How to Make Your Investor Pitch Deck [A Detailed Guide]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- Aug 12, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Jan 22
Samantha, one of our clients, asked us a question while we were building her investor pitch deck:
“What’s the one thing every investor presentation must do right?”
Our Creative Director didn’t even pause before answering:
“Make investors feel something — not just know something.”
As a presentation design agency, we work on many investor pitch decks throughout the year. And while each deck is unique in its content and storyline, there’s one challenge that keeps showing up: most founders treat it like a data dump, not a story.
The result? A deck that ticks all the boxes but still falls flat in the room.
In this blog, we’ll break down how to make pitch deck presentations that don’t just explain your business but make investors care about it.
In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.
Why Making a Good Pitch Deck Is Important for Your Funding Success
Let’s not sugarcoat it — your pitch deck can make or break your funding round.
It doesn’t matter how innovative your product is, how fast your user base is growing, or how stacked your team looks on paper. If your pitch deck doesn’t tell a compelling story and make investors sit up and pay attention, you’re already losing ground.
Most investors don’t read every word. They skim. They swipe. They make decisions in seconds about whether they’re interested enough to keep going. That means your deck has to be clear, sharp, and emotionally intelligent from slide one.
You don’t get points for effort. You get interest if you can cut through the noise and show three things fast:
There’s a real problem
You’ve built something smart to solve it
It’s already working (or is clearly about to)
Your pitch deck is your first filter. It’s what gets you in the room — or disqualifies you before you ever speak. And if you do get the meeting, your deck becomes the conversation starter, the storytelling scaffold, the confidence builder.
A good pitch deck builds trust. A weak one creates doubt. And once doubt creeps in, you’ve lost the room.
That’s why knowing how to make pitch deck presentations the right way isn’t optional. It’s foundational.
How to Make Your Investor Pitch Deck
Let’s skip the generic advice you’ve already heard a hundred times: “Tell a story,” “Be concise,” “Know your numbers.” You know that already.
What you need is clarity on what to show, how much to show, and how to make investors care. So here’s how we approach building investor decks that get people to lean in — not lean back.
We break it down into 4 steps:
Step 1: Understand What the Deck Is Actually For
Before you open PowerPoint or Google Slides, pause and ask yourself: What is this deck supposed to do?
It’s not supposed to tell your entire business story from birth to exit. It’s not a brochure. It’s not a resume. It’s a tool.
Its job is to get you the next conversation.
That’s it. Not a yes. Not a check. Just enough interest for a second meeting, a call, a deeper dive.
Once you internalize that, you’ll stop overexplaining and start showing only what matters. You’ll focus on clarity, not volume. And that changes everything.
Step 2: Nail the Core Narrative Before Touching Slides
Most people start by opening a slide deck and filling in the blanks. That’s backwards.
Start by building your narrative like this:
What’s the problem? Who feels it, how bad is it, and why hasn’t it been solved properly yet?
What’s your solution? How do you solve the problem in a way that’s different, smarter, or faster?
Why now? What’s changed in the market that makes this the right time?
Why you? Why are you the right person or team to do this, and why should people trust you to pull it off?
This becomes the backbone of your story. It guides your slides and gives the pitch structure.
When we’re designing decks for clients, we always do a narrative walkthrough before touching visuals. Because if the story doesn’t work in words, no amount of icons, colors, or transitions will save it.
Step 3: Build the Slide Structure Around Investor Psychology
Investors don’t think like customers. They’re not here to buy your product. They’re here to evaluate your business as a vehicle for growth.
So your slides should follow a structure that answers the unspoken questions they’re constantly asking:
Slide 1: Cover Slide
Keep it clean. Your logo, your tagline (optional), your name, and contact info. If your company name doesn’t scream what you do, add a single line that gives quick context.
Slide 2: The Problem
Don’t ramble. Show the pain. Be specific. One solid, relatable example is better than ten bullet points. This is where you prove the problem actually exists, and that it’s not just annoying — it’s costly.
