A pitch deck is a critical tool in a startup’s fundraising journey. However, not every pitch deck is equally effective. The best pitch decks strike multi-million deals, while the worst fail to capture investors’ interest.

Searching Google for a pitch deck template isn’t enough to create a successful design. When approaching investors, the goal is to be memorable and effective. Unfortunately, most pitch decks fail in the fundraising process. While they may contain the right slides and information, they don’t stand out.

By studying examples of successful startups that raised millions, you can learn what investors look for in the best pitch decks. In this article, we’ll introduce you to 30 of the best pitch decks we’ve seen over the last few years. Furthermore, we’ll explain why we believe they were successful and what you can learn from them.

1. Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud storage service that lets you save files online and sync them to your devices. The platform makes it simple for users to share files and folders with others without attaching large attachments to an email.

The team introduced the product at Y Combinator’s Demo Day in 2007. Since then, Dropbox has acquired hundreds of millions of customers. The company has also become an example of how to build a startup from the ground up.

The pitch deck showcases Dropbox’s innovative product, explains its traction, and validates its business model. Investors quickly displayed interest, and Dropbox struck its first investor deal shortly after its Demo Day appearance. 

The Pros of Dropbox’s Pitch Deck

Dropbox’s presentation may seem outdated compared to many modern pitch decks. It could use more graphic design, but the information is clear and presented in an easily digestible manner.

The pitch deck explains the ideal situation by describing what things look like “in a perfect world.” In this slide, the deck connects readers to the problem. It helps them visualize what life would look like if they didn’t struggle with digital storage issues.

At the time, consumers weren’t aware that one could have “your files available wherever you are, on any device.” In 2024, this value proposition probably doesn’t seem so unique. However, in 2007, forgetting your USB drive at home led to significant anxiety. Users had no way to access their files without a physical drive.

Ultimately, Dropbox changed how the world stores and shares files, and its pitch deck validates this point.

The Dropbox pitch deck encourages engagement from the viewer by presenting questions like “Why Now?” and “Why Better?” The team identified which questions the audience was likely to ask. Then, the founders used the deck to take the viewer on a journey by answering their questions at the ideal moment.

Dropbox’s slides may seem outdated, but the “no-fluff” approach led them to success. The text is large enough to read, and each slide gets straight to the point. Every word has a purpose, and every sentence is intentional.

Dropbox’s Lifetime Funding

The Dropbox team leveraged its pitch deck to raise a $1.2 million seed round in 2007. The company raised over $1.7 billion in funding over 11 rounds.

2. WeWork

WeWork is an American commercial real estate company that provides flexible shared workspaces for technology startups and other businesses. The company designs and builds physical and virtual shared spaces and offices for companies of all sizes.

WeWork’s reputation has suffered over the years as a result of bad leadership and overfunding. However, its failures don’t take away from its ability to rank in our best pitch decks list. The team produced several pitch decks since its earliest stages. In our opinion, Dropbox’s Series D presentation is the best example of showcasing traction and describing plans.

Why It’s On Our Best Pitch Decks List

Unlike DropBox, WeWork’s pitch deck is design-heavy with a modern aesthetic. The slides follow a predictable theme with a bold title, a short text blurb, and a simple but informative graphic. The color scheme (black and yellow) is consistent across every slide, which makes it visually appealing to the audience.

But when creating our best pitch decks list, graphic design is only one component. It takes skill to present this amount of information without overloading the slide. Yet, WeWork figured out the perfect balance to provide information while peaking the audience’s curiosity.

Instead of “warming up” the audience, the team immediately gets to the meat of the presentation – traction. The Company Overview slide showcases their stats upfront, with impressive metrics that investors would find difficult to ignore. Few investors can look away when a company presents statistics like 109% CAGR and revenues of $121.4 million.

While visual aesthetic is less important than content, WeWork’s design stands out. Every slide draws viewers in with complex information simplified through charts and familiar logos. The team slide is simple and shows authentic images of its founding members. If a picture speaks 1,000 words, it speaks a million in a pitch deck.

A Validated Hypothesis

The pitch deck tells the story of how work is rapidly shifting away from the office. Even before the pandemic, the founders realized that remote working was the future. The deck explains how millennials approach work differently. Unlike past generations, they choose freelance and work-from-home options over the traditional office setting.

By the way, they were right – today, more people work from their homes and shared office spaces than ever before.

WeWork’s technology is a significant part of its offering. Still, the founders only dedicated one slide to its technology. Instead, they focused on showcasing the customer problem and their plans for capitalizing on the emerging market opportunity.

WeWork’s Total Funding

The founders raised $335 million in investor funding with its Series D pitch deck. In total, the company raised $4.45 billion over 11 rounds from 14 investors.

3. Copper Cow Coffee

It can be challenging to make coffee sound exciting when competing for capital against innovative tech startups. The Copper Cow Coffee pitch deck successfully explains how it innovates a stagnant market.

Copper Cow Coffee offers sustainably-sourced, all-natural coffee, sold in a kit that includes coffee and creamers. The company had humble beginnings but has expanded rapidly. Today, it’s products are available in major retail stores, including Whole Foods, Walmart, H-E-B, and Sprouts.

Despite the rapid success, Copper Cow Coffee’s journey began with a simple but impactful 11-slide pitch deck.

Why It’s An Awesome Pitch Deck

Entrepreneurs often overlook simplicity during investor pitches, but Copper Cow Coffee proved that less is more. For comparison’s sake, there are more words in this paragraph than in the company’s entire pitch deck. The team streamlined all the information into simple but powerful statements like “Craft coffee for anyone, anywhere.”

Unlike other decks on this list, the founders didn’t use complex graphs and charts to present information. Instead, they showcased the opportunity in a way that even a kindergarten student could understand. For example, the team used a few words to describe market size, not bar charts and line graphs. With the statement, “32 billion – American Coffee Industry,” anyone could quickly visualize how large the market is.

You could argue that Copper Cow’s pitch deck is too simple and minimal. However, when pitching an idea, you want the audience to pay attention to the presenter, not the slides. Copper Cow’s deck allows the audience to grasp each concept without requiring long text or an explanation.

Did Copper Cow Raise Funding?

Copper Cow Coffee participated in 500 Startups and raised over $1 million in seed funding. In total, the company has generated $11.5 million in investor funding.

4. Purple Go

(Click the image to view Purple Go’s pitch deck)

Purple Go is an iPad-based platform that allows eyewear retailers to streamline online operations. The all-in-one platform automates tasks throughout the sales process, freeing up staff members and maximizing operations efficiency. Although Purple Go serves a niche and uber-targeted audience, startups can learn a few lessons from their pitch deck.

Pitch Deck Highlights

Purple Go utilized a sleek design and approach, telling its story with simple statements and highly-focused slides. While most startup pitch deck templates suggest a Problem Slide, Purple Go decided to forego this recommendation.

Instead, the deck tells a story of how Purple Go’s clients feared the impact of tech-enabled competitors. But, by adopting Purple Go’s mobile-connected stores, they multiplied their revenue by up to 10x.

The pitch deck includes several Solution slides, but they don’t display every feature. Each slide displays a short statement with a visual that explains how the product solves the customer’s problem. Phrases like “Cut Time to Sale in Half” explains the value proposition without using bullet points or paragraphs. The slides focus on the specific functions that heighten the value proposition without wasting space on less impactful features.

The team proves its Traction with a few hard-hitting statistics, such as “Pilot Store – $150k Annual Revenue.” Purple Go gives the audience the “what” of the solution but gives room so the presenter can fill in the blanks.

Did Purple Go Raise Funding?

With this pitch deck, The Purple Go team raised $150,000 in seed funding from 500 Startups.

5. Blue Wire

Blue Wire is an audio-based media company. It hosts more than 120 podcasts with athletes, influencers, and professional sports franchises. The founders recognized that millennials preferred digitized media (like podcasts) over traditional sports radio.

The Blue Wire founders designed a great pitch deck that easily made our best pitch decks list. With only nine slides the company proved a growing need for its solution in the market.

Why Do We Love This Investor Pitch Deck?

This pitch deck successfully displays how sports fans’ habits have shifted from one extreme to another. It explains how television loses 150,000 subscribers monthly, while podcasts have grown by more than 90 million listeners.

The team also proved its future potential by showing the combined follower numbers of its influencers. It also displayed logos from dozens of creators seeking to partner with the company. The deck validates a demand for the solution by showcasing notable statistics. For example, the brand received 2.5 million listens over 11 months and doubled its user base monthly.

The Company Raised HOW MUCH!?

Using this pitch deck, the company raised $150,000 in pre-seed funding. To date, Blue Wire has raised $9.9 million in funding from angel investors and venture capitalists.

6. SnapChat

It seems like Snapchat has been around forever, but it launched just over a decade ago. In 2010, it was just a new social media platform hoping to find its first capital partner. The company had a great concept, a cult-like following, and clear competitive advantages. The company had many positives, but the team still needed a stand-out pitch deck to capture investor attention.

About Snapchat’s Startup Pitch Deck

Founders often use pitch decks to communicate with investors, but they serve other purposes, too. For instance, Snapchat created a sales deck to reach brands with its advertising and marketing services.

The Snapchat pitch deck sacrifices a title slide to get right to the value proposition. It opens with a bold and confident statement, “Snapchat is the best way to reach 13 to 34-year-olds.” This statement immediately draws advertisers’ attention – especially those targeting young millennials. The risk of grabbing viewers’ attention with this approach is that after making the statement, the next slides must prove it.

Snapchat validates its opening statement on the following slide. The team added a message that explains its penetration level for its targeted audience. The slide explains that “More than 60% of 13 to 34-year-old smartphone users are Snapchatters.” Then, it follows up with another intense metric – “2+ billion video views every day on Snapchat.”

Snapchat’s pitch deck provides many lessons that startup founders can learn. First, eliminate the fluff and focus on meaningful statements. Then, use strong statements in your deck that captivate the audience and provide evidence using real data.

The Sales Deck Impact

The sales deck set the foundation for Snapchat’s advertising services. The company now earns more than $2.62 billion in advertising revenue each year.

Snapchat’s sales deck did not influence its fundraising activities. But in case you wondered, the company has raised more than $4.9 billion in investor capital since its inception.

7. Peloton

The home fitness equipment industry continues to reinvent itself with new equipment and products. From ab stimulators to workout video series, there’s always some new brand claiming to help you achieve your dream body.

However, in 2012, Peloton launched as an innovator in the fitness hardware and technology spaces. The company combined traditional fitness equipment with modern tech solutions. Its solution includes internet-connected stationary bikes that enable subscribers to participate in at-home classes through streaming media.

How Peloton Made Our Best Pitch Decks List

The Peloton team knew that its product wasn’t for every person interested in fitness. With a high price tag, Peloton’s customers meet a specific demographic, lifestyle, and income bracket.

The Customer slide outlines Peloton’s ideal customer. These consumers are high net worth, married, and already spending more than $150 per month on fitness. Peloton customers earn a high income and are willing to use their disposable income to achieve their fitness goals.

Peloton’s investor deck shows that the team has deep knowledge of competitors. The team used several slides to explain its competitive advantages over other brands. Statements such as “We are not a gimmicky fitness brand” make a huge impact. The simple sentence puts distance between the brand and those with laughable fitness products (yes, I mean you, Shake Weight).

The pitch deck refutes viewers’ objections immediately and removes the “bad product” stigma often associated with fitness products.

The Venture Capital Raise

Peloton raised $400,000 from investors in the seed round. In a later round, they used their Series A pitch deck to raise $3.5 million. Throughout its lifetime, the company raised $1.9 billion, participated in six acquisitions, and went public (2019).

8. Transferwise

Transferwise (now called Wise) launched in 2010 and emerged as a leader in global payments. Wise, a money transfer platform, allows individuals to send money overseas quickly. The founders realized that millions of people around the world faced high fees for remitting money. By solving this issue for millions of people worldwide, the company earned billions of dollars.

What Stands Out in Wise’s Pitch Deck?

We gave praise to some earlier examples for their minimal approach to text and design. However, we believe Wise has the perfect amount of text for each slide. The deck provides enough information to understand the concept without overloading each slide.

The How It Works slide clarifies how easily users can send money using the platform. In this slide, Wise simplified the remittance process into four steps.

Wise simplified its Competition slide by listing each competitor category and the companies within each group. This approach allows the founders to explain each competitor group during the pitch, instead of comparing each individual company.

How Much Did Wise Raise?

Wise has one of the best seed pitch decks among the unicorn startups of the last decade. With this deck, the company raised $1.3 million in seed funding from IA Ventures and Index Ventures. To date, the company has raised over $1.3 billion from investors.

9. Kickfolio

Kickfolio (now App.io) introduced an innovative tool that allowed iOS applications to run in the browser using HTML5 technology. The technology helps brands promote their applications, find new users, and engage their audience with an interactive application demo.

What Can You Learn From This Pitch Deck?

This pitch deck is an excellent example of how a brand can use visuals to engage viewers with its story. Instead of explaining the solution with bullet points, the team uses product images to demonstrate its functionality. For instance, Kickfolio showcased its traction with a simple but large graph. The team strengthened the slide by explaining user engagement, with a statement that says, “2000+ signups in 6 weeks.”

The company also added real reviews to the pitch deck so investors could see its value proposition in action. By doing so, Kickfolio made it clear how the solution impacts the lives of actual users.

How Much Capital Did They Raise?

With a world-class pitch deck, the founders raised $1.2 million in seed funding from investor partners.

10. Alan

Alan is a unique and innovative digital health insurance platform. The company improves the health insurance process by focusing on the user experience and providing cost-affordable plans. The team established the business in a saturated sector by providing top-level customer service and a competitive product.

Here’s Why We Love This Deck

To be clear, Alan’s pitch deck is more than double the length we’d recommend to our clients. Despite the length, several qualities stand out.

First, the visual presentation is masterful. The design is extensive, but it adds to the presentation instead of taking away from it. Alan’s branding is strong and consistent throughout the deck. It utilizes the brand’s colors and maintains a theme that draws viewers into the presentation.

Alan’s deck begins with an elevator pitch, allowing the audience to understand its product offering immediately. The team also added a slide that explained their purpose for raising Series A funding. With the funding, they plan to expand in Europe and transition into a healthcare platform.

We’ve seen the minimal approach used in several other presentations. Alan definitely did not take this approach. The deck is longer than we recommend, but it gives enough information to stand alone without a presenter. Still, the length of the deck would bore the audience during a live investor pitch.

Alan’s Series A Round

The company raised €23 million during its Series A round. In total, Alan raised over $558.2 million from angel investors and venture capital firms.

11. Castle

Castle is an innovative and process-shifting real estate solution for rental property owners. The company sums up its value proposition with the slogan, “Put your properties on autopilot!”

Ultimately, Castle exists to help owners manage properties without the common landlord headaches. Castle serves a highly specific target market, so the brand may be unfamiliar to you. However, its pitch deck has several shining qualities that any founder can learn from.

What Can You Learn From Castle?

Castle’s presentation is a great example for founders wondering what a great pitch deck looks like. The design is modern and exciting, utilizing a constant theme, graphics, product images, and icons. The icons highlight each point, bringing the viewers’ eyes directly to the most critical points of each slide.

