08 – PITCH DECK FINANCIALS SLIDE – 10 SLIDES TO VC FUNDING SUCCESS

8: Pitch Deck Financials Slide – 10 Slides to VC Funding Success

❏ Today, in Part 8 of my series on 10 Slides to VC Funding Success, I’ll speak on Pitch Deck Financials Slide: 10 Slides to VC Funding Success.

The eighth page of every successful VC pitch deck is the financials slide. After discussing the monetization slide, you should immediately describe your corporate financials.

What are the financials? You will be able to 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 to assist company founders with creating their investor pitch deck. Throughout my career, I have made and reviewed many investor pitch decks. Upon reflection, 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. A successful investor pitch deck should have ten pages and a presentation duration of seven to fifteen minutes.

Pitch Deck Financials Slide – Why Important?

Last week, I discussed the Monetization Slide and its significance in 7: Pitch Deck Monetization Slide—10 Slides to VC Funding Success. This week, I am discussing the importance of the Financials Slide, the eighth page in every presentation. As soon as you have finished talking about the monetization slide, you should go over your company’s “financials.” discussing the monetization slide, you should review

Why? The amount of margin you are making, your clientele, and your solution have all thrilled your investors. They are eager to see your financial projections and cash flow in detail.

Your investors will be glued to the edge of their seats if they have followed this series and are in your target market!

Pitch Deck Financials Slide: Content

Most pitch deck financial slides depict messy entrepreneurs! Most entrepreneurs need to be more financial experts. They are not Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) or bookkeepers. You ought to consult a financial specialist to assist you with the economic downturn. Here are some examples of format and content, but you need people who know “the numbers.”

Investors should be able to tell from your Pitch Deck Financials Slide that you know the fundamentals of managing your company’s finances. Your financials slide will include essential figures from your cash flow, profit and loss, and balance sheets. You have to be highly knowledgeable about the statements and the amounts involved. Learn finance basics by enrolling in a few courses on Linda.com, Udemy.com, or a similar website. Being a company leader requires a solid understanding of the fundamentals.

Most investors want to see economic data from the company’s founding and a projection for the ensuing 24 months. Sort the figures by fiscal or calendar quarter. Critical financial data from your cash flow statement, profit and loss statement, and balance sheet will be displayed in the rows. You can set up the necessary numbers for the row content with your accountant’s help.

Please look at the image associated with this article for an example of a suitable slide.

Pitch Deck Financials Slide – What’s Your Story?

So, what do you think you could 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 are your revenue and customer base growing? Two, how fast are your expenses and headcount increasing? Third, 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 doubling our revenue and customer base every quarter, and we 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 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, we are done!

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 concerning the importance of the Pitch Deck Financials Slide. If you’re starting to create your first investor presentation, congratulations! You will be starting on the right foot if you follow my recommendations above. You can go back and look at your financial 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.