Your Guide: Executive Summary and Pitch Deck
Approaching investors and getting your story across is primarily driven by a solid Executive Summary and a Pitch Deck that mirrors the executive summary.
What is an Executive Summary?
The Executive Summary is usually based on a number of core points, and if presented in a verbal format it is pretty much as though you are telling a story like this:
“ This is who we are, we are solving this problem for which we have built this solution. The resulting product has these benefits and this is the underlying technology. We are going to capture this market as follows and while we see these competitors, we believe we can do well as these other companies as these are our competitive advantages. We will be selling our product using this business model and this is the basic plan with key milestones for which we need $ and these are the people that are going to do it “
To get this message across is relatively simple, yet very few companies are good at it!
An executive summary should be no more than 2 pages long, and in a Pitch Deck of 10-15 slides, the latter assuming you need to go through your pitch in roughly 10 minutes.
What to include in an Executive Summary?
Below is an outline for a basic instruction to complete both the Executive Summary and Pitch Deck:
OVERVIEW Briefly describe your product and target market and summarize why your product is competitive. Mention briefly the history of the company.
PROBLEM State the key problem(s) you are addressing, the pain in the market place and how your company/technology is able to solve it. If not solving a problem, focus on opportunity.
SOLUTION Describe your product / service
BENEFITS Try and answer this question: Why is this good for your customers, why would they pay for it to get it? Use bullet points.
TECHNOLOGY MARKET Discuss the technology / unique features / IP/ Patents / potential for patents etc.
PLAN Define the market opportunity and summarize the key market verticals the company is targeting. Would help if the market can be sized in $ terms. And: who is the buyer?
COMPETITION Describe the go-to-market plan/strategy, sales plan, marketing plan. Include sales traction to date if any.
BUSINESS MODEL Mention other players and state in bullet point format your key competitive advantages and possibly refer to competitor weaknesses. Describe how you make money from your product. License, subscription, advertising revenues?
MILESTONES List the key accomplishments to date.
INVESTMENT Outline the $ amount the company is currently seeking and how will the funds be used? Insert a table with future milestones and/or ‘use of funds’. How will the funds be used, where will it get you?
FINANCIALS Discuss here briefly what has been invested to date, shareholding structure, any tax credits or other funds received, revenue if any, and how much the company needs to raise in terms of financing. Insert a brief chart with past numbers & projected revenues/costs for the next three (3) years.
TEAM Brief, two-sentence bios of each key team member. List bios of board of directors and advisors if you have them.
By utilising the above you can improve your pitch and presentation, ensuring you include vital information the investors will want to see. Once you are sure that your pitch contains all of the above info, then we want to hear from you!
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