Castle’s format is similar to most pitch deck templates. However, the pitch deck uses this familiar structure to its advantage. The startup immediately showcases the primary customer problem. They present a problem statement that reads, “Rental property owners want to make money without the work of being a landlord.”

Each subsequent slide enhances the overall story and gives the audience another layer of information. The flow leads to a concise elevator pitch – “Automate landlording through software and on-demand labor.”

Castle shows us that the best pitch decks aren’t the ones that present a massive amount of data. Instead, they present the right information at the right time to support the story and capture viewers’ attention.

Did Castle Raise Funding?

Since its inception, Castle has raised $3.3 million in seed funding from angel investors and venture capitalists.

12. Adpushup

Adpushup is a successful startup that streamlines the process of optimizing ad placements. The solution enables publishers to improve ad performance by testing different ad placements, sizes, and types. Adpushup’s pitch deck design is simple, but the information it comprises was critical to the company’s funding success.

What We Like About Adpushup’s Slide Deck

Many entrepreneurs believe revenue is the only attractive metric, but Adpushup proved that other metrics are equally important. For example, the Traction slide validates its rapid growth, using impressions as a metric. This metric enabled them to prove a high demand within the market, even though the business hadn’t earned any revenue.

In addition to describing prospective customers, the deck displays the solution’s impact through existing customer experiences. It includes a case study showing its product’s effectiveness in a real-world scenario. Social proof isn’t just gold for attracting potential customers; it also helps to sell your pitch to investors.

Did Adpushup Raise Seed Money?

Since its inception, Adpushup has raised approximately $632,000 from partnered investors.

13. LinkedIn

(Click the image to view LinkedIn’s pitch deck)

The LinkedIn Series B pitch deck is ancient compared to others on our list. Still, it’s excellent study material for startups looking to develop a compelling investor pitch.

LinkedIn launched during the social media craze, when many new social network platforms entered the market, and competition peaked. However, it took a different approach and focused on a professional audience.

LinkedIn’s deck is overloaded with text and lacks a modern design. Still, it is a fantastic example of how a seed round pitch deck may differ from a later round deck.

LinkedIn’s pitch deck uses a massive amount of text and has an outdated design. However, it is a fantastic example of how a seed round pitch deck may differ from a later round deck.

The Takeaway for Social Media Startups

Seed-round startups should refrain from using as many slides as LinkedIn used in its pitch deck. Brevity is critical to success for early-stage pitch decks. However, in later rounds, more robust decks are often necessary.

By the time it held its Series B round, LinkedIn had grown into serious competitor. Now, the company had several members, proven user engagement, referral metrics, case studies, and a revenue plan. The company had the challenge of presenting this myriad of accomplishments within its deck.

Since LinkedIn already had investors’ attention, it didn’t face the same restraints as a new startup. New startups have to earn the audience’s attention. By the time they have a notable reputation, investors automatically give them their full attention.

LinkedIn’s deck clearly defines its primary focus – establishing its network. Furthermore, it explained why this task is critical to achieving its growth objectives. Successful pitch decks explain how the team will use investor funds to expand the business and scale its success. LinkedIn showed significant traction through the deck, proving that its actual growth outpaced its projected metrics.

How Much Capital Did LinkedIn Raise?

LinkedIn raised $10 million from Greylock Partners during its Series B round. Over its lifetime, LinkedIn raised over $154.8 million in investor funding. The company’s valuation grew to $352.8 million by the time it went public in 2011.

14. Canvas

Canvas provides a business solution that allows corporations and organizations to digitize their paper assets. The solution aims to eliminate paperwork by transitioning business processes through mobile applications.

We selected Canvas as one of the best startup decks because of how it used imagery to draw the audience’s attention.

What Caught Our Eye About This Investor Deck?

Canvas starts its deck with simple visuals explaining how the world has moved from analog to digital. For instance, books changed to eBooks, and CDs transitioned to MP3s. Now, according to Canvas, document storage will shift because of its solution.

In the subsequent slides, the Company describes five massive issues faced by companies with paper-based processes. With this approach, Canvas shows the audience’s specific challenges. Furthermore, it proves the time is right for a new solution to enter the market.

We also appreciate Canvas’s Competitive Landscape slide. Most startups use a table with checkmarks. In contrast, Canvas compares its solution’s approach against competitors. According to the deck, competitors focus on the what, while Canvas focuses on the why.

Canvas Raised How Much!?

Canvas’s pitch deck and investor pitch were successful, and the company raised $24.1 million in investor funding.

15. SickWeather

Sickweather is an app that analyzes data to predict and forecast population health. The app claims to accurately predict illness outbreaks 91% of the time and two weeks before the CDC on average. Sickweather’s sample pitch deck explains the importance of trust and credibility. These factors are especially critical when your clients are some of the most respected brands in the world.

Sidenote: Sickweather became even more relevant after the pandemic. In April 2020, the company launched a COVID-19 scoring feature. This feature made the company a leading predictor of which cities would experience COVID outbreaks.

Sickweather’s Pitch Deck Takeaway

The first thing that caught our attention was the addition of a video on one of the slides. Shorter videos work well during a live pitch, while long videos can help enhance the deck during the introduction stage.

Early in the deck, Sickweather lists previous and existing clients. The mentioned brands are well-known and credible, immediately giving the startup a high level of authority. Furthermore, the team used visual graphs to showcase impressive monthly recurring revenue growth.

Lifetime Capital Raise

Sickweather has raised $2.6 million in investor funding since its inception.

16. Match Box (Tinder)

Match Box is the original name for Tinder, a dating app used by millions of people worldwide. Even with many competitors, Tinder overtook the market by implementing a gaming aspect to its platform. Instead of just adding friends, individuals could swipe left or right to express interest in another user. Match Box’s startup deck is an excellent example of balancing creativity and simplicity to generate investor interest.

What We Like About Match Box’s Pitch Deck

Match Box eventually rebranded to Tinder. Now, Tinder is the most successful dating app in the world. The company’s ability to take over the world started with a well-designed pitch deck.

Match Box’s slides are rather minimal compared to most startup pitch decks. However, it introduces a real-world scenario to explain the problems daters face (fear of rejection). The pitch deck uses each slide to tell a story, and half of the deck simply includes screenshots of the application.

In the pitch deck, Match Box introduces the customer, showcases their challenges, and proves their problem-solution fit.

Finally, the last slide shows a transparent revenue model. Many dating apps struggle to generate revenue. However, in its deck, Match Box showed its process for leveraging its customer base to create several income streams.

Match Box’s Lifetime Funding

In September 2016, Tinder received an investment of $1.4 million. Since then, the company has participated in three separate acquisitions.

17. Airbnb

Today, almost everyone in the nation has used or is familiar with Airbnb. Founded in 2008, Airbnb is a web service that allows people visiting other cities to book rooms from locals.

Airbnb provides a classic marketplace platform that enables renters and travelers to transact. It allows users book a private room or a property, often offering more amenities than a hotel. Property owners act as hosts on the platform, using Airbnb to find renters and earn income from their vacant properties.

With a compelling pitch deck, Airbnb conveyed its advantages against the competition and expressed its unique market position.

The Upside of Airbnb’s Deck

First-time founders often focus all their attention on the presentation’s design and visuals. Unfortunately, while the slides look great, they often lack the essential qualities of a good pitch deck. Over-designing can cause distraction and pull your audiences’ focus to the wrong elements. As Steve Jobs once said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Airbnb’s pitch deck is the perfect representation of effective simplicity. The presentation explains the customer problem, such as the price of hotels. Additionally, it uses real statistics to prove the market potential. It defines the challenge entirely before introducing the company’s product, service, and feature offering.

Airbnb relies on technology to provide its services, but the deck only vaguely mentions the platform itself. One slide explains the technology, but the rest focus on the market and the go-to-market strategy.

The founders represented the solution with only seven words – “Search By City. Review Listings. Book It!” Our team fell in love with this approach.

Entrepreneurs typically spend the entire pitch explaining the product itself. Yet, they don’t spend enough time on the things important to investors, such as the strategy and ROI potential.

Airbnb – A Fundraising Success Story

Before this pitch deck, founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia had no fundraising experience. However, even without expertise, they closed a $600,000 seed round led by Sequoia Capital. In total, Airbnb raised $4.4 billion over several financing rounds.

For more information on what makes this presentation special, see our full breakdown of Airbnb’s pitch deck.

18. TeaLet

Tea is one of the world’s most popular commodities. However, obstacles exist in the supply chain process, slowing down the transfer of goods from farms to individuals. Furthermore, the market relies on middlemen to distribute products, which drives up prices for the final consumer. As a result, tea farmers have to deal with low-profit margins, and consumers can’t access high-quality tea options.

TeaLet exists to streamline the supply chain. The company directly connects tea growers with wholesale buyers and retailers using blockchain technology and a web-based application. As a result, TeaLet has tripled the profits for tea farmers while reducing consumers’ prices for top-quality tea.

TeaLet’s pitch deck enabled the team to achieve its objective of attracting and striking a deal with its first investors.

About TeaLet’s Killer Deck

TeaLet’s pitch deck immediately presents the most important information. The presentation starts by displaying its most vital metric – We’ve sold 100,000 cups of tea in 20+ countries. By quickly showcasing traction, TeaLet’s pitch deck gives the team massive credibility. Furthermore, it grasps the audience’s attention early on in the pitch.

One of our favorite qualities of this pitch deck is the use of hard numbers. The slides use hard numbers to prove the market opportunity. By showcasing market activities (such as acquisitions by similar companies), TeaLet creates FOMO among potential investors.

While content is more important than design, TeaLet’s design theme stands out against many other startup pitch decks. The deck is design-heavy, but the visual adds drama to the message instead of distracting from it.

How Much Funding Did TeaLet Raise?

With a great product and a well-thought pitch deck, TeaLet secured a $240k seed round from angel investors.

19. Moz (SEOmoz)

Moz, formally known as SEOmoz, is a SaaS company that provides a suite of inbound marketing and SEO tools. Gillian Muessig and SEO influencer Rand Fishkin launched Moz in 2004 and transitioned into SEO SaaS software in 2008.

By the end of 2017, Moz served more than 36,000 businesses worldwide. During this period, users crawled more than 168 million URLs and researched over 4.3 million keywords.

Building a leading software solution like Moz is no easy feat. Yet, Moz created an amazing pitch deck that impressed investors and allowed them to secure necessary startup capital.

Why is Moz On Our Best Pitch Decks List?

Rand Fishkin has become the Michael Jackson of SEO. He is well-known as a marketing legend now, but he had to build his legendary status over several years. Moz’s pitch deck explains where the business started and how Rand built the company from inception without outside funding.

Moz used its slides to explain how the founders leveraged free traffic through inbound marketing to build and expand the business. Describing these methods allowed Mox to validate the potential of its software.

This pitch deck is longer than a standard startup pitch deck. However, when the team designed it, Moz had already completed an initial seed funding round and had significant traction. Therefore, in later series rounds, additional slides are often necessary to effectively showcase the growth of the business.

Did Moz Reach Its Funding Objectives?

A strong pitch deck and a validated product allowed Moz to raise $29.1 million over five funding rounds.

20. Front

According to the company Front, it has produced the “first inbox meant for teams.” Using Front, organizations can organize emails, route them to team members, and maximize collaboration. The company launched in 2013 and quickly grew its dominance in the corporate email sector. Today, Front serves over 5,000 businesses and has more than 100 employees.

Explaining Front’s Pitch Deck

The overall aesthetic of startup pitch decks has evolved over the years. Front’s deck comprises elements that you wouldn’t find in older pitch deck examples, like Facebook or LinkedIn.

For example, Front uses a plot graph to showcase how each competitor fits into the landscape. This graphic element is easy on the eyes and makes a complex concept simple. The use of graphics continues with well-placed charts and graphs throughout the deck. Front showcased its traction and growth clearly while maintaining a minimal and clean appearance.

Front’s Fundraising Outcome

Front’s pitch deck enabled the company to reach its funding goals. To date, Front has raised over $79 million in venture funding.

21. Mixpanel

Mixpanel provides a solution that tracks and monitors web and mobile applications. With Mixpanel’s toolset, app owners compare new campaigns with A/B tests, execute user surveys, and build funnels.

The Pros of Mixpanel’s Pitch Deck

The simplicity of this presentation was the element that made us add it to our best pitch decks list. Compared to other pitch decks, it is relatively minimal with a focus on text. However, in a time when most pitch decks are over-designed, Mixpanel’s lack of graphic design stands out.

The founders created a great storyline within the deck that keeps viewers engaged. It begins by clearly stating the market’s problems in a single sentence. Then, it explains the solution with minimal text.

With a dark non-distracting background and white font, the message is clear. Furthermore, it contains singular and focused concepts instead of cluttering the slides with useless visuals.

Mixpanel’s Funding Rounds

The company achieved its financing goals and raised $77 million over five investment rounds.

22. Facebook

If you’re old enough to remember the launch of Facebook, you might recall that it first launched as “thefacebook.” Facebook is a social media platform that Mark Zuckerberg launched in 2004. Over the last 20 years, Facebook has grown to become one of the world’s top-earning companies. The platform has billions of users and an estimated $140 billion valuation.

Pitch Deck Lessons for Social Media Startups

Since Facebook launched in the early 2000s, its pitch deck is now ancient. The startup landscape has significantly changed since Facebook’s early days. Gone are the days when pitch deck slides included entire text paragraphs.

Still, Facebook’s pitch deck accomplished its objectives. It showcased the features, explained the launch strategy, and presented traction. Facebook also added media quotes to validate its impact and showcase its traction.

Facebook’s Fundraising Success

Facebook raised over $1.3 billion before going public in 2012.

23. Buzzfeed

BuzzFeed is an industry-leading internet media, news, and entertainment company that has brought new trends to digital journalism. John Peretti founded Buzzfeed in new York in 2006. It focused on showcasing viral content like articles, lists, videos, and quizzes.

BuzzFeed exploded over its first few years and now hosts several brands, including Nifty, Goodful, As/Is, and Tasty. By 2018, BuzzFeed Video’s YouTube channel had generated more than 13.8 billion views and 17.2 million subscribers.

The Best Aspects of BuzzFeed’s Pitch Deck

BuzzFeed utilized screenshots of the platform throughout the deck, visually engaging viewers and investor audiences. The design strategically visualized important information like revenue and the business model.

In addition, the pitch deck has a strong and attractive Competitor Landscape slide. It shows how the company combines the benefits of the advertising and media sectors.

BuzzFeed’s Lifetime Capital Raise

The BuzzFeed company raised over $496 million and has participated in five acquisitions since its inception.

24. Ooomf (Crew)

Ooomf launched in 2012 as an app discovery platform. After raising $500,000 in a seed round, Ooomf pivoted as a marketplace for digital freelancers.

Ooomf rebranded as Crew, the first marketplace where handpicked creators can work on the projects they love. Ooomf’s marketplace has many clients, including major brands like Apple, Google, Uber, and Dropbox.

