8: Pitch Deck Financials Slide
10 Slides to VC Funding Success
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❏ Today in Part 8 of my series on 10 Slides to VC Funding Success, I’ll speak on 8: Pitch Deck Financials Slide – 10 Slides to VC Funding Success (Link).
The eighth page of every successful VC Pitch Deck is the Financials Slide. After having discussed the Monetization slide, you should immediately launch into describing your corporate Financials.
What are the Financials? You will learn in this article the answer to this question and which financials are essential to show on your Pitch Deck Financials Slide.
My History:
One of my responsibilities as an Executive Coach is helping company founders with the creation of their Investor Pitch Deck. Throughout my career, I have created and reviewed many Investor Pitch Decks. Some of our team’s Investor Pitch decks, especially early in my startup career, upon reflection, were “horrible.”
Sometimes our teams were successful in raising monies 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! By working with many investors, I’ve learned what they want in an Investor Pitch Deck. In my last company, we raised $87M 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 the importance of each of the following Pitch Deck Slides:
- Cover Slide (Link)
- Problem Slide (Link)
- Market Slide (Link)
- Solution (Link)
- Traction (Link)
- Competition (Link)
- Monetization (Link)
- Financials (Link)
- Team (Link)
- Ask (Link)
This 10-part series covers the ideal content, order, and flow of the ten Investor Pitch Deck Slides. 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 is putting together their Investor Pitch Deck, they usually assemble a hoard of information. Sadly, often what they construct is a “book” that is 20, 30, even as much as 80 pages in length! Most of us humans have a very short attention span. Even ad networks know that most ads longer than 30 seconds in length don’t work with consumers. For Investors, the successful length of an Investor Pitch Deck is about ten pages and 7-15 minutes in presentation length.
Pitch Deck Financials Slide – Why Important?
Last week in 7: Pitch Deck Monetization Slide – 10 Slides to VC Funding Success (Link), I spoke about the Monetization slide and its importance. This week I’m talking to the Financials Slide, the eighth page of every presentation and its significance. After having discussed the Monetization slide, you should immediately launch into describing your corporate “Financials.”
Why? Your investor is all excited about how much margin you are making, your Customer base, your Solution. Now they’re primed to see the details of your cash flow and your financial forecasts.
If you’ve followed this series, and your investor’s in your Market space, they’ll be on the edge of their seats!
Pitch Deck Financials Slide – Content
Most Pitch Deck Financials Slide I see from entrepreneurs are a mess! Most entrepreneurs are not financial experts. They are not bookkeepers or Certified Public Accountants (CPA’s). For the Financials slide, you should seek a financial expert to help you. Herein I will show you examples of format and content, but you need experts with “the numbers.”
Your Pitch Deck Financials Slide should convey to the investor that you understand the financial basics of running your business. Your Financials slide will contain critical numbers from your Balance Sheet, Profit & Loss Statement, and Cash Flow Statement. You must be very familiar with what these statements and the amounts that go into them. Take a course or two on Udemy.com, Linda.com., or a similar and learn the fundamentals of finance. Knowing the basics is a must if you are going to be the leader of your business.
Most investors want to see economic numbers from inception to date, followed by a forecast for the next 24 months. Break the numbers down by calendar or fiscal quarter. The rows will contain critical financials from your Balance Sheet, Profit and Loss Statement, and Cash Flow Statement. Your accountant will help you set up the essential numbers for the row content.
See the image associated with this article to see an example of a suitable slide.
Pitch Deck Financials Slide – What’s Your Story?
So, what do you say while your Financial Slide is visible? Remember, you have 45-60 seconds. Numbers for most tend to be boring. They will typically be dug into in detail on a “Second Date,” so stay in shallow water now.
Investors only want to know a few economic numbers on a “First Date.” One, how fast is your Revenue and Customer base growing? Two, how fast are your Expenses and Headcount increasing? Three, what’s the date when you are profitable? Address these three and leave the others for post-presentation Q&A. Allow me to share one pitch example.
“Our financials show we are currently doubling our Revenue and Customer base every quarter and expect that to continue. With this next investment in our company, we can continue this growth over the next 12 months. Our Expenses are leveling even as we grow the top line. We expect to have our first month of profitability in November of this year.”. Wow! You’ve painted a tremendous financial story and addressed the critical business points in under a minute. Well done!
Presentation: We Can Read or Listen – Not Both!
Most of us humans can either “Read” or “Listen,” but cannot do both at the same time. Your Pitch Deck slide presentation exists to support “the story” you are going to be telling your audience. Does your Investor Pitch Deck has a lot of words, charts with numbers, or distracting images? Then your audience is going to switch their brain 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 mostly images and as few words as possible, usually in bullet form. So absolutely, positively NO SENTENCES!
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Conclusion
So, I suspect many of you were surprised concerning the importance of the Pitch Deck Financials Slide. If you’re starting you create your first investor presentation, congratulations! You’re going to be starting on the right foot if you follow my recommendations above. Go back and look at your Financials slide and apply what you’ve learned above. If possible, you should wait to read the remainder of the series before you present again. I can almost promise you a better reaction from your audience.
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