ve developed a universal Takata airbag replacement that costs $10 to manufacture. With the millions of cars worldwide in need of a replacement airbag, you “might” have an “investable company.”

Pitch Deck Market Slide: Content

Wow, the entrepreneurs missed the mark in so many investor pitch decks when presenting the market! So many said, “USD 10B Market!” yet gave no details to back up the claim. Some would claim, “Just like Uber, except…”. Others confuse the market with their competitors. This slide is one that entrepreneurs and small business owners do the slightest research on! Why? The answer to that question baffles me. Today, with the internet, so much information is available with a few key clicks. Most markets will have third-party analysts who create annual or even quarterly reports on your market. Could you get them and link to them on this page? Connecting to the third-party statement shows you are using something other than your backside to report your market attributes.

Your market slide should convey a clear picture of both the “TAM” (total available market) and the SAM (serviceable (sellable) public market). For example, in 2016, the total number of light vehicles sold worldwide was 88.1 million (Macquarie Bank). 88.1M is a TAM number. If you’re making an automobile and in the first several years all or most of your sales will be in the USA, the total USA 2016 sales were $17.55 million (LA Times). This number is a sub-TAM number. If you’re making an electric vehicle, the number sold in the USA was 159,000 (Fleetcarma). This amount would be your SAM. Show the TAM over a 3-5-year period from reputable 3rd party numbers. Use a bar chart, not a line, for a more robust visualization. Show your depth of knowledge. See the image in this article for an excellent market slide example.

Pitch Deck Market Slide: What’s Your Story?

So, what do you think you could say while your Pitch Deck Market Slide is visible? If you’ve followed my lead on your content, that’s what you’ll be able to tell. Emphasize the (hopefully) fast-growing market. Speak about how large the market is in the USA, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

I love using a world map as the background for the market slide. It instantly shows your audience several things, one of which is that your market is global rather than local. Second, it shows your audience that “you” are a global thinker. Third, it sets the expectation that you will talk about how you’re “going to market” globally. Even a mom-and-pop retail outlet should be thinking and selling globally. The 25 apps I designed and built for the Apple App Store in 2013 are in 25+ languages. The apps are marketed and sold in every country where Apple sells iPhones and iPads. Less than 18% of my annual game players are in the USA. Allow me to give one example of your marketing slide and verbal pitch.

“Our market has an annual TAM of USD 270 billion from numbers supplied by the NTP (National Philanthropic Trust). We see charitable giving broken into four key segments: charitable, foundations, religious, and political. We estimate that the SAM for our service is between 1% and 3% of the aggregate. 1% to 3% of the aggregate equals $2.7B to USD 8.1B. This number will grow as people handle more of their finances on mobile.”. You’ve discussed the TAM, your SAM, and your over-time graph showing a rapidly growing market. That’s all you need to speak to, and you’ve covered the topic in about one minute.

Presentation: We Can Read or Listen—Not Both!

Most humans can “read” or “listen,” but we cannot do both simultaneously. Your Pitch Deck slide presentation exists to support “the story” you will be telling your audience. Does your investor pitch deck have a lot of words, charts with numbers, or distracting images? Then, your audience will switch their brains into “reading mode” and out of “listening mode.” As soon as that happens, you’ve lost your audience and will struggle to get them back to listening to you! To avoid this, use primarily images and as few words as possible, usually in bullet form. So absolutely, positively, no sentences!

Conclusion

So, I suspect many of you were surprised by the importance of the market slide. If you’re starting to create your first investor presentation, congratulations! You will start on the right foot if you follow my recommendations above. You can go back and look at your market slide and apply what you’ve learned above. You should wait to read the remainder of the series before you present it again. I can promise you a better reaction from your audience.