Example: “Small businesses lose an average of $8K a year on poor cash flow visibility. That’s not a stat. That’s a wedge.”
Slide 3: The Solution
Now that the problem is clear, show your product or service. No jargon. Just show how it works, how it fits into your user’s life or workflow, and how it removes the pain.
Avoid big feature dumps. Investors don’t care about the fourth toggle setting on your dashboard.
They care about the transformation you’re enabling.
Slide 4: Market Size
If you’re solving a tiny problem for a niche audience, it’s a hobby. Not a business.
Break down your TAM, SAM, and SOM if needed — but keep it focused. Show that there’s actual money on the table and a clear path to capture a slice of it. Don’t inflate numbers just to impress.
They’ll see through it.
Slide 5: Traction
This is where you show momentum. Revenue, users, retention, conversions, partnerships — whatever proves that people want what you’re building.
If you’re early-stage, show signs of pull: waitlists, beta testers, letters of intent. Show that the world is responding.
Slide 6: Business Model
How do you make money? Be clear. Be realistic.
Founders often overcomplicate this with future monetization ideas. Don’t. Show what’s working now (or what will be in the next 6–12 months). The simpler your model, the faster they get it.
Slide 7: Go-to-Market Strategy
This is where a lot of decks get vague. “We’ll use social media and word of mouth.” That’s not a strategy. That’s wishful thinking.
Show who your customers are, where they hang out, and exactly how you plan to reach them. Be specific. If you’ve tested channels already, show the results. If you haven’t, show what’s next.
Slide 8: Competitive Landscape
This isn’t about proving you’re the only one. It’s about proving you know the field and still stand out.
Position yourself clearly. Use a quadrant or a matrix if it helps. But don’t pretend your competition doesn’t exist. That shows you haven’t done your homework. Investors won’t trust that.
Slide 9: Team
This slide is more important than most founders think. At early stage, people invest in people.
Put photos, titles, and one-liners on why this team can win. If someone’s built or scaled a startup before, say it. If you’ve got domain expertise, make it obvious.
Slide 10: Financials
Again, keep it clean. Show your past and projected numbers: revenue, costs, burn, runway. One chart is better than a spreadsheet.
Be ready to defend your assumptions. Don’t fluff this. Investors don’t expect perfection — but they expect logic.
Slide 11: The Ask
Don’t be vague. Say exactly how much you’re raising, what you’ll use it for, and what it unlocks.
If you’re raising $1M to reach $X in revenue or onboard Y number of users, say so. If you’ve already closed part of the round, mention that too. It builds momentum.
Step 4: Design for Clarity, Not Drama
Yes, design matters. But not in the way most people think.
You don’t need cinematic animations or illustrations on every slide. You need clean, readable, intentional design.
Here’s what works:
Use one idea per slide. Don’t cram. Let things breathe.
Use visuals only when they support your message. Charts, product screenshots, icons — fine. Just don’t decorate.
Stick to a clear, consistent layout. Your deck should feel like it’s one system, not ten different documents.
Use color with purpose. Not to show off your palette, but to guide attention.
We’ve redesigned pitch decks where the content was decent, but the design was doing all the wrong things — distracting fonts, low-res logos, blurry screenshots. Investors notice that stuff. It’s not nitpicking. It’s perception.
Design signals professionalism. It shows you care about how your business is presented. And that’s directly tied to how investors think you’ll treat their money.
Why Hire Us to Build your Presentation?
If you're reading this, you're probably working on a presentation right now. You could do it all yourself. But the reality is - that’s not going to give you the high-impact presentation you need. It’s a lot of guesswork, a lot of trial and error. And at the end of the day, you’ll be left with a presentation that’s “good enough,” not one that gets results. On the other hand, we’ve spent years crafting thousands of presentations, mastering both storytelling and design. Let us handle this for you, so you can focus on what you do best.
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