Learning From Ooomf’s Pitch Deck

Ooomf made our best pitch decks list because we appreciated its ability to tell a story with minimal text. Each slide is well-designed and suggests a single point of focus. The company used graphics to show the simplicity of creating a project on the platform. It also offers social proof by presenting direct quotes from the platform’s freelancers.

Ooomf’s Fundraising Activity

Ooomf (Crew) raised $9.9 million from 14 investors before participating in an acquisition by Dribbble.

25. Task.ly

Task.ly is a task management tool that helps professionals organize and manage their work lives. The app allows users to track project progress, collaborate with team members, and manage deadlines. The software aims to replace unorganized sticky notes, emails, and tracking docs with one simple-to-use platform.

Task.ly Pitch Deck Lessons

In our opinion, Task.ly’s pitch deck is too long and includes too many slides. With 28 slides, it is more than double the recommended length for startup pitch decks. Fortunately, the team used only a few words on each slide. Therefore, viewers can still flick through the entire deck quickly without spending an excessive amount of time.

Every slide in the pitch deck contains a graphic of some type. Still, every screenshot, image, and icon supports the story and enhances the pitch. Furthermore, the designers condensed the text into short statements – most slide have less than six words.

Lifetime Capital Raise

Task.ly has not released any public funding information. Therefore, we are unsure whether the company raised capital, or how much funding it raised.

26. Pendo

Pendo is a no-code platform that enables businesses to track customer behavior on websites and mobile apps. By leveraging the solution, users can monitor page loads, clicks, focus points, and form submissions. Once the system collects enough data, it draws insights and makes suggestions to improve user engagement.

What Do We Love About Pendo’s Pitch Deck?

As we explained previously, Series B pitch decks are often significantly longer than early-stage ones. By this stage, the business has covered more ground and achieved more milestones. As a result, Series B businesses must represent more information on their slides.

Regarding design, Pendo’s presentation is one of the best pitch decks we’ve come across. Some of the most effective pitch decks lack visual appeal. Still, Pendo squeezed a tremendous amount of information into its slides without compromising the design.

Pendo also used visuals wisely by inserting graphs and charts to display concepts instead of solely relying on text.

Pendo’s Fundraising Success

The team created several decks to raise $108.3 million over seven funding rounds. Furthermore, the company participated in two acquisitions.

27. Coinbase

The Contently solution addresses the three critical elements of content marketing: strategy, platform, and storytellers. The platform streamlines content marketing by combining expert strategy, marketing services, and a global talent network.

Contently now serves over 200 enterprise clients. It also hosts over 140,000 creatives and has paid more than $40 million to its contractors.

Pros of Contently’s Pitch Deck

Contently’s Series B financing deck presents compelling statistics explaining its market product. According to the states, brands often fail to achieve their marketing objectives. The pitch deck uses platform screenshots to showcase its effectiveness and displays client logos to validate its recent traction.

Contently’s Fundraising Activities

With an excellent pitch deck, the founders raised $19.3 million in capital over seven funding rounds.

29. Yaydoo

Yaydoo is a procurement automation platform that allows companies to streamline their purchasing processes. With Yaydoo, businesses can negotiate with several vendors simultaneously and with one click. Furthermore, the platform enables these companies to save on recurring purchases and reduce their team efforts.

Why Do We Love Yaydoo’s Pitch Deck?

Yaydoo effectively got its point across and validated the potential of its solution using only nine slides. The first slide is the most impressive, providing the fine details of the company’s sales over two years. It also displays logos of previous clients to give the brand more credibility. With significant social proof, it is easy to understand the company’s potential and ability to exceed customer expectations.

How Much Did Yaydoo Raise?

Yaydoo succeeded in raising seed funding. However, no public information is available expressing the amount of capital secured.

30. Backstartup

Backstartup’s platform allows startups and SMEs to manage their legal, accounting, and payroll processes. The founders launched Backstartup in Columbia in 2014, and the business now employs over 50 team members.

Lessons From Backstartup’s Pitch Deck

Backstartup’s investor pitch deck is another example of great design. It utilizes pops of colors and strong visuals to engage the audience in the presentation. The founders started the pitch deck by showcasing the projected market size. Subsequently, it explains the product and details the company’s traction.

The Backstartup team only used 11 slides to impress potential investors. Yet, each slide captures the details of the business with a consistent and visually appealing design theme.

Backstartup’s Fundraising History

Backstartup held three funding rounds, raising a total of $905k throughout its lifetime.

Elements of a Fundable Pitch
Deck

Combined with an impressive pitch, a startup pitch deck is essential for successful fundraising. Great ideas with sloppy presentations that leave key questions unanswered usually fail in the fundraising process. To impress investors, brands need a proven idea, a business plan, and a memorable startup pitch deck.

Thousands of startups send their pitch decks to investors every day. In other words, if you seek investor capital, you’ll need to stand out among the competition. Many startups add every detail they can fit in the deck. They describe the number of users, monthly growth, revenue, feature concepts, and more.

However, the best pitch decks provide an organized presentation with a story-like flow. They present the right information, in the optimal order, with supporting visuals that maximize impact.

Pitch decks can help you raise serious capital if done right. Some entrepreneurs utilize pitch deck writers to create the best presentations. But if you’re creating your own deck or using a startup pitch deck template, there are some tips that will help. Check out the infographic below so you can create successful pitch decks worthy of investment.

The post 30 of the Best Pitch Decks That We’ve Ever Seen appeared first on Startup Squared.

What Is An Executive Summary

An executive summary is a short document that precedes a comprehensive business plan. With a length of fewer than two pages, executive summaries provide a quick synopsis of the accompanying proposal.

The main objective of an executive summary is to drive curiosity and convince readers to read the remainder of the business plan document. While the executive summary often reiterates the same points as the business plan, it does so with much less detail.

The executive summary should be relatively short but should provide the data necessary to validate any claims. While the summary includes research, it excludes elements that may be found further in the plan like charts, graphs, and deep analyses.

When seeking to land an investor, secure a loan, or persuade potential partners, a strong executive summary is critical. A successful executive summary makes the reader want to learn more. A failed executive summary makes them lose interest before they have a chance to learn the fine details of the business.

How To Write An Executive Summary That Wins

Throwing together an executive summary on a whim is pointless. Realize its importance and give your best effort. Your ability to get funded may be directly linked to the quality of your summary. In this section, we will show you how to write an executive summary that investors pay attention to. These five tips are based upon our experience after working with hundreds of startups, and they will help you avoid the obstacles faced by many entrepreneurs when writing an executive summary.

Display it first, but write it last.

Executive summaries are always presented first in a business plan format. However, the best summaries are written after the actual business plan has been completed.

As you write your business plan, you will uncover information, detail complex strategies, and introduce the research that backs your claims. In most cases, you will not know the depths of your business until you go through the complete business planning process. 

Once your business plan is written, creating your executive summary becomes much easier. The information in your business plan will lay a foundation for your executive summary and provide the details needed to deliver a convincing case.

Make it persuasive and convincing.

An executive summary isn’t just an informative document. In many cases, an executive summary functions more like a sales document. What are you selling? You’re selling the rest of the plan. 

Business plans can be extensive. A comprehensive business plan can be 40-50 pages or more. Just because you’re excited about having someone read your business plan doesn’t mean that they will be equally excited to read it. Reading through a business plan can be a tremendous time-consuming feat. If you want readers to read your plan, you’ll need to convince them to do so with your executive summary. 

Think of your business plan as if it were a novel. The executive summary would serve the same purpose as the blurb on the back of the book. Before purchasing an unfamiliar novel, most people read the blurb. If the blurb excites them, they consider purchasing the book. If the blurb doesn’t pique their interest though, they will put the book back on the shelf and move on to the next.

Essentially, an investor will do the exact same thing if your executive summary fails to excite them.

Keep it short, but informative.

The ideal executive summary is one page. This length is easily digestible but provides enough room for you to give a thorough synopsis of your plan. Only provide the details that really matter.

Stick to the main points and give the reader something to look forward to. Use the space wisely. Place every word strategically. Each sentence should be well thought out and each section should give the reader exactly what they need to understand your concept better.

Align it with your business plan.

When an investor reads your executive summary, they expect that the accompanying business plan will go into greater detail about what they just read. Don’t use the executive summary to present new ideas. Instead, use it to highlight your business plan’s most prominent ideas. 

Make sure your business plan has a table of contents. Sometimes, readers will read the executive summary and want to immediately learn more about a specific point.

Support it with strong research. 

Don’t oversaturate your executive summary with too much industry research, but give enough to support your case. Cite your resources and show that your ideas are validated by real data. Use data only in the paragraphs where it is most expected. For example, when estimating market size, a strong stat or data point is expected. 

The executive summary isn’t the place to trap readers into a dark-hole of research. Instead, you should use data to help drive the reader’s interest and convince them to continue reading the plan. Consider how stats and data are used in a television commercial. They are used to validate the existence of a problem – not placed just for the sake of presenting data.

Writing Your Executive Summary

Now that you know the rules behind writing a fantastic executive summary, it’s important to choose and follow a proven format. Follow our guide below to write a captivating five-to-six paragraph executive summary.

1) Intro and Company Information

Start off your executive summary by introducing the document and stating its purpose. Arguably, the first sentence is the most important sentence of the entire executive summary.

This section will make the initial impression upon the reader and set the stage for the rest of the document. Provide some background on the business, its founders, and its core values. Use this paragraph to describe any notable milestones that have been reached.

2) Customer Problem

Describe the issues and challenges that consumers face. Why is a solution needed? Use data to validate the existence of a real problem. Does your solution serve a real problem that a large number of consumers are facing?

Just because you realized that a problem exists doesn’t mean that people need a new solution. Some problems aren’t really problems at all, and some aren’t big enough to convince a consumer to pay for a solution.

3) The Solution (Product/Service)

Now that you’ve described the customer problem, you can introduce your product or service – which should be a direct solution to the aforementioned problem. 

Describe what makes your product the perfect solution to their challenge. Explain how it works, what features it entails, and the benefits that consumers will receive by purchasing and using your product or service. Keep your product detail brief. Be strategic in how you present your product. Remember that you don’t just want to present information about your product or service, you want to sell it enough that readers want to continue reading to learn more about it.

4) Market Analysis

In this paragraph, it is important to introduce some of the research and data that you have collected.

Explain what market you will serve, why that market is the right market, and how big that market is. Look for reputable data that shows how many people exist in the specified market or how much revenue a particular market earns on an annual basis. Try to identify what percentage of this market you can realistically capture and how much revenue you can realistically produce.

5) Competition

Competition exists even if you have an incredibly innovative and one-of-a-kind product. It’s important that your executive summary shows that you understand the competitive landscape that your business will operate in. 

Introduce the brands that you will compete with and explain how you will differ. What is your competitive advantage and why would a consumer choose you over the competition?

6) Financials & Financial Ask

At the end of the executive summary, describe the financial side of your business.

Detail the revenue plan. Explain your fundraising goals and itemize your requirements. How will it translate to revenue? When will you break even? 

Be realistic about your financials. Use your research to prove that your projected revenue is actually possible.

Using Your Executive Summary

Simply writing an executive summary isn’t enough. An executive summary is a great tool, but the thing about having a tool is – you must know how to use it! Likewise, you need to know how to write an executive summary that engages and draws curiosity from readers.

Use your executive summary as an introductory document. When having a conversation with an interested party, offer to send them your summary. Keep the file handy on all of your devices (including your mobile phone) so you can email it over immediately.

Send the executive summary over before sending the entire business plan. If you were successful in garnering their attention with your executive summary, they will request more information. At this point, you can supply them with your full business plan or pitch deck to provide further detail about your business. 

Need help writing your executive summary or business plan? We’d love to help. Our business plan consultants have worked with hundreds of startups, helping them raise the funds needed to start and grow their businesses. Contact us today and schedule a consultation!

The post How To Write The Most Effective Executive Summary appeared first on Startup Squared.

Sometimes, your business plan will need to do all the speaking for you. On some occasions, potential investors may ask to see your business plan before they agree to listen to your pitch. The unfortunate part is, an investor’s attention span may be extremely limited to businesses they aren’t already familiar with. If your information isn’t structured into the right business plan format, you may lose their attention quickly.

At ThinkLions, we have worked with hundreds of businesses; helping them create winning business plans and raise funding for their app startups. After years of developing our process, we have put together a tried-and-proven simple business plan format that has worked for many of our clients. In this article, we’ll discuss the business planning process, examine what you need to do before writing your business plan, explain how to develop the best business plan model, and introduce our business proposal outline.

Before You Write Your Business Plan

Writing a business plan isn’t the first step you should take in bringing your idea to life. Every day that you actively advance your business, you will uncover new information that will be important to add to your plan. By nature, basic business plans are full of projections. However, if you haven’t done the necessary work beforehand, you won’t have the data needed to make an honest assessment of your business. Knowing how to format a business plan is part of the formula, but preparation is key to success. 

Your business plan format is important, but it’s more important to make sure that you have met the milestones required to prove the potential of your idea. Before you write your business plan, put the necessary time and effort into accomplishing the following:

1. Know Your Market: Having a fantastic idea means very little if it doesn’t solve a real problem for a real market. The majority of your business plan will center around proving that a market and market demand actually exists. Before writing your business plan, identify your initial market of focus. Learn everything there is to know about your customer. Go out and talk to real consumers. Join forums and online communities where your consumers hang out. Find their pain points. Listen to what they say about competitors. Get to know them intimately. The more you know about your audience, the better you will understand their needs and desires.
2. Validate Your Idea: Once you know who your market is, you should test your idea with them and validate your assumptions. Before you write a business plan and ask an investor to invest in your idea, make sure your idea is worth investing in. Build a minimal viable product (MVP) and launch it to a limited audience. Adapt your product until you’ve truly created something that effectively solves a problem and is in demand by your market.
3. Gather Data: Google is a great source of information, but if you are going to impress investors, you need real primary data from real customers of your business. As you validate your MVP, monitor important metrics such as cost per acquisition, conversion rate, and etc. This data will be used to show traction, forecast trends, and will act as a foundation for your financial projections.

The ThinkLions Business Plan Format

There’s nothing fancy about the business plan format we use at ThinkLions, but it’s a layout that has worked for our business plan writers over and over again. Furthermore, we’ll give you a few tips for each section – tips that we’ve gathered over years and years of developing startup business plans.

Click below to download our business plan format doc.

Executive Summary

Although the executive summary should be written last, it appears first in the business plan outline. In the executive summary, you will give a quick overview of the most notable details. This section should touch on all aspects of your business including the problem, solution, competition, marketing strategy, founding team, and financial projections – but in a condensed manner. Although the executive summary is a component of the business plan, it should be strong enough to stand alone as its own document.

Here are a few tips to make sure your executive summary is as strong as possible:

1. Write it last – Think of your executive summary like the back of a novel. The book itself shouldn’t be built off the summary, but the other way around. Write the rest of the business plan first, and then use the executive summary to summarize the most important points. 
2. Make it persuasive – Your executive summary should display the highlights of your business and build curiosity within the reader. It should make readers want to read the rest of your plan to find out more. Fail to gain their attention with the executive summary and they may not even read the rest of the plan.
3. Get to the point – The executive summary should be brief – about one to two pages is ideal. Be brief, but powerful. Make sure every word counts. Don’t dive too deep though, you’ll have the rest of the business plan to get into the intimate details.

