How to Make an IoT Pitch Deck [A Practical Guide]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- Mar 2
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 6
When we were working on a pitch deck for Joe, a founder building a connected device for supply chain logistics, he asked us something that was right up our alley.
“How do I explain my IoT product to investors without making their eyes glaze over?”
Our Creative Director replied,
“You don’t explain the tech. You explain the impact.”
And that’s exactly it. As a presentation design agency, we work on many IoT pitch decks throughout the year. And if there’s one common challenge we’ve seen founders struggle with, it’s this: they talk too much about how the tech works and not enough about why it matters.
In this blog, we’ll show you how to simplify, structure, and sell your IoT story in a way that gets investor attention and keeps 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 Your IoT Pitch Deck Needs to Be Sharper Than Your Tech
Here’s the hard truth: most investors won’t care about your sensors, protocols, or data pipelines. They care about potential. And if your pitch sounds like a product demo, not a business opportunity, you're already behind.
Let’s look at the numbers.
The IoT market is heading toward $1.5 trillion by 2030 (Fortune Business Insights).
Yet 95% of IoT startups fail (Cisco).
And most don’t fail because the tech breaks. They fail because no one understood the value.
That’s not a tech issue. It’s a storytelling issue.
You’ve got two minutes to answer:
What does it do?
Why does it matter?
How will it make money?
If your deck can’t do that clearly, it doesn’t matter how brilliant your backend is. You're selling the impact, not the infrastructure.
Now, let’s break down how to build that kind of deck.
How to Make an IoT Pitch Deck That Works
Let’s cut to the chase. An IoT pitch deck isn’t just a collection of slides explaining what your product does. It’s a narrative — one that bridges the gap between complexity and clarity. If you want investors to lean in, not lean back, you’ve got to build a deck that speaks their language without watering down your product.
Here’s how we approach it every time.
1. Start with the Problem, Not the Product
Don’t open with your dashboard. Don’t show your circuit design. And definitely don’t open with “We use LoRaWAN to…” anything.
Start with the real-world problem. The one people actually care about.
Think about Joe, our client. He was building a sensor that tracks refrigerated goods during transport. Instead of kicking things off with the tech, we started with a headline:
“$35 billion worth of food is lost every year due to poor cold chain visibility.”
Boom. Everyone at the table got it.
The problem is the doorway. And unless you get them through that first, your product won’t matter.
What you want to do in your opening slides is this:
Frame the problem with urgency (stats help)
Make it human (what does the failure feel like?)
Connect it to a growing market trend
Remember, no problem = no pitch.
2. Position Your Product as the Obvious Solution
Once the problem is clear, then you introduce your IoT product.
This is not the place for jargon. You want simple, high-level language like:
“We’ve built a plug-and-play sensor that tracks temperature and humidity in real-time and sends alerts before damage happens.”
That’s enough.
What’s important is that your solution:
Clearly addresses the problem introduced earlier
Feels unique or novel in some way
Is easy to imagine in action
Too many decks dump their tech stack here. Keep it top-level. If they want the technical details, they’ll ask — usually after they’re already interested.
3. Show the Market, But Make It Specific
Yes, IoT is a big market. But “The global IoT market is worth $1.5 trillion” won’t impress anyone.
That’s like saying you opened a taco stand and the global food industry is worth $9 trillion.
Investors want to know:
What’s your actual target market?
How many people are actively looking for a solution like yours?
How much are they currently spending?
Break your market down:
TAM (Total Addressable Market): the biggest possible number
SAM (Serviceable Available Market): the realistic group you can serve
SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market): your short-term, reachable audience
Use numbers that connect to your use case, not the whole IoT universe.
4. Highlight Traction — or Simulate It
Traction is credibility. If you have paying users, beta testers, LOIs, or even pilot data — put it here.
Don’t have traction yet? Then simulate it with:
Results from internal testing
Letters of interest
Early adopter feedback
Partnership conversations
Joe had one pilot with a mid-sized food distributor. That’s what we leaned into. We showed early results, quoted a client, and it worked. Investors don’t need you to be at scale — they need proof that someone out there cares.
5. Business Model: How Will You Make Money?
Don’t overcomplicate this. Keep it clean and believable.
Here are some common IoT models:
Hardware + SaaS: Device sold upfront, subscription for data access
Data-as-a-Service: Sensor is free or subsidized, revenue comes from analytics
Recurring Rentals: Think usage-based fees or monthly leasing
B2B Enterprise Deals: Large-scale contracts with long sales cycles
Whatever your model is, show the pricing logic. Not just what it costs, but why it makes sense for your target customer. Investors want to know if you understand how people buy, not just how you build.
If you’re early, show pricing hypotheses. If you’ve sold something, show how that sale happened.
6. Explain the Tech — But Only After You’ve Earned It
Here’s where you finally get to talk about your stack. But even here, restraint is key.
Your goal is to communicate confidence, not overwhelm.
What to include:
A simple visual of your system (sensor > gateway > cloud > dashboard)
How it integrates with existing systems
Security, scalability, and reliability highlights
One slide. Maybe two.
If they’re engineers, they’ll ask for a tech deep-dive separately. For this deck, keep it business-relevant.
7. Go-to-Market: Who’s Going to Buy This and How?
You need to show that you’re not just building a great product — you know how to get it into the right hands.
This part is often vague in IoT decks. Don’t let yours be.
Be clear about:
Your buyer persona (title, industry, pain point)
Sales channels (direct sales, distributors, partnerships)
Marketing efforts (events, demos, webinars, inbound strategies)
Sales cycle (especially for B2B — is it 6 weeks or 6 months?)
Joe’s strategy involved partnering with logistics software providers — so we mapped that out visually, showing how the product would piggyback into existing sales pipelines.
The more real this plan feels, the better.
8. Your Competitive Advantage: Why You’ll Win
No one’s investing in a “first of its kind” IoT product. Odds are, there are five other companies working on something similar.
That’s fine.
What investors want to know is: Why you? Why now?
Map the competitive landscape — but don’t just do a generic 2x2 matrix with axes like “feature-rich” and “affordable.”
Instead, focus on:
Unique tech (only if it's a real differentiator)
Faster deployment
Better user experience
Smarter pricing
A specific underserved niche
Even better, back it up with a quote or feedback from someone in the industry.
9. The Team: Why You’re the Ones to Build This
The team slide is more important than most founders realize.
People don’t invest in products. They invest in people who can solve problems — and keep going when things get tough.
Don’t list every intern. Just your core team and advisors, with short bios that explain why each person is crucial.
Highlight:
Industry experience
Past startups or exits
Technical depth
Relationships that give you an edge
If you’re a solo founder, address that. Show advisors, mentors, or a roadmap for hiring key roles.
10. The Ask: What Do You Want?
Don’t fumble here. This is where most decks get weirdly vague.
Say exactly how much you’re raising and what it’s for.
Example:
“We’re raising $1.2M to finish product development, launch 3 pilot programs, and hire a Head of Sales.”
Be specific. Be clear. And ideally, tie that back to your roadmap.
11. Keep the Design Clean — and Human
Yes, we’re a presentation agency, so obviously we care about design. But this isn’t about making things pretty. It’s about making things digestible.
IoT decks often look like hardware manuals. That’s a mistake.
Design your slides so they:
Use visuals to simplify complex systems
Highlight one idea per slide
Avoid crowded charts or walls of text
Include real photos when possible (prototypes, field tests, etc.)
Your goal: design that makes understanding effortless.
That’s what keeps people listening. That’s what makes you memorable. And that’s what gives your IoT pitch deck a real shot at doing its job — getting you in the door.
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.