The Only Ten Slides You Need in Your Pitch

Hi, I'm Guy Kawasaki. I am the chief evangelist of Canva and the creator of the Remarkable People podcast. In this video, I'm going to Discuss the only 10 slides you need in a pitch. The first slide is the title slide. Here you provide your contact information. This is where you make it so easy to get back in touch with you because you blew them away with your pitch. Second problem. Opportunity. Purpose of this slide is to change the pulse of the people who see the pitch. You're going to talk about that pain you're alleviating or the opportunity and pleasure that you're making possible. Next slide. The value proposition. This is where you explain how important and valuable and lucrative it is to alleviate that pain or provide that opportunity. Why do you make economic sense? Next thing. Underlying magic. What's that secret sauce that you have that's going to give you a competitive advantage? If you don't have any underlying magic, then you're an implementation play which is still possible to succeed with. But it would be nice to have some kind of story about underlying magic. Next slide, Business model. Here you explain how you make money. That. That's it. Keep it simple. Go to market. Plan is next. This is where you reassure people that in a crowded and competitive landscape, you still have a way to go to market. Using your connections, influencers, whatever it is. But do not say your plan is to go viral because no one can predict what will go viral. Next slide. Competitive analysis. Two purposes here prove that you are well aware of the competitive landscape and also to show what you can do and your competitor cannot. And even better, because it shows intellectual honesty. Show what your competitor can do and you cannot. Competitive analysis. Next slide. Is the management team relatively late in my pitch? Plan? That's because I think that you need to change the pulse of people who are watching your pitch. And if you excite them enough, they'll want to learn about your management. If you don't excite them enough, your management won't matter. So get to changing their pulse now. It is unlikely that you have a world class perfect management team. That's okay. That's why you have to focus on changing the pulse. Next thing. Financial projections and key metrics. Keep it simple. Two or three years out, no one can predict what's going to happen in five years. Frankly, between you and me, no one can predict what's going to happen in two or three years. But you got to put something down there. Now the key metrics may be more important. This shows the assumptions of your business. It shows how grounded you are in your estimates. If you're saying you're going to get 1% of the people in China to use your service, you're probably shooting yourself in the foot. So key metrics are things like number of subscribers, how many people you can close per month, what percentage of people will step up to the pro version. These are the key metrics. The next slide, current status, key accomplishments, timelines, all these kinds of tactical milestones. And this is where you show how the money will be used, the timing of the money where you are so that people know that you're not simply a pitch. And that's the only 10 slides you need. And I'll tell you something. The purpose of a pitch is not to use shock and awe and, and try to convince people to immediately write a check to you. That's not going to happen. Never happens that way. The purpose of a pitch is to keep you in the game, to get you to the next stage, which is usually due diligence and more meetings. So don't set yourself up for failure by thinking that you are going to convince people to invest immediately with your pitch. You just want to stay in the game. I'm Guy Kawasaki, chief evangelist of Canva, coming to you from Silicon Valley.