How to Make the Solution Slide [Of your pitch deck]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- Jul 5, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Aug 2
A few weeks ago, our client Jorge asked us something while we were making his pitch deck:
“How do you explain the solution without sounding like you're just stating the obvious?”
Our Creative Director replied,
"If it sounds obvious, you haven’t explained the problem well enough."
As a presentation design agency, we work on dozens of solution slides throughout the year. And in the process, we’ve noticed one common challenge—founders often assume that investors already understand why their solution matters.
But here's the truth. Most solution slides don’t fall flat because the solution is bad. They fall flat because the narrative doesn’t build up to it.
In this blog, we’ll talk about how to make the solution slide in a way that earns attention, not eye-rolls.
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 the Solution Slide Matters in a Pitch Deck
Let’s be honest. Most investors have seen more pitch decks than you’ve had cups of coffee this month. They’re not impressed by a flashy mockup or a list of app features. They’re looking for clarity. Relevance. Logic.
That’s where the solution slide comes in. It’s not just a placeholder for your product description. It’s the hinge of your entire narrative. Everything before it builds the tension. Everything after it depends on whether you’ve convinced them your solution is worth caring about.
We’ve seen decks where the problem slide nails the pain point perfectly, only to be followed by a solution slide that sounds like a product brochure. That’s a missed opportunity.
The purpose of the pitch deck solution slide is to answer one simple question burning in your audience’s mind: "Okay, that’s the problem. Now, what do you want me to believe solves it?"
This is your moment to connect the dots. Not to showcase features. Not to jump ahead to your traction or your market size. Just one clear idea: Here’s how we’re fixing this, and here’s why it works.
If that idea doesn’t stick, nothing else will. Your numbers won’t matter. Your demo won’t matter. Your team slide won’t matter.
In short, the solution slide is the turning point. Get it wrong, and your story falls apart. Get it right, and everything else in your pitch starts to make sense.
How to Make the Solution Slide [Of Your Pitch Deck]
Let’s get one thing out of the way: a great solution slide is not about your excitement. It’s about helping your audience see why your solution matters—immediately, logically, and emotionally.
You’re not just showing “what your product does.” You’re walking the investor through a very deliberate shift—from problem to possibility.
Now, since we’ve built hundreds of decks over the years, we’ve picked up a few patterns. The best solution slides always check three boxes:
They mirror the problem exactly
They simplify without dumbing down
They make you go, “Of course. That makes sense.”
Let’s walk through how to do that, without resorting to overused buzzwords or shallow one-liners.
1. Match the structure of your problem slide
Most founders get this wrong. They spend time painting the problem in detail—three bullets, pain points, emotional cues—and then their solution slide just says something like:
“We built a SaaS platform that uses AI to optimize workflows.”
Congratulations. You just told them… almost nothing.
Your problem slide and your solution slide are two sides of the same coin. If your problem slide has three pain points, your solution slide should address them one by one. Not in the form of features, but in the form of reliefs.
Think of it this way: if the problem slide sets the fire, the solution slide has to be the extinguisher. Not a fire-resistant wall. Not a fire insurance plan. The actual extinguisher.
Let’s say your problem slide says:
Hiring freelancers is time-consuming
Quality is unpredictable
Collaboration is scattered across platforms
Then your solution slide should answer those exact problems:
A vetted freelancer pool you can hire instantly
Ratings based on verified performance, not random reviews
Built-in tools that streamline collaboration from day one
Notice the pattern? We’re not saying, “We have 10,000 freelancers.” We’re saying what that means in the context of the problem: you don’t waste time hiring.
You don’t need to list every feature. You just need to make sure every pain has an obvious fix.
2. Don’t describe your product. Show how it changes reality
Your job isn’t to tell us what the solution is. Your job is to tell us what the solution does—and how that changes the game.
Most people get stuck in a trap here. They think, “This is the part where I explain my product.” But explaining your product isn’t the goal. Reframing the world with your product in it? That’s the goal.
Let’s take an example.