Company Details

After the executive summary, we officially start our business plans with details about the business itself. This includes a company summary with milestones and history; short-term and long-term objectives; and the mission and vision statement.

Company Summary

Start off this section with a quick description of your company. Provide a great elevator pitch and talk about the milestones that you’ve accomplished to date.

Here are a few tips to make sure you nail this part of the business plan:

1. Show progress: As mentioned previously, before you write your business plan (and definitely before you start approaching investors); validate your assumptions by launching a minimal viable product. Show your progress to date. Explain how your progress proves that a demand truly exists for your product or service.
2. Tell the company story: Don’t get too lengthy here, but give readers an idea of how you started your business. Provide context to how the founders realized that a real customer problem existed. This section gives you the opportunity to really connect with readers and to get them excited about your business.
3. Provide metrics: Even if you have fantastic writing skills, it’s the numbers, stats, and metrics that investors really pay attention to. Show your most outstanding metrics here. If you have 1,000 customers already using your solution, explain it in detail. Or, if you have already started earning revenue, showcase how much revenue you’ve earned so far. Likewise, if you have generated fantastic marketing metrics, tell readers about it and explain why it matters!

Objectives

Before you start talking about the strategy to meet your goals, you need to make those goals known. Think about your financial goals, your user objectives, the goals you have for the development of your product, your team ambitions, and more. In some way or another, every section in our business plan format will be used to describe the steps you will take to meet these goals and objectives.

Mission/Vision Statement

Construct a great mission and vision statement and include it here. Think deeply about what your company really is, who you serve, and what you stand for. The best mission statements are short and to the point, but powerful enough that readers can easily comprehend why the company needs to exist.

Products and Services

You’ve already given a summarized version of what your business is, but now you will get into the real detail of your actual product or service. In this section, describe the product’s features and abilities. Consider the features that set your products apart from competitors. If you’re in the ideation stage, your product may not physically exist yet; but this section should be written so well that readers can easily visualize it. If you have a physical product, add images or 3D product blueprints. If you are an app startup, show screenshots of the app or wireframe images.

Industry and Customer Analysis

Every business plan format will include some type of industry and customer analysis. These are the sections where you will include research to prove that a market and demand actually exists for your product or service.

Industry Analysis

Don’t assume that you will be successful just because you have a cool product. Successful businesses are those that solve a problem for a specific market (or multiple markets). Furthermore, even if you can prove a market exists – you still need to prove that the market is actually in demand for the product or service your offer.

Select the market that is best served by your product or service. Research it deeply. Find the data and statistics that support your case and explain why those stats are important. Look at how the market has grown historically, and identify trends that show where it will grow in the future.

Customer Personas

Once you’ve identified the markets you will serve, it’s important to also explain exactly who your customer is. How old are they? What do they do for a living? Are there specific challenges do they face? Which publications do they read? What podcasts do they listen to? Who are the influencers that they follow online? Where do they live? What are their interests? The more you know about who your customer is, the more effectively you will be able to reach and serve them.

Detail your ideal customer as if they were a real person. Give them a name and write this section in a way where a reader can immediately understand who your customer is. After giving life to your customer persona, answer this question – how does your business solve their specific problem?

Marketing Strategy

The marketing strategy will explain specifically how you will reach the market and convert them into buyers of your product or service.

Pricing & Positioning

In this section, you will explain your pricing strategy and showcase how your business will bring in revenue. Will you succeed by being cheaper than competitors? Will you provide a ‘luxury’ service or product and charge more than less-luxurious competitors? Consider how your product will be positioned in comparison to competitors and display the prices you have selected for each product or service you offer.

SWOT Analysis

The SWOT Analysis will allow you to describe your business’ strengths and weaknesses; the opportunities that you will capitalize on; and the threats the business will face. Typically, a SWOT Analysis is presented in a matrix with bulleted points, but we advise adding a section under the matrix that explains each point in more detail.

Marketing & Promotional Techniques

Since you’ve already launched a minimal viable product to the market, you should have an idea of what techniques you need to capitalize on to reach your audience. There are many different marketing strategies you can implement from SEO to influencer marketing to ads and beyond, but you should only focus on the most effective strategies that will allow you to quickly acquire new customers with a low CPA.

Furthermore, explain the expenses involved with implementing each strategy and the return on investment that you expect. If you mention Facebook marketing, explain how much you will put towards marketing each month, how much you will spend per click, and what percentage will convert into paying customers.

Competitive Analysis

The competitive analysis should thoroughly detail how your solution compares to your competitors’ solutions. To make it easily digestible, consider adding a table that shows each feature of your business and product; and show how it compares to the features that your competitors offer.

Also, describe your competitive advantages. What makes you special? Why should consumers choose your solution over the competition? Even if your business is closely similar to the competition, there should be something that makes it unique. Explain your unique selling points and what makes your business stand out amongst others.

Operational Strategy

There is much more to operating a business than just having a good idea. Bad operations can quickly derail a business, while a strong operational strategy can help catapult a startup to success. In our business plan format, we focus on several main areas of operation – Location, Quality Control, Customer Service, Staffing & Training, and Organizational Structure.

Quality Control

No matter if you are offering a physical product, a service, or software – quality is key. Maintaining quality though can be harder than it seems.

• When dealing with physical products, it’s important to figure out how your product will be manufactured and how you will ensure that the manufacturers are maintaining a high-quality standard. Explain how quality will be assessed at each stage from manufacturing to final delivery.
• Those offering services will often need to depend upon their employees and staff to deliver the best level of service to customers. Employees that deliver underwhelming services can cause customers to perceive the entire brand negatively. In this section, describe the processes you will put in place to help employees deliver the best services, and how these services will be assessed for quality.
• Software products can be extremely fickle. One line of bad code could potentially crash an entire system. In this section of the business plan format, consider how you will deal with bugs and software updates. Describe your relationship with your developers – will they be in-house or third party? If a third party will be used, how will you ensure that they will be available to quickly address bugs found in the product?

Customer Service

Let’s face it, even the strongest brands are faced with dissatisfied customers every now and then. The way in which you deal with these dissatisfied customers will be critical to your success as a business. A single detractor can potentially turn away dozens of potential customers with one bad online review. In fact, consumer reviews are trusted up to 12 times more than a manufacturer’s description. The way in which you serve your customers, and not just the happy ones, will play heavily on how much consumers trust your brand.

In this section, address exactly how you will deal with customer dissatisfaction. Will you have a no-questions-asked return policy or will you only allow returns after 7 days? If a customer is dissatisfied by the service your employees provided, will you send someone else out to fix it? The steps you take to remedy your customer situations may have immediate implications on your financials – for example, a recall could cost a business millions of dollars. However, the impact of a dissatisfied customer (or several) will cost much more in lost business and diminished brand trust.

Staffing & Training

Unfortunately, your personal capacity is limited – there are only so many hours in the day and so much energy you can exert before you become overwhelmed. For any successful B-quadrant business, having the right staff in place at the right time is critical.

For this section, thoroughly assess what your staffing needs will need to be over the next 3-5 years to meet the goals that you outlined in the “Objectives” section. If your objective is to scale 10x over the next year, you will also need to scale your team so that there is enough capacity to meet that goal. If your goal is to expand internationally within 3 years, you may need to hire international staff to manage things on the ground in these regions. Each position should be reflected in your business plan, along with their expected date of hire and salaries.

Unfortunately, employees don’t come already trained. Even if they are highly experienced in their specific area, they will likely need some guidance. How will you train them for success? Will you have a specific training program that each employee must attend? If so, this is the section to talk about it!

Organizational Structure

Now that you know what employees you will need to hire, you can create a simple hierarchy structure that shows who will manage each department and which positions will fall within those departments.

Management Team

Great businesses don’t build themselves. Instead, they are built by fantastic teams who have the right skills and backgrounds. An amazing business idea without a great founding team is like a racehorse without a jockey – it may have potential, but it’s the rider that pushes it to success. In this section of the business plan format, show that you have the right team and right advisors to launch, grow, and scale a profitable business.

Management Bios

The most effective teams have several motivated members who each have skill sets that complement one another and contribute to the overall progress of the business. When writing the bio for each member, consider the following:

• Background: Take a look at the background of each team member. Do they have past experiences that will help move the business forward?
• Skills: What skills are necessary to successfully implement the steps described in the business plan? Are all of these skills present in your current team?
• Contribution & Responsibility: What tasks are each individual responsible for? What have they contributed to the business thus far?

Advisor Bios

Great founding teams also have extensive networks with advisors that they can turn to for advice and insight. Businesses often face challenges, but by relying on the experiences of others, teams can often avoid certain obstacles or solve them quickly.

In this section of the business plan format, provide a short bio for the advisors that have committed to working with you. Detail who they are, what achievements they have made, and the highlights of their backgrounds.

Financial Projections

When writing your own business plan, the financial model is likely where you will find the most difficulty. If you are a startup, your financial model will include future projections with a 3-5 year window. If you are writing a plan for an existing business, the model will include financials from the previous several years, along with future projections. In most cases, a proper financial model will include:

• Profit and Loss Statement: Summarizes projected revenue, costs and expenses.
• Balance Sheet: Displays the company’s assets, liabilities and equity at a specific point in time, showing a balance between outgoing and income funds.  
• Cash Flow Statement: Shows how the cash balance is affected by changes in balance sheet accounts. Also shows the impact of investing and financing activities.

Here’s the major tip for developing the financial model for your business plan – minimize assumptions. While there will be certain things that you will need to assume it’s best when your model uses real numbers.

• The best financial model uses past financial history to forecast future revenues, expenses, and profits. For startups, this may mean launching a minimal viable product, getting it in the hands of real users, and generating real stats.
• An average financial model uses secondary data from highly reliable sources, studies, and surveys. However, secondary research only relates to the overall industry – while using real numbers from your business relates directly to how your business performs within the overall industry. Secondary research is good, but statistics may vary from one study to another. Make sure you only use data from high-quality and reputable sources.
• The least effective financial models are full of assumptions. In these plans, entrepreneurs guess what their expenses will be, what portion of the market they can reach, and how much revenue they can generate; instead of backing it up with real data and research.

Funding Requirement

Finally, reveal your financial ask and explain exactly why you need that amount. Itemize where each dollar will be spent to give readers a clear understanding of your financial requirements. Lastly, state the amount of equity that will be given in exchange for the investment – based upon the current value of your startup.

Exit Strategy

Some business plan writers choose to include an exit strategy, while some do not. Some investors will require it so that they can get an idea of when they will receive their investment back along with a major payoff. Others, however, know that the future of a startup is totally uncertain, and therefore, they don’t really pay much attention to this section.

Whether you decide to include the exit strategy in your business plan format is up to you – but if you do, here are a few tips:

• Research similar businesses that had a successful and profitable exit. Were they acquired? Did they merge with another business? Did they go public? Explain how other similar businesses were able to exit and why you believe your business will be able to exit in a similar fashion.
• Tie your exit into your financial projections and show a projected valuation. Furthermore, show how an XX% ownership in the company (whatever percentage an investor would receive for matching your financial ask) will multiply in returns at exit based upon that valuation.

Using Our Business Plan Format

Unfortunately, just having a great business plan format isn’t enough – now you have to actually write your plan. When creating your business plan, stick to the facts. Investors have short attention spans when it comes to even a simple business plan, and too much fluff will quickly diminish their interest. The length of your business plan is important, but the quality of the information is what will get you funded.

Furthermore, some investors (and banks) may have specific business plan formats that they prefer. Make sure to do your research on their specific requirements before writing and submitting your business plan.

Need help getting your business plan together? Contact us today and schedule a consultation with one of our business plan experts!

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In the early stages, a startup’s true value is likely somewhere in the range of: lower than what a founder hopes it to be, and higher than what an investor is hoping to pay for a portion of equity. When revenue is not in play, there are many other factors that become more important to calculating a fair startup valuation, and many of these factors can be quite subjective.

What are these factors? When it comes to a pre-revenue startup valuation, what do investors look for? How do you secure an investment for your startup when you haven’t yet produced any sales? In this post, we want to find the answers to these questions and show you everything you need to know to prepare the best startup valuation when seeking investment.

Why Is Valuing A Startup So Difficult?

Negotiations between an investor and a startup can be tense. On one end, founders approach the situation hoping to raise the largest amount possible while offering the lowest amount of equity. On the other end, investors are looking for the best deal – invest the least amount of money and receive the largest percentage of equity. While these type of startup and investor deals make headlines, really they are no different than any other transaction – a seller wants the highest value for their offering, while a buyer wants the best product or service for the lowest price.

When investors invest in a company however, they are buying into the future value of a company; and using previous and current value to assess how high that future value may be. For an established company, investors can look at financials over several years and use historical data to predict the future performance of a company. Early-stage startups don’t have historical financial data though, and value must be assessed by examining other important factors. Investors have to be especially realistic about the value and potential of a startup; on average,75% of venture-backed startups don’t make it far enough to return cash back to the investor.

There are many different elements that can be considered for a pre-revenue startup as a proof of potential; but really, which factors are most relevant and which are weighed most heavily is highly dependent upon the type of business itself. A social media app, for example, may be able to garner a high startup valuation solely off of a large user base – while a B2B SaaS solution may need to prove their potential by showcasing long durations of user sessions and a high percentage of conversions to paid subscription packages.

Through our discussions with several investors, CPAs and other financial parties, we’ve narrowed down the three most important factors for a high pre-revenue startup valuation – a strong founding team, proven traction, and a viable future financial projection. In the following sections, we will examine each of these factors, explain how they relate to value, and teach you how to strengthen these factors for a better startup valuation.

The Value of a Founding Team

For a pre-revenue startup, one of the greatest predictors of success is the strength and experience of the founding team. A team of founders that have a history of bringing other startups to success, for instance, would be more highly valued than a team of first-time entrepreneurs with little experience. Furthermore, a team of four people with diverse and focused skills would typically provide more value to a startup than a single founder team.

Mike Raab investor at Sinai Ventures in San Francisco explained exactly why a strong founding team is so important when he considers investing in a startup. Mr. Raab explained, “At an early-stage company, the most important factor that investors consider is the startup team. Does the team have demonstrated success and experiences that make them uniquely qualified to build a venture-scale business in this sector? Ideas are frankly very common (there are often many different companies building similar products to solve the same problem), and investors look for the team that has the background and knowledge to
perform and outlast the rest.”

How strong is your founding team? Here are a few attributes of a valuable team:

• Proven Experience: Investors want to know that a startup team has what it takes to succeed. Startup founders that were previously involved in other successful startups are immediately valued higher than founders with no experience. As an extreme example; if Mark Zuckerberg walked into an investor’s office, his reputation would most likely precede him. His past success with bringing startup ventures to the top would be extremely valuable to any new business he participated in. However, it’s not just those with a successful entrepreneurial background that are valuable to a business. A developer that had a significant position at a well-known software company may have an advantage when developing his own software. A successful financial manager may have an advantage when pitching a financial solution since he has unique experience within the industry. How one’s experience can benefit a specific startup is subjective – but experience plays a major role in the way an investor perceives the associated risk of a startup.
• Skills Combination: A startup team should consist of several individuals, who each have a different but complementary skill set that can help progress the
  startup. A programmer with no marketing background may benefit from having another programmer as their partner; but the team could be much more effective if he/she partnered with an experienced marketing expert instead. Identify what skills are necessary to scale your startup and seek to fill in those gaps to increase your team’s overall value.
• Commitment & Dedication: Having a great founding team means very little if none of the team members are actually available to execute the required work. For example, a developer that is involved in multiple projects may have very little time to allocate to building the software – and while they may be a valuable member, their involvement is devalued by their time limitations. Build your team with highly-motivated individuals who are committed to bringing the startup to success.
• Advisory Board: It’s not just your founding team that is important, but value can also be found in people who advise the board when making important decisions. Experienced advisors can help startups avoid obstacles, help them make more informed decisions, and can even introduce them to potential investors or clients within their network. Look for mentors you can lean on – successful entrepreneurs, industry leaders, and individuals who have the knowledge to help you in your mission.

How much is an awesome team worth, exactly? Well, it’s not quite that clear cut. According to Ken Stalcup, CPA at Houlihan Valuation Advisors; it’s not the team itself that adds the value, but the revenue that those members can generate as a result of their experience. While telling us the process of calculating startup valuation, Ken told us, “We definitely consider the potential for the startup team, their experience, their expertise and so on. [However,] we wouldn’t typically associate a particular value for the startup team; rather, the startup team would be a factor considered when determining the potential growth and quality of future revenues. The better the team – the better the prospect for future revenues.”

Traction is Proof of Concept

When it comes to startup valuation, traction tells the true story of the business – and it doesn’t always come down to revenue. Mike Raab explained, “If a company can organically (without paid marketing) acquire a significant number of users, or demonstrate very low CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) compared to the potential LTV (Lifetime Value) of the customer, the unit economics are more favorable for venture investors.” In other words, what really brings value to a startup is proof and evidence that an idea is viable and scalable to a large market.

Which metrics you use to prove effective traction will be specific to your startup; however some of the most important app metrics for startup traction include number of users, a proven app marketing strategy and a strong growth rate.

Number of Users

A solution that has acquired a large number of users (compared to the size of it’s addressable market) will have a higher valuation. By securing a large quantity of users, startups can prove that they are able to attract consumers, that users are satisfied with their product, and that there is an existing network that can be monetized.

What does a large number of users look like in solid numbers? Obviously, it’s not that simple. The goal is to penetrate the addressable market, but not all markets are equal in size – and therefore, what seems like “many users” for one app solution, may seem like very few users for another. For example – A solution that serves a large portion of the market, like a social media app, may need 100,000 users to make an impression; while a B2B solution that monetizes consumers with a monthly subscription may be able to show exceptional traction with only 500 paying users.

Having a large user base is a major accomplishment, but what really matters is how those users behave once they have downloaded your application. A million users sounds amazing if that is the only information given – but is it still amazing if 998,000 of those users never returned to the app after using it once? In this situation, having a large user base actually hurts value and shows that a major flaw exists. When considering the number of users during your startup valuation, consider the whole story by analyzing a variety of user metrics such as user retention, daily and monthly active users, session length and more.

In terms of the value of a user base, Ken Stalcup commented, “The value of current users is similar to the overall value of the company. That is, we typically want to see a projection of the revenues associated with the existing users. From there, annual cash flows from current users can be calculated and a present value can be associated with that income stream. Obviously, as [the number of] users grow, there will be more value. If users are anticipated to decline, value will decline.”

Effectiveness of Marketing

As Mike Rabb mentioned, a startup that has proven its ability to acquire high value customers at a low cost has a major advantage when seeking investment. Even if current users have not yet been monetized, showing that a strong marketing strategy has been identified and optimized has the potential to increase startup valuation significantly. Taking a small marketing budget and generating a substantial number of users (in comparison to acquisition costs) proves that with a larger budget, the startup would be able to scale its user base exponentially with little risk.

Growth Rate

What makes a large existing user base even more attractive? Knowing that it’s going to keep growing and growing in the near and distant future. A history of incremental scale and growth, even if small, can add considerable value to your startup. If you can grow consistently with a small budget, the potential is great that you will be able to scale larger and at an accelerated pace with the investment of an angel or VC.

Here’s the key to gaining traction. These three concepts are interconnected – a super effective marketing strategy leads to strong growth; and when your growth is strong, your user numbers inevitably increase. Figure out the first things first – build a great solution that is in demand by your market and learn how to get it in front of your consumers at a low cost.

How Valuable Can Your Startup Become?

While there may not be a hard monetary value on each of the factors we explained, all of them fit into the overall value of a startup. Hard metrics like number of users, customer acquisition costs and per customer monthly spend can be directly accounted for in a financial projection – but intangible assets like founders’ experience provide a measure of confidence that the projections can actually be reached, and this is equally as important.

Ken Stalcup gave excellent advice into how his firm typically calculates a startup valuation: “To put a value on a tech startup, we would typically want to see a five-year projection of the company’s future revenues and expenses. Using those projections, we would develop an estimate of the annual cash flows, add all of the estimated annual cash flows together and calculate the present value of that total number. Pre-revenue startup valuation is accomplished by calculating the present value of the estimated future income stream of the company.”

The Perfect Mix For The Best Startup Valuation

What does a valuable pre-revenue startup look like to an angel investor or a venture capital firm? Mr. Raab explained why his firm, Sinai Ventures, recently decided to invest into a startup called Kapwing: “In July, Sinai Ventures invested in Kapwing, a free software tool for intuitively creating and editing video content and memes. While the company had some revenue, it wasn’t of material scale. However, the co-founders had a clear product vision and had built an impressive user base completely organically in just a few short months. Their backgrounds, traction, and expertise & excitement about what they were building made it an easy decision for us to invest.”

When a startup gets funded at a high startup valuation, it’s typically because they have the perfect mix of positive elements that prove the likelihood that the startup will succeed and generate a substantial return. When you can easily prove that your startup possesses all the pieces needed to achieve grand success, the value of your company will increase and you will be better able to calculate a fair financial ask and equity offering.

Mr. Raab gives the following advice for startups that are seeking investment at the highest valuation: “Get your product in front of customers, get their feedback, and iterate until you have customers who love your product. Product-market fit doesn’t necessarily mean revenue – it means demonstrating that there is a core user for your software who loves what you’ve built and is willing to pay for it (in one way or another). If you have customers willing to provide reference calls on your behalf to tell investors why they love your product, why they’re willing to pay for it, and why it’s better than the competition – investors will take notice.”

Need help creating financial projections to better assess your startup valuation? Our experts can help. At ThinkLions, our business plan writers and consultants have worked with hundreds of startups around the world – creating app business plans and pitch decks that have helped raise millions of dollars in investment. Contact us today to discuss how we can help you bring your app startup to life!

The post Startup Valuation: What Is Your Pre-Revenue Startup Worth? appeared first on Startup Squared.

Unfortunately, many apps fail and there are definitely more failures than successes. Successful startups heavily assess the metrics associated with their application so that if something isn’t performing as expected, they can catch it quickly and bring it up to par. For many ‘failed’ apps, only a few numbers are given consideration – especially traffic and revenue. While these factors can give some insight into an app’s performance, high traffic and revenue alone doesn’t mean your app is succeeding. Consider these scenarios and whether they truly identify a successful startup situation:

• App “A” receives 50,000 new downloads every month, but only 1% of them visit the app a second time.
• App “B” earns $100,000/month in revenue; more than most app startups. However, they spend $110,000/month on advertising.
• App “C” has a download rate of 20,000 users per month to it’s free version, but almost no subscriptions to it’s premium versions.

Are these apps successful? They are if you only consider traffic and/or revenue, but when considering other variables, it is obvious that neither of these examples are sustainable over the long term – and maybe not even over the short term.

The key to ensuring that your app is performing successfully is to track the right KPIs; constantly checking them to make sure that you are reaching the right objectives. Why are app metrics important, specifically?

1. They can help you identify opportunities to improve your software or strategy.
2. They can help you identify when your strategy is not performing up to par.
3. They give you a historical representation of whether you are experiencing growth over a specified period of time.

In the following article, we will take a look at which app metrics are most important over each stage of the software development and launch process.

When Should You Track App Metrics?

There are many different types of app metrics that can be tracked, but knowing when to track each metric is as important as knowing which metrics to track. Some metrics are better tracked during the launch stage, while others are more important during the growth and scale stages.

1. Launch – This stage is the beginning of the app journey when an app is just released to the market. In this phase, metrics can help you prove your concept, identify new opportunities, and catch potential weaknesses in your application.
2. Growth – This stage represents the time when an app concept has already been proven and the developer is seeking to retain and monetize their users. Metrics here can help you improve engagement and improve the lifetime value of each customer.
3. Scale – In this stage, metrics allow the developer to improve their brand image and compete better in the marketplace.

Launching With The Right App Metrics

Once your minimal viable app has been created and launched to the app store, there are three app metrics you should be especially focused on to make sure that you are on track with your marketing and executional assumptions:

Number of Downloads

The number of downloads or installs you receive provides immediate feedback on how well your app is performing in the market. If you are receiving many downloads, or many downloads relative to your marketing efforts, then you know you are on the right track. Very few (or zero) downloads likely suggests that something is flawed in your marketing strategy, your app description, or your assumption of the customer problem.

According to CBInsights, approximately 14% of apps that fail do so as a result of poor marketing. Knowing how to advertise an app is key to achieving a high number of downloads. If a lack of marketing is holding you back from reaching users, here are a few techniques you can implement to improve your number of downloads:

• App Listing Optimization: In many cases, apps can fail because they don’t express the benefits of the solution well enough to users. While marketing an app is critical to its growth and success, statistics show that 63% of users discover a new app through the app store. Consistently optimizing and A/B testing your app listing will allow you to slowly perfect your listing for best performance.
• Paid Advertising: Paying for ads through platforms like Facebook is an easy way to drive targeted traffic directly to your application. With millions of users, these advertising platforms allow you to reach consumers from your exact demographic and generate new downloads. The caveat is, ads can be expensive for a startup – especially if they aren’t optimized for best performance. Like app listings, it is critical to constantly test, optimize and improve your ads for best performance and lowest cost.
• Referral Marketing: An extremely effective method for getting new users to your application is to tap into the network of any current users. Dropbox, for instance, offered extra storage to users that invited their associates to sign up. By employing similar referral strategies, you can acquire more users faster and for a fraction of the cost. Furthermore, this type of marketing adds in an extra layer of buyer confidence – since the referral is coming directly from someone they know and trust, they are more likely to respond positively.

User Retention

App downloads relate to how well you are able to attract users to your application, but does not measure how successful you are in engaging those users. The level of user retention on the other hand, will give you a better understanding as to whether the users you attracted actually return to the app after their first use. According to Localytics, across every industry, the average app only retains 20% of its users after a period of 90 days.

How is user retention defined? Usually, it is defined as the number of users that return the app at least one time within 30 days or one month.

If user retention is low, this means that while people are downloading your app, something is causing them to abandon it. Statistically, 1 in 4 users abandon an app after only opening it once. This can be for one of many reasons – maybe the app was too difficult for them to navigate; maybe they simply forgot about it; or maybe, the app just doesn’t solve their problem the way they expected.

The first step to improving this app metric is to identify why users aren’t returning. Furthermore, these steps will help you improve your user retention:

1. Improve The Onboarding Experience: Consider the process that a user will experience as they download, install and use your app. Is it simple to understand? Does it have a familiar navigation? App users have very limited patience – if they don’t understand your software right away, it’s very likely that they will abandon it. Make sure that users understand exactly how to use your app – whether it be through user videos, an initial tutorial, or a strong FAQ section that answers their usage questions.
2. Implement Push Notifications: App users don’t just use a single app, and in some cases, they may use several apps to accomplish the same goal. Even if your app perfectly suits their need, they may not have realized its effectiveness at first exposure. They may have even forgotten that they downloaded the app – or may have planned to come back, but never did. In any case, push notifications can remind users to come back and give your app another chance. However, push notifications can become annoying to users if they are overused; and if misused, can be a surefire way to ensure that a visitor deletes your app immediately. Use push notifications only on rare occasion, and consider how receptive your users may be to these notifications before launching them.
3. Retarget With Ads: A less intrusive way to regain the attention of users that have abandoned your application is to use retargeting ads – ads through Google and Facebook (among other platforms) that allow you to directly reach individuals who have downloaded your app, but have not returned since their initial visit.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

Outside of making an app go viral to receive organic traffic, it is likely that any long term customer acquisition strategy will come at some cost. Likely, you will need to engage in a combination of paid marketing techniques to promote your app and draw in new users.

Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) refers to the amount that must be spent to acquire a single user.

CPA is an extremely important app metric – if the cost to acquire a customer is higher than the value of that customer, you may quickly find your startup falling into the financial red zone. By tracking cost per acquisition per marketing channel, it is simple to identify which of your marketing efforts are performing well, and which ones are too costly for the business to sustain.

There is no quick fix to improving your CPA; however, every marketing channel needs to be optimized for best performance. As you optimize your marketing strategy to perform more effectively, you will slowly begin to reduce your CPA until it is optimal for your specific business. The optimal CPA for any business is one that is lower than the value of the customer that has been acquired. A business that earns a revenue of $1 per customer cannot sustain a CPA of $5, while a business that makes $1,000 per customer would find a $5 CPA to be more than ideal for the growth of their startup.

Tracking The Growth Of Your App

Once you’re able to acquire new customers at an acceptable cost, and are able to retain those customers over several months; it is important to track how users are using your app so that you when you acquire a customer, they stay around for the long term. As you grow your application, several other important app metrics come into play, such as Stickiness Ratio, Average Session Time and Screen Views Per Session.

Stickiness Ratio

While user retention (or how many people visit the app multiple times per month) is important, an app’s Stickiness Ratio takes it a step further. Specifically, the Stickiness Ratio is formulated by first tracking two other metrics – DAU and MAU:

• Daily Active Users (DAU) refers to the number of users who visit your app over a 24-hour period.
• Monthly Active Users (MAU) refers to the number of users who visit your app over a 30-day or one month period.

Stickiness Ratio is calculated as the ratio of users per day in comparison to users per month – or DAU/MAU.

If an app’s stickiness ratio is at 10%, this would mean that on average, a user visits the app 3 out of 30 days. Likewise, a stickiness ratio of 90% would mean that on average, a user visits an app 27 out of 30 days.

Increasing the ‘stickiness’ of your app means transitioning users who use the app a few times a month into those who use an app multiple times per month. This can be done by improving the in-app experience, reducing bugs, offering new features, or by incentivizing users for using the app continuously throughout the month.

Average Session Time

It’s a great thing if people are signing into your app often, but the true test of how engaged your users are is how long they stay on your app when they visit. Consider an app like Snapchat, where users not only sign in often, but spend hours engaging with the application and it’s network. Popular mobile games also have long average session times – engaging the user so that they stay on for long periods of time.