Instead of saying:
“We created an app that tracks your health metrics in real time.”
Say:
“We eliminate the guesswork by giving people real-time data they can actually act on.”
See the difference?
The first one is a feature. The second is a shift in reality.
Now, imagine you’re an investor hearing ten pitches a day. Who are you going to remember—the founder who talks about “real-time metrics” or the one who shows how their product makes daily decisions easier for every diabetic patient?
We once worked with a client building a scheduling tool for hospitals. Their initial solution slide said:
“Automated scheduling for nurses using machine learning.”
We changed it to:
“Hospitals lose millions when nurses are overworked or misallocated. Our tool uses real-time capacity and skill data to schedule staff with 90% more efficiency—reducing burnout and improving patient outcomes.”
That sentence does more than describe the product. It reframes the situation. It turns “a nice tool” into “an obvious decision.”
That’s what your solution slide needs to do.
3. Use one visual that says more than your paragraph ever will
If you need three paragraphs to explain what your solution does, you’re probably explaining too much—or too abstractly.
The best solution slides we’ve designed often include one of these visual formats:
A before-after contrast (problem > solution)
A flow diagram showing how the solution works step by step
A simple side-by-side: “Old way” vs. “Our way”
A modular stack (especially for tech platforms)
An illustration of the user journey with and without the solution
Here’s a quick example.
For a client in the logistics space, we visualized their solution like this:
OLD WAY
Call centers
Paper-based tracking
Delays with no transparency
OUR WAY
One app
Live GPS tracking
Predictive delivery time based on weather and traffic
It worked because it immediately gave investors a mental image of the shift. They didn’t need to read a paragraph. The visual spoke for itself.
The takeaway? Make your solution visual. Not to make the slide pretty, but to make the concept stick.
4. Explain “why now” without saying those words
Timing is baked into every investor’s decision-making. A good solution doesn’t just fix a problem. It fixes it at the right time.
So even if you’re not doing a separate timing slide, use your solution slide to subtly answer the question: “Why is this the right moment for this to exist?”
You don’t need a whole section on this. A single sentence works:
“With regulations tightening in 2025, compliance automation is no longer optional.”
“As remote work becomes permanent, async collaboration tools are becoming the new standard.”
“Now that 5G is mainstream, we can finally build this product the way it was meant to function.”
This does two things. One, it makes your solution feel inevitable. Two, it shows that you understand your market deeply—and that you’re not just building for a problem, but for this moment’s version of it.
5. Cut the fluff. Use brutal clarity.
Here’s the test: if a 15-year-old can’t understand what your solution is doing, you’re probably overexplaining it.
We’re not saying dumb it down. We’re saying sharpen it. Strip every word that doesn’t carry weight.
Don’t say:
“Our integrated, scalable, and flexible solution empowers users to manage their end-to-end workflows efficiently.”
Say:
“We help teams manage projects in one place so nothing falls through the cracks.”
Investors don’t want to decode jargon. They want to grasp the mechanics quickly so they can start thinking about the implications.
And you don’t get points for sounding clever. You get points for being clear.
6. Make them believe your solution is the best possible version—not just another option
The worst thing that can happen after your solution slide is this thought:
“Okay, cool. I’ve seen three others like this.”
Your job isn’t to convince them you exist. It’s to convince them you shouldn’t be ignored.
That doesn’t mean you need to scream “We’re unique!” with a megaphone. It means your solution needs to feel like the one that’s inevitable. The one they’d regret missing.
Sometimes, this is about the tech. Other times, it’s the insight. Sometimes it’s your approach. Whatever it is, it has to be real.
Here’s a trick: imagine the investor is meeting your biggest competitor after you. What would you want them to remember only about you?
Build that into your slide.
That could be:
“We’re the only ones focused on non-English-speaking markets.”
“Unlike others, we’re not selling the tool. We’re selling the outcome.”
“Our product is used inside 3 of the top 5 companies in the industry already.”
You don’t need to flex hard. But you do need to quietly make your case: “This is why we win.”
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.