There are some ways to minimally improve average session time like gamifying the experience or regularly updating with fresh content – but people stay on apps that solve their problems and command their attention. Focus on improving your solution to truly meet the need of your users and it will automatically entice them to stay on your app for a longer period of time.

Screen Views Per Session

As its name implies, this app metric refers to the average number of screens viewed during a single session. In general, the more screens that a user interacts with during each session; the more engaged they are with your application. Typically, an app with a high number of average screen views per session, will also have a high average session time and a high stickiness level.

Since screen views per session relate directly to engagement, improving this metric often comes down to delivering the features and abilities that your audience is looking for. When users find a great solution to their problem, they tend to engage more thoroughly with that solution, visit it more often, and view more screens each time they visit your app.

Bonus Tip: It’s not just about how many screens a user views, but also how they engage with those screens. Use a great heat mapping or screen recording software to gauge the user’s experience as they use your app. This type of software will give you major insight into what pages, features and screen areas are most important to your audience – and on which screens they are dropping off. Use these insights to improve on areas that are not performing well, or to create a more desirable feature list that better reflects what the user is looking for. Furthermore, this type of software can help you identify issues and bugs within your application such as app crashes, latency issues and loading speed.

Using Metrics To Scale Your App

There are also some subjective app metrics that aren’t necessarily ‘hard data’, but that can still be used to effectively improve your app software. While many metrics require you to analyze the data deeply to pull out valuable insights, these metrics provide you with the feedback you need – right from the customer’s point of view. While there are many metrics that are important in this stage, two subjective metrics that are extremely critical are App Reviews and Net Promoter Score.

App Store Reviews

There’s an old saying that goes, “The customer is always right.” Whether this is 100% true or not, there is one thing that is a definite fact – reviews from previous users will weigh heavily on a potential user’s decision to choose to download or not download your application. According to studies by Apptentive, 59% of people check an app’s reviews before downloading it. With a majority of positive reviews, customers become excited about downloading an app so that they can experience the same level of benefit as previous users. Likewise, even a single negative review can turn off a potential user if it is powerful enough to make them believe that they will meet the same fate of dissatisfaction – and if they still download and eventually realize the same fate, it is likely that they will leave an equally negative review.

As an app startup or developer, you have little direct influence on this metric. However, by paying attention to what users are saying about your app (whether positive or negative), you can get a better grasp on what is working with your application, and what needs to be fixed to suit your customer’s needs more effectively.

Even without reading reviews, your app’s star rating can equally persuade users to download or not download your app. A rating under 4 stars may have the ability to instantly convince a potential user that the app is not worth their time. Welcome all feedback about your app, whether positive or negative. The first step to optimizing your app for best performance is to know what aspects of your software are helping your users and which are hindering them from a successful and positive experience.  

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net Promoter Score helps businesses measure customer experience and better predict potential growth. This metric isn’t just centered around software, but is used by all types of businesses over various industries to better understand customer satisfaction.

NPS is calculated by comparing the difference in the number of users that are considered ‘detractors’ and those considered ‘promoters’. Specifically, Net Promoter Score is calculated through the following steps:

1. Customers are asked to rate your app/product/brand on a 10 point scale; with 1 being the lowest satisfaction score and 10 being the highest.
2. These customers are then categorized into three groups – detractors, passives and promoters. Those who rate between 1-6 are considered detractors, or unhappy customers that can hurt your app or product through negative word of mouth. Those who rate between 7-8 are considered passives, or individuals who are relatively satisfied, but can easily be swayed to a competitive solution. Those who rate a 9 or 10 are the most loyal customers who will continue to use your app and may even refer others to download it.
3. Calculate the percentage of those in each category. For example, if 100 users are surveyed and there are 20 detractors, 30 passives and 50 promoters; then this would calculate to 20% detractors, 30% passives and 50% promoters.
4. Finally, NPS can be calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters (% of promoters – % of detractors). NPS is not expressed as a percentage however, but as an absolute number. In the above example from #3, the formula would look like this:50% promoters – 20% detractors = +30 NPS

Net Promoter Score can range anywhere from -100 to +100. Any score over 0 is considered a good score; over 50 is considered an excellent score; and over 70 is considered as the best of the best . A score under 0 means that there are more people dissatisfied with your app than those that are satisfied; and more research needs to go into figuring out what your customer is really looking for to increase their satisfaction while using your application.

Having knowledge of how your app is performing is critical – however, metrics are useless if you just occasionally look at them and do nothing to improve them. Every app metric has a purpose, and understanding the purpose behind each can help you continuously improve your app for better acquisition, longer retention, longer per-session usage, more referrals and a higher satisfaction.

It’s not only important for you to understand how these metrics relate to your product, but it’s also important that you’re able to gather the right insights and deliver them to your app developers so they can translate them into code and create the features that will really drive the success of your app.

If you need help choosing the right metrics for your app or analyzing the tremendous amount of data you collect, we’d love to help! Contact us to discuss your app with one of our startup consultants to find out how to use app metrics to take your startup to the next level.

The post The Most Important App Metrics To Track For Startup Success appeared first on Startup Squared.

Whether you’re raising funding for your startup business or presenting your business model to key stakeholders, you need a killer pitch deck to impress your audience and achieve your objectives. We’ve helped hundreds of startups create and design their pitch decks. And we want to help you also to get through this process successfully. Here is how to create a pitch deck that attracts investors to your business idea.

1) Start with a Hook or Elevator Pitch

Don’t wait too long to get your main point across, rather, start with it. Appetizers are great – but everyone really wants to know what’s coming on the main dish! Investors have rather short attention spans, and they often gauge their opinion of a pitch deck or startup from the first slide.

Your pitch deck should immediately communicate what you’re pitching, and why they should listen. Present your hook through the form of a question, a strong statement, or an elevator pitch.

Castle’s pitch deck, for example, begins with a strong statement, “Rental property owners want to make money without the work of being a landlord.” Immediately, the audience knows who the customer is, what problem is going to be solved, and what the customer hopes to achieve. While your pitch deck doesn’t necessarily have to start with a problem statement, the first slide should be powerful enough to get the reader’s or viewer’s attention.

2) Create an Engaging Flow

Make sure that your pitch deck is engaging across the entire presentation. A common problem for startups is hooking the audience in with the first slide, then losing their attention when they get to the meat of the presentation.

Create a layout and a flow of information that ensures that the audience easily follows the idea from beginning to end. Every slide should connect with the slide before and after it, building up the audience’s anticipation while ensuring that they grasp every piece of information.

For example, when presenting the Problem, keep it to only the most prevalent challenge customers face. Surround that slide with information that proves that a significant challenge exists for a large market. Presenting too many problems weakens the pitch deck and loses the audience’s attention.

Follow up the problem slide with the solution – don’t leave the audience hanging on to a problem statement without resolving it with a solution slide.

The flow of your pitch deck is just as important as the information you’re presenting. Think of your pitch deck as a story and be sure that you are telling the story in a way that makes sense, and most of all, connects with the audience.

3) Follow the 10/20/30 Rule

The 10/20/30 rule for startup pitch decks created by Guy Kawasaki is a great technique to follow. The rule states that a pitch deck should not be more than 10 slides, take more than 20 minutes to present, and should not be typed in less than 30-point font. Following this rule will help you to focus on key ideas and really hone your pitch.

This approach ensures that you’re not going overboard with too many pitch deck slides or too much information on each slide. At ThinkLions we work closely with every client to make sure their pitch deck is properly structured and well-focused on the key information.

Remember – more doesn’t always mean better. Keep your pitch brief, flowing, and remove any extra text that doesn’t support or add significant value to the presentation.

4) Express Your Value and Vision

Vision and value are the two most important ingredients in your pitch deck recipe. Investors want to know exactly what your startup offers to its customers that differs from other competitors, and they want to know where the business is going in the future.

When expressing your startup’s value, consider the elements presented in the Value Proposition Canvas. Express your value proposition as gain creators and pain relievers. Gain creators are the things your business provides that result in positive outcomes, emotions, and results. In contrast, pain relievers describe the negative emotions and outcomes that your business removes.

Your company’s vision clearly states where you intend to take your business in the future. With a strong vision statement, you can assure investors that your team has a clear focus and a defined plan of action to reach it. The most impactful vision statements are short, simple, well-defined, and passionate.

5) Customize Your Presentation for Your Audience

Before sending your pitch deck out or presenting it live, learn as much as you can about the recipient or audience. Ultimately, you don’t want to slap a Porterhouse steak of a pitch deck in front of an investor, only to find out that they are vegetarian.

Research your audience and learn about the types of businesses they have invested in in the past. Look up the businesses they’ve invested in and see if you can find their pitch decks online. Reach out to founders they’ve invested in and ask them about their experience.

Don’t be afraid to personalize your pitch deck to the audience. Focus your presentation on the elements that are most likely to get their attention and most aligned to their investment style.

Instead of only mentioning the value that your startup brings its customers, also express the value that it offers to investors, like a stronger portfolio, expected ROI, or the ability to serve a specific market they care about.

6) Avoid Overstating the Market Opportunity

This is a common mistake that people make when creating their pitch decks. Don’t overstate the market opportunity and fail to provide the method required for your business to succeed. Overstating the market opportunity can easily put off the investors and make you sound unfamiliar with the industry you’re venturing into. Focus on bottom-up forecasts where you detail your expectations and how you’re going to attract customers.

7) Avoid Boring and Outdated Pitch Deck Design

Avoid making the mistake of using boring and outdated design templates. When it comes to pitching, you want to immediately grab your audience’s attention. With an outdated design, you’ll surely grab their attention but for the wrong reasons. Thus, ensure your pitch deck design is very attractive and appealing.

You don’t have to struggle to create the designs when you can easily get in touch with professional pitch deck designers at ThinkLions. Working with us will make sure you get a high-quality pitch deck that speaks to your audience without necessarily uttering words.

Samples of Good Pitch Decks

Here are great samples of great pitch decks you should emulate.

Airbnb

Airbnb used their 2009 pitch deck to raise $600k from Sequoia Capital and Y Ventures. The company has since developed into a travel industry giant with a current market cap of about $90.31 bn. This deck is a great sample because it incredibly summarizes the company’s vision and the market opportunity they had before them.

Facebook

Facebook‘s 2004 pitch deck is another sample of a strategically and well-designed presentation. The pitch deck contained the company’s value proposition, key business metrics, and the marketing services that were used to sell advertisements to prospective clients. From the pitch, Mark Zuckerberg received $500,000 from Peter Thiel who was impressed by the pitch deck.

Uber

Uber‘s 2008 pitch deck was clear, simple, and direct to the point. The presentation focused on showing investors the solution that Uber intended to provide. The pitch deck also elaborated on numerous problems that surround the taxicab industry and how the problems could be solved via Uber. Investors were convinced that Uber could be a fast and efficient car service, and the idea of requesting drivers online was great.

Conclusion

At ThinkLions, we are a group of experienced startup consultants that work with innovative early-stage companies. We will help you to validate your ideas, raise capital, and build amazing products and services. Kindly contact us.

The post What is a Pitch Deck: A Definitive Guide to Winning Presentations appeared first on Startup Squared.

In this post, we’re going to explain exactly what a target market is, how to perform a thorough analysis of your target market, and how to use that analysis to implement a better business strategy.

What Is A Target Market?

According to Investopedia, a target market refers to a group of potential customers to whom a company wants to sell its products and services.

No business serves everyone. When your specific customer groups are clear, it becomes much easier to develop an effective and accurate business plan. A target market is a specific group of potential customers who share similar qualities such as demographics, psychographics, income, location, and more.

Understanding your target market is critical – and not only because of its associated benefits. Companies who fail to understand their target market waste money on ineffective marketing strategies, and struggle to attract new customers.  

There are five things you truly want to understand regarding your target market:

1. Who Your Customer Is: How old are they? Where do they live? What do they do for a living? Are they married? Do they have children? What is their education level? Are they homeowners?
2. What Your Customer Needs: What are their interests? What do they value? Do you know what they like and dislike? What challenges do they face? What struggles do they have?
3. When They Are Likely To Buy: When do they seek a solution to their challenge? Do they purchase in a particular season? When is the best time to approach them with your offer?
4. Where They Can Be Reached: Where do they find out about new products? Where do they search for solutions? What places do they turn for advice and insight into their particular challenge?
5. Why They Will Buy From You: Why aren’t their problems being solved currently? Why haven’t competitors been able to provide a solution? Is there a specific reason why will they choose you? Why would they pay you, specifically, for your product or service?

How to Perform a Target Market Analysis

Before writing a business plan, you must understand your target market. The key to understanding your market is to perform an in-depth target market analysis. A proper market assessment includes segmenting the market into niche consumer groups and understanding the needs and desires of each of those groups.

There are several ways to identify and analyze your specific target market. Use these methods together to learn more about your customers, their challenges, and your potential to serve them.

Gather Secondary Research

The easiest way to identify and learn more about your target market is to tap into existing research. A quick Google search may bring up several studies of your market or surveys of consumers within that market.

Research to find what challenges each type of customer deals with. Does your product or service solve their challenge?

Through this research, you may find that a problem you thought existed for a specific consumer group isn’t really a problem for them at all. Or you may find that while there is a problem, only very few individuals within the target market actually suffer from that problem. Hopefully, you will find that there is a huge existing challenge and that your product/service is the perfect solution.

Secondary data can be tricky. Don’t just pull the first stat that you see, but make sure that you’re pulling the right information from the right sources. Here are some tips for gathering proper secondary research:

• Make sure that you are gathering data from reputable sources – research centers, large corporations who invest heavily in R&D, government organizations, and etc.
• Check the details of the study – Make sure the sample size is large enough and that the individuals used in the sample truly represent your target market.
• Look for recent and up-to-date studies – The market changes rapidly. For example, the way individuals felt about mobile dating five years ago may be completely different than how they feel about it today. Make sure your secondary research represents the consumer of today. Aleska, who runs a store selling cremation urns performed research to understand the market better. Studies showed that Western countries in the last decade have increased cremation rates. A simple shift in the marketing message allowed him to grow his business without increasing marketing activities or budgets.

Use the 5Ws to make your research most effective. Consider the following questions:

1. Who is being affected by a specific challenge?
2. What are their complaints and what are they currently doing about it?
3. When do they experience the problem and when do they seek a solution?
4. Where do they reside and where do they search answers to their challenges?
5. Why is this the right market to address with your product or service and why should they choose you?

Analyze Competitors

Performing a competitive analysis is a great way to learn more about your customers and the overall landscape of the industry. In some cases, analyzing competitors may introduce you to new target markets that you didn’t originally intend to serve.

Conduct a deep analysis of your competitors. Analyze their social media pages to see what type of consumers interact with their content. Inspect their websites to see what customer markets they target their sales copy towards. If they have a blog, examine it and determine what type of customer they are writing their content for.

Explore their feedback and reviews to determine what qualities consumers enjoy about their products/services, and which qualities they don’t. Read what customers say about your competitors and determine how successful each of them is in serving your target market.

Use the 5Ws to make your competitive analysis more effective. Consider the following questions:

1. Who is currently serving the target market and who has the largest share of consumers?
2. What are they doing to reach consumers and what solution are they offering?
3. When did they launch and how established are they within the market?
4. Where do they operate and where do they market their services to customers?
5. Why can your company serve the target market better than these competitors?

Perform Primary Research

The best type of research you can gather for your analysis is primary research. This includes data that you gather on your own by interacting with real consumers within your target market.

Conducting primary research means getting off of Google and actually finding where your customers are. Then, speak with them and learn about their true desires. Here are several ways you can perform effective primary research to strengthen your market analysis:

• Forums: Online forums and social media groups are a great way to find pre-established communities of individuals with similar interests or qualities. On these platforms, individuals within the market often congregate together to discuss the challenges they face.
• Meetups: People also form groups offline through meetups. For example, a company offering a product to web developers can easily find a group of developers in any major city, since developer meet-ups are extremely common. These events are great for networking, meeting potential customers, and generating first-hand customer feedback.
• Surveys & Interviews: Once you’ve located consumers from your target market, collect the data you need through surveys and interviews. Ask them about the issues that they face, how they solve their problems, and how you could help them solve their problem better. Face-to-face interviews are often the best way to get real-time feedback from potential customers.
• Market Tests: An effective way to learn about your market is to perform market tests. Use landing pages to showcase your solution and use ads to send targeted traffic to the page. Test to see how these potential customers respond. You can even build a pre-registration form for the page to test how many of these individuals convert from visitor to interested buyer. Tracking metrics from these market tests are an excellent way to prove your concept and raise initial app funding.

Using Your Analysis to Define Strategy

The entire point of conducting a target market analysis is to convert the results into an effective strategy that can lead to tangible business gains. When you write an app business plan, the target market analysis is core to the entire strategy.

For a new startup, the objective may be to learn more about their audience so that they can better strategize their launch marketing efforts. An established business, however, may seek to identify new market gaps that the business and its competitors have not yet addressed.

Once you have performed a target market analysis, there are several things that you can do to convert your results into a strategic plan.

1) Create Customer Profiles

A customer profile takes all the information that you have gathered about a specific customer type and transforms that information into a “real” customer.

In other words – if you had an ideal customer, who exactly would they be?

Give them a name and a personality. Describe their background, the challenges they face, and the qualities that they seek in a valid solution. In other words, bring them to life.

Example – MADE App

Let’s say you are a mobile on-demand Make-Up Artist app called MADE that targets late-nighters in high-profile cities like New York. Here is an example of a customer profile you might add to your business plan.

2) Identify New Problems

Companies are able to gain a major competitive advantage when they can identify problems and issues that no other competitors have addressed. For startups, identifying these problems can lead to new product developments and can give the brand a first-mover advantage.

Consider observing your ideal customer for a day. If your target market consists of plumbers in Detroit, for example, do a ride-along with a plumber to see what challenges they face throughout the day. Identify things that bottleneck their processes, or struggles that they seem to face often. Sometimes, people can’t explain the problems that they deal with on a daily basis. However, if you observe them long enough, you will begin noticing specific patterns of challenges that they deal with frequently.  

3) Establish New Marketing Channels

Mass marketing is the least effective and most wasteful type of marketing strategy. The best way to maximize your marketing budget is to market directly towards the consumers that are most likely to purchase your product. The more you know about your customer, the easier it will be for you to reach them.

Find out where your consumers are, what influencers they pay attention to, what books they read, and who they follow online.

Identify their customer process as they make their way down the purchase funnel. What types of questions do they ask when they are first being introduced to a solution? What questions do they ask when they are seeking to make a purchase?

As you learn the answers to these questions, you will be able to implement better marketing strategies. Instead of blindly marketing to everyone, you will know exactly where your target customers are and how they prefer to be introduced to new products and services.

Sometimes, startups are able to better understand and engage with the market than larger brands can. A proper target market analysis can give you the edge you need to level the playing field with more established competitors.

An Ongoing Analysis

Unfortunately, you’re never really finished with a target market analysis. Markets don’t stay the same forever. The needs of customers change. The competitive landscape frequently loses and gains players. The point is, you should perform a target market analysis on a consistent basis to always stay updated on who your market is and what solutions they require.

Our business plan consultants perform target market analyses on a daily basis. Need help identifying your customer markets for your business plan? We’d love to help. Contact us today to speak with one of our startup experts.

The post How To Perform A Target Market Analysis For Startups appeared first on Startup Squared.

In the simplest form, a SWOT analysis is an assessment of a business’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats that are apparent within the market.

While a few may seem to come close, the truth is, no business is perfect. No matter how many internal strengths your business has, inevitably, it will also have weaknesses. For example, Facebook may have more users than any other social networking platform, but they also seemingly have widespread dissatisfaction across their workforce.

Likewise, even a business that has the most opportunities to take advantage of will face threats that could stunt their progress or even threaten their entire business. Although Facebook has managed to take advantage of the worldwide growth of internet and smartphone access, they also face major threats – like the inability to keep up with data breaches.

If you’re confused about what a SWOT is or how to create one, don’t worry, your confusion ends today. In this post, you will learn exactly what a SWOT analysis is, why it’s key to writing a business plan, and most importantly, how to put one together.

The SWOT Matrix

Internal factors include strengths and weaknesses – factors that can be controlled and that the business has some ability to change. With the right resources and a commitment to do so, a business can work to gain more strengths and eliminate weaknesses that are present.

The SWOT analysis is typically displayed in a matrix – with internal factors across the top and external factors across the bottom.

External factors include opportunities and threats – factors existing within the market that affect your business. While businesses can control how they respond to these opportunities and threats, they can’t outright control the existence of these factors.

Does Your Business Plan Need a SWOT Analysis?

When you’re creating your business plan, a SWOT is not only necessary – it is the foundation of your entire business plan. Without knowing your strengths, it is impossible to communicate them to your audience. Without knowing your weaknesses, it is impossible to implement the steps necessary to overcome them. Without knowing the market opportunities, it will be impossible to take advantage of them. Without knowing the threats your business may face, it will be impossible to put the right measures in place to avoid them.

It is a wise decision to complete a thorough SWOT analysis before developing your business strategy. In most cases, every business plan format contains some type of SWOT audit. A proper SWOT analysis will require extensive research, but without this research, there will be obvious gaps in your business strategy.

How To Create Your SWOT Analysis

Putting together a SWOT analysis isn’t difficult, but it does require you to perform an in-depth analysis of your business, market, competitors, and industry.

Take your time when you complete your SWOT. Since your entire business strategy hinges upon this analysis, rushing through it is as ineffective as not doing one at all. Instead, follow these tips to best assess the position of your business.

Internal Analysis – Finding Your Strengths

When it comes to a SWOT analysis, strengths represent your company’s competitive advantage and unique selling points. When analyzing the strengths of your business, think about the things that make you stronger than your competitors, the factors that make your business better able to serve consumers, and the barriers to entry that your business has created.

Furthermore, consider the following questions when seeking to find your strengths:

1. Are there things that your business does better than anyone else?
2. What are your competitive advantages?
3. Why is your founding team the right team to manage and grow your business?
4. What are your unique selling points?
5. Have you accomplished anything that would be a barrier for competitors?  

Internal Analysis – Identifying Your Weaknesses

No matter what your business is, weaknesses exist. Many businesses aren’t even aware of their weaknesses – or simply choose not to acknowledge them.

However, weaknesses are an internal factor and can be controlled. When you know your weaknesses, you can better prepare yourself to overcome them; potentially even turning your weakness into strengths.

Consider the areas where your competitors may have a one-up on you. A brand new business, for example, would likely have extremely low brand awareness when compared to a more established business. The same business may not have a proven marketing strategy in place, whereas, a more established business may already have a strong marketing strategy already integrated.

Tinder is a business with many strengths, but like every other business, it is not weakness-proof. “Tinder Fatigue” was coined specifically for this app and refers to users who use the app so much that they burn out on it. Instead of being perceived as a special activity, Tinder dating simply becomes another thing to do; with users simply passing the time instead of seeking long-term romance. While the app has gained worldwide recognition, individuals who are looking for love do not consider it as effective as other online/mobile platforms.

When trying to identify your weaknesses, consider the following questions:

1. Which factors prevent you from meeting your goals or catching up to your competitors?
2. Are there things that your competitors do better?
3. What areas of your business could be improved so you could better serve your customers?
4. Are there factors that cause customers to complain or become dissatisfied?

SWOT External – Taking Advantage of Opportunities

Businesses that are able to identify and take advantages of market opportunities are usually able to achieve far greater success. Opportunities are typically out of the business’ control. These are factors that exist that could help your business advance, such as trends in the market or market gaps that competitors are not taking advantage of.

Uber, for instance, realized an opportunity that many others didn’t see. While the taxi business had thrived for decades, Uber’s founders realized that in most areas, the taxi concept was inefficient. Furthermore, they found an opportunity in the fact that most adults have vehicles, and a large enough share of them want to earn additional income. Without recognizing this opportunity and the changing market landscape – rideshare may still not exist today.

When seeking to determine what opportunities exist in the market, consider the following questions:

1. What challenges are consumers facing that competitors are not currently addressing?
2. Is there any new technology or changes to technological access that may give your business an advantage?
3. Are there changes to politics, government, or industry regulations that may give you an additional advantage?
4. Can your product/service be used to address a market that you are not currently serving?
5. Are there any social trends within the market such as consumer lifestyle changes or growth of a particular market segment? 

SWOT External – Managing Threats

Threats are external factors that can hinder your business from progressing or could even cause your business to shut down completely. Fast-food chains, for example, are constantly threatened by the potential for increased federal wage minimums. Since they rely heavily on minimum wage employees, an increase in the federal minimum wage may severely decrease their margins.

Your business will face threats, whether it be threats from new competitors, threats from changing laws, or even the threat of not being able to secure the right partners.

When identifying the threats that exist for your business, consider the following questions:

1. Who are your competitors and how easy is it for new competitors to enter the market?
2. What are your competitors implementing that you are unable to implement?
3. Is your business reliant on a supplier to maintain a specific pricing level?
4. Could consumer behavior or market trends change the demand for your product?
5. Could advancements in certain technologies make your services irrelevant?

What is a S.W.O.T? (Example)

To give you a better understanding of how a SWOT analysis works, we’ve provided an example from a previous client that worked with.

This particular client had built an online marketplace where people could find a trusted house sitter for durations when they would be on vacation or away. The Company had recently launched a minimal viable product and was seeking to secure capital from an angel investor.

Strengths

There were several great points about the business. They had a highly experienced team and one of their members had already been a founder of a startup that was profitably acquired. With one of their members extremely experienced in digital marketing, they had implemented an effective software marketing campaign that led to quick expansion. Only three months in, they already had thousands of users on their platform, and over 200 transactions had already been fulfilled. Several advisors had committed to helping them and they already had the attention of a handful of investors.

Weaknesses

Unfortunately, not everything was great. Customers complained about the lack of security on the app and wanted added protection that house sitters could be trusted. Although they had an application on the market, it was extremely minimal, and they already burned through their entire development budget. Without additional investor funding, growth was at a standstill.

Opportunities

Although many people were initially off-put by the idea of having strangers watching their home, there were several opportunities apparent in the market. For some, having a stranger house-sit may have seemed weird, but there were already people using online platforms to find individuals to watch their pets, clean their homes, and more. As a result, customer perception of these types of services is quickly shifting, as it is being adopted by more and more consumers. Of their current users, the vast majority were millennials – which is perfect since millennials are growing to become the country’s largest consumer group.

Threats

The Company also faced several potential threats that could possibly derail them if not addressed. Customers had a point with their feedback regarding home security. In fact, if there ever was a major security threat related to the business, it could lead to a PR nightmare. Another major threat was also apparent – their financial well had run dry, and without additional funds, the business would be unable to go forward.

After examining these factors, our business plan writers created the following SWOT analysis for our client.

From SWOT to Strategy

Knowing what SWOT stands for isn’t enough. Real progress is made when you are able to use this analysis to your advantage.

Keep building upon your strengths. Your strengths give you a competitive advantage, and the more strengths you have, the harder it becomes for other businesses to compete.

Work to minimize your weaknesses. Find solutions to them, and make it a constant goal to strengthen your weaknesses. If done correctly, today’s weaknesses can become tomorrow’s strengths.

Always pay attention to the opportunities and threats in the market. Prioritize opportunities and attack them one by one to exponentially grow your business. Stay ahead of your threats. Once you have identified them, find ways to avoid them or determine a Plan B ahead of time in case you need to pivot in response.

As always, if you need our help in creating your SWOT analysis or writing your entire business plan, we are here for you. Contact us today to consult with one of our business plan experts!

The post What Is A SWOT Analysis and How To Perform One appeared first on Startup Squared.

On one hand, people will tell you that a business plan should be a single page. However, others will suggest writing a plan that is comprehensive and detailed.

Unfortunately, there is no perfect answer to this question. Ultimately, entrepreneurs should go to whatever length is necessary to satisfy the plan’s purpose. Different business plans can have different objectives, requiring varying lengths.

Every business plan is unique. Some explain the fine details of the business with deep supporting research. Others may use graphics to get their points across. A business plan writer’s approach to presenting the information can drastically affect its overall length.

In the grand scheme of things, does it truly matter how long a business plan is? Can a business plan length shift the startup’s results? Yes. However, the ideal length of your business plan depends on your specific business, audience, writing style, and plan type.

The One-Page Business Plan

Over the last several years, the one-page business plan has become increasingly popular as an introduction tool. This version summarizes the critical points of the business into a single page. In some ways, it is similar to a standard executive summary. This format makes it easy to digest the information, but isn’t acceptable for all situations. 

The title of this version makes it clear – this type of business plan is a maximum of one page long. The ideal scenario for a one-page business plan is introducing an investor to an unfamiliar business. With only one page, it is quick to read and provides enough details to spark curiosity.

When writing a business plan in this format, you must remember that one page does not leave much room for extreme detail. If you choose this format, you must pick the most important elements. In other words, focus only on the details that are most likely to grab the reader’s interest.

However, a one-page business plan won’t satisfy an investor who knows your business and wants more details. While easy to read, these plans don’t provide enough context to relay the details of your overall strategy.

Is a one-page business plan right for you? Consider the following pros and cons.

Pros

1. A one-page plan is simple and quick to construct.
2. It provides just enough content for readers to digest easily.
3. It allows entrepreneurs to explain the target market, customer problem, and solution.

Cons

1. One-page business plans don’t provide enough context for readers to understand your business fully.
2. If investors are interested after reading the one-pager, they will likely request a more comprehensive business plan.
3. A one-page business plan lacks significant research and won’t prove a market need or product-market fit.

The Mini Business Plan

The mini business plan is usually ten to fifteen pages long. This plan includes the same sections as a comprehensive business plan. However, since this format has summarized sections, it can exclude important details and explanations.

Mini business plans cut to the chase, often using bullet points to fulfill the section header. However, they still comprise the primary sections, like products and services, research and development, and the funding request. Still, these plans don’t replace comprehensive and traditional business plans.

This format is perfect for situations where the reader wants to understand the startup’s nuances without massive effort. A mini business plan is an excellent next step if you have shared your one-page plan but the investor wants more details. This version will include more extensive information, including the problem, solution, marketing strategy, financial projections, and financial requirements.

Should your startup team choose the mini business plan? Consider the following pros and cons.

Pros

1. The mini business plan is more inclusive than a one-page document but more accessible than a comprehensive one.
2. It creates a better balance between the business plan length and the details it includes.
3. Entrepreneurs can write a mini plan within several days.

Cons

1. The mini business plan is brief and doesn’t explain the major points thoroughly.
2. It typically excludes certain information such as operations strategy, exit strategy, etc.
3. It provides a great introduction to the business but not enough market research to prove the startup’s potential.

If your team seeks investor capital, download our business plan template below.

The Comprehensive Business Plan

Comprehensive business plans are full-scale plans that are often 30 pages or more. These traditional business plans provide readers with a full view of the business. For example, they detail the market problem, solution, company mission, management team, objectives, marketing strategy, and more.

This format has been most popular among businesses since the beginning of time. When people mention the average length of a business plan, they are typically referring to this format.

Details and specifics are paramount to good business planning. This plan version starts with an executive summary and then uses supporting details to strengthen the argument. It tells the startup’s story, connects the strategy, and provides market research to validate the idea.

However, comprehensive business plans have their place. Few people will eagerly read a 35-page document without prior knowledge of your startup. These plans work best when provided on request. For example, after an investor reads your mini business plan, sending a longer version is a strong next step.

When raising seed funding, a comprehensive business plan provides investors with a full scope of the business.

Is writing a comprehensive business plan right for you? Consider the following pros and cons.

Pros

1. The comprehensive business plan provides the most detail and data by using text, pie charts, and other visual aids.
2. It examines every aspect of the business with a solid go-to-market strategy.
3. It gives the most context and fully answers the reader’s questions.

Cons

1. Readers may not read the entire plan and will flip directly to specific sections.
2. Comprehensive plans require thorough research and preparation and may take weeks to write.
3. These plans are highly detailed and must capture the reader’s attention early on.

What Type of Plan Do You Need?

Many entrepreneurs only complete one business plan, and they send that one business plan out for every situation. Unfortunately, this is not an effective method. Instead, entrepreneurs should have all three types of business plans in their arsenal and be able to supply the right business plan when needed. 

The length of your plan isn’t the most critical element. Knowing what type of plan to use and when will give you the most significant advantage when seeking funding.

Whether you need a one-page plan, a mini-plan, or a full-scale comprehensive business plan, we can help. Our experts have written hundreds of winning business plans for startups worldwide. If you are currently seeking funding for your startup, we can help you, too. Contact us today, and let’s write your investor-ready business plan!

The post Ask The Experts: How Long Should A Business Plan Be? appeared first on Startup Squared.

An investor pitch deck is not meant to be lengthy and exhausting, and sometimes, this can be a challenge. It’s not meant to explain every detail of your business or answer every question a potential investor may have. Instead, it’s meant to introduce your business and to drive interest; initiating relationships that can lead to investment.

Knowing what information not to introduce is just as important as knowing what information to add to your deck.

We’ve helped hundreds of startups create and design their pitch decks, and we want to help you too. In this post, we will introduce you to the nine most important pitch deck slides that you need to focus on and give you several examples that you can learn from!

Without further ado, here are the nine slides you must include in your deck to maximize your chances of fundraising success.

1) Title/Cover

The first pitch deck slide you should add to your presentation is a title slide. You’d be surprised at the impact that a simple title slide adds to your pitch. They say that you only get one chance to make a great first impression, and when you pitch your startup, your title slide is that immediate first impression opportunity.

Before you even open your mouth to deliver the first word of your pitch, this initial pitch deck slide will set the tone for investors. If your tagline is underwhelming, it may immediately turn off the investor. If your logo is boring, it may give investors the immediate perception that your business is boring as well. It is important to set the stage for a great pitch, and this begins with a strong pitch deck slide.

This title slide that was displayed in Mint.com’s pitch deck is over a decade old, but there’s a reason why it’s one of the best pitch decks out there. It’s designed well but minimally, using white space to draw the viewer’s eye directly to the logo. The tagline “Take Back Your Wallet” is presented in all caps, driving in Mint’s message the moment the slide is opened.

The title slide for We Are Onyx is more involved, but equally effective. Like Mint, they added a strong tagline that allows the audience to immediately gain context of the business. Additionally, they added in strong imagery of their products to further draw in the attention of viewers.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:  

1. Don’t over design it. Use white space and minimalism to draw the eye to the most important part of the slide – the logo and the tagline. If you include product images, make sure that they are professional images that make the slide more impactful.
2. Include a strong and memorable tagline that quickly introduces viewers to your concept and allows them to immediately connect with your pitch.
3. If you will be introducing presenters during the pitch, we recommend including the names of all presenters on this slide. This allows the audience to connect with each team member as they introduce themselves.

2) Customer Problem

Start your pitch strong by showcasing the problem or problems that your solution will address. Your product or service should exist to solve a real market problem. Explaining the extent of the customer problem early on sets the stage for the rest of the pitch deck – especially when you begin describing why your startup is perfect for solving these challenges.

This Customer Problem slide from FlowTab’s pitch deck showcases all the necessary requirements of a great problem slide. It outlines who the users are in bold lettering – customers, bartenders, and owners. It also briefly explains the challenges faced by each of these user groups.Furthermore, the slide is clean and minimally designed with few words and a couple supporting images. Pitch deck slides don’t need to be overwhelming to stand out – they just need to present the right information in the right way.

Here are a few things you can learn from this pitch deck slide:

1. Identify your market immediately. Not everyone will face the same challenges, so be sure to identify which challenges are relevant to each customer group.
2. Be creative. You don’t have to add a title to every slide or stick to bullet points to organize information. Find creative ways to deliver your message, whether it’s by adding imagery, animation, or other creative methods.
3. Use lettering wisely. Bold fonts, font colors and even text positioning can add to or take away from the impact of your message. Use the proper text elements to keep your pitch and pitch deck interesting.

3) The Solution

At this point in your pitch, your audience should know what target market you serve and should be familiar with the challenges that they face. Now is a good time to introduce the solution – your product, service, or business. Of all the pitch deck slides, this slide may arguably be the most important. However, this slide on its own is ineffective. Without a challenge, a decent-sized market, and a plan to reach them, the solution itself is irrelevant.

Design the best Solution slide, but make sure that presenting an awesome product isn’t your only goal. Presenting an awesome product that effectively solves a challenge for a wide market of consumers who are ready to pay for it – that is the goal.  

Introduce your product and show how it solves the customer’s challenge. Showcase the features that make it stand out. This is a slide where graphics really matter – pictures speak a thousand words and showcasing an image, wireframe, or 3D model will make this slide exponentially more impactful.

Pitch deck slides should be simple but informative, and that’s exactly what Brand Boards achieved with their Solution slide. Using great imagery and little text, Brand Boards was able to show exactly how their solution allows venue owners and advertisers to connect and set up ad campaigns using digital signage. A simple-to-follow graphic allows the audience to easily understand what the product is and how it works, all in a single slide.

The best part of the graphic is that it separates each customer type into their own boxes on the outside and places the solution in the middle. This tactic makes it easy to understand where the solution fits into the equation between the two customer groups.

Yaydoo took an awesome and creative approach with their Solution slide. Instead of using boring bullet points, they added well-placed text and a simple image. The tagline, “Your office on autopilot” sums up the entire solution in four words while “e-Procurement and AI for your workplace needs” quickly describes the solution that is being offered.

Furthermore, the graphic is well done and shows how five different challenges faced by “Your Company” are solved simply by inserting the Yaydoo solution into the process. Again, placing your solution in the middle to showcase how a customer’s problem is solved is always an effective method.

This Solution slide from Daily Hundred uses several graphical elements to showcase its product. The split-screen makes it immediately known that two separate features are being displayed. Bolded header font allows the audience to understand what the feature is, before reading further into the detailed text. Usage of phone mockups provides a visual showcase of the solution and keeps the audience’s mind from guessing.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. Use strong graphics to show how your solution solves the problem. Ideally, showcase the problem on one side, the customer on the other, and the solution in the middle; explaining how each entity benefits from the other.
2. Use mockups and models to show exactly what your solution looks like – a picture can speak a thousand words if done correctly.
3. Show images or blueprints of your solution. Text is limited. If you don’t show the audience what it is and what it looks like, they will guess – and they will probably guess incorrectly!

4) Unique Selling Proposition

This is the pitch deck slide that shows why your startup is special. What do you provide that no one else can provide? Just because your business solves a problem, doesn’t mean that you are the only business solving that problem, or even that your solution is any different from any other solution that already exists. In other words, what’s your special sauce?

Backstartup uses graphics to showcase its unique selling proposition. The title, “We are not a traditional service” makes it known immediately that they are providing something different and something better. The graphics clarify it’s services – accountants, lawyers, and technology – and explains what unique features they provide to help their users reach a specific goal.

Lexyom uses their USP or “Our Edge” slide to show that they have the keys to unlocking their customer’s challenges. Their slide shows the exact formula of advantages that give them an edge over other competitors in the market.

Here are three things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:  

1. Knowing what makes you special also means knowing what makes your competitors special. Do a competitive analysis first and examine your solution’s position in the market.
2. Use creativity to display exactly how your advantages help your customers reach their specific goal.
3. Think about factors that create a barrier to entry for other businesses. Real advantages can’t be easily duplicated by another competitor.

5) Target Market & Market Size

Investors don’t just want to know that you are solving a problem, they also want to know that you are solving a problem for a large market of customers. In this slide, showcase the market research that you have found to display how large your market is either by the number of consumers or revenue.

Orchard does a good job projecting market size in its pitch deck slides. Using a TAM/SAM/SOM analysis, they are able to easily display how large the total market is, and what portion of that market they can realistically target. Furthermore, they strengthened the slide by providing a quote from a trusted market source that further validates their business approach.

Owlr used their Market Size slide to showcase how many consumers exist in their market and how much that market is worth. This helps investors identify the earning potential and confirms that the market is large enough for the business to earn a considerable share and a profitable position.

PinMyPet used awesome graphics elements for their pitch deck slides. By implementing large, colorful, and minimal text, they were able to showcase exactly how many users are in their market (in this case, dogs and cats) and how much the entire market is worth in terms of revenue. Furthermore, they added their target regions and aligned their market numbers to the specific regions where they will offer their products.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. Use a TAM, SAM, SOM analysis to showcase the size of your market. This helps investors understand both the total market, as well as the portion of that market that your business can realistically serve.
2. Use statistics that are extremely relevant to your business. If you’re serving a particular region, find the market size for that particular region. Global statistics are great, but only if you are serving a global audience!
3. Make sure you know where your numbers are coming from. Be able to cite them if necessary – it probably will be.

6) Business Model

It’s not always clear how a new startup earns money, and if it’s one thing investors care about, it’s how a startup earns money.

Use this slide to explain your business model and showcase how revenue is generated. This is especially important for marketplace solutions where the startup earns a fee from transactions between two parties.

Open Door showcases its income streams clearly in this Business Model slide. As shown, they charge 15% of rents, which is equal to around $200/month for each resident.

Reflect also clearly states how their revenue is earned. Each session grosses approximately $95. Of this, Reflect earns $15 per session as a transaction fee.

Tealet’s slide shows how revenue is made for both the Company and for the tea grower. Simply stated, for each sale, the grower retains 60% of the margin while 40% is retained by the platform as a transaction fee.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. If your startup mostly sells one product or service with a general price, showcase that price. If you offer several products or services, showcase pricing from a handful of your top products.
2. Show at what part of the process revenue is earned. For example, in a marketplace type scenario, revenue is typically earned after the product/service has been delivered.
3. For marketplace applications, show how revenue is shared between parties and what portion of sales will be retained by the startup.

7) Founder/Team

Simply put, the team slide introduces your team and proves why your founders and managers are the right people to introduce and run the Company.

In their pitch deck, Mapme introduced its three founders and one advisor in a single slide. Instead of crunching a ton of text to describe each person’s background, they simply added logos of companies that each member had been involved with in the past.

Manpacks had seven people to introduce, which is impossible to do in a single slide if you’re going to write a biography about each. Instead, they used bullet points to detail specific items about their founders and used logos to summarize the backgrounds of their advisors. Each person is shown with a headshot image, but the shapes of the headshots are different; providing a subtle hint to which individuals are team members and which are advisors.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. Minimize text by using logos to showcase each member’s experience and background.
2. Use headshots to introduce each member. They don’t have to necessarily be professional headshots, but they should be clear and high resolution – and it helps if everyone is smiling!
3. Focus on the most important attributes of your background. You don’t need to detail every accomplishment you’ve ever made, only the few that are most relevant to your position in the business.

8) Traction

Investors don’t just want to hear about what you’re going to do. What’s equally as important is what you’ve already done. Use this slide to describe the milestones you’ve already reached – user growth, survey results, known brands you’ve worked with, and etc. This pitch deck slide is a major selling point, and it is important to offer up the numbers and metrics that showcase the strength of your business, validate all assumptions, and prove that there is a market of individuals ready to use your solution.

TraceAir used several visuals to display traction in their pitch deck slides. First, they provide a line graph showing the growth of revenue and also displaying how a price increase led to an exponential increase. Then, they provide several positive metrics including average Month-on-Month growth and annual revenue. Finally, they build credibility by showcasing the logos of several well-known clients that they have worked with.

Front led their slide with a strong milestone statement – “2300 companies use Front today.” This statement hammers down the fact that there is a validated market, that the Company knows how to acquire new customers, and that at least 2,300 corporate decision-makers thought they were worth giving a try. Like TraceAir, they showcased their well-known clients using logos; immediately qualifying them as a real contending solution. Finally, they showcase metrics of their client base by showing which portion of customers are from each target industry and the diversity of use-cases.  

Daily Hundred used their Traction slide to show how well they have been able to perform over a three-month launch period. While they did not mention revenues earned during this period, they were able to prove their case by showing large user growth, user engagements, and positive user experience.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. Make sure you have traction to show. A startup without traction is just an idea. If you don’t have any numbers to show yet, launch a minimal viable product and get some early adopters using it.
2. Revenue isn’t everything. Money talks, but it’s not the only metric that’s important. Metrics like user growth, engagement, and retention are also strong indicators that can validate your assumptions and prove your case to investors.
3. Use graphs to showcase growth. Graphs are strong visuals and when you can connect growth to certain events, it shows that you know how to effectively progress the business.

9) Financial Ask

You’re pitching because you want to raise money. The investors are listening to your pitch because they want to invest money. This slide gets to the meat of things – how much investment you’re seeking.

In this slide, explain the investment opportunity. You can include how much you’re intending to raise, how the investment will be spent, how much equity is being offered, and even information about funding that has already been raised (if applicable).

Daily Hundred used this slide to let investors know exactly how much money they were seeking to raise. Additionally, they added their preferred method of receiving that money – in exchange for preferred stock.

Kickfolio kept things simple by displaying how much money they are raising during this round, and how much has already been committed.

Swerve added an extra element into their Financial Ask slide. In addition to their target raise of $750k, they also detailed where the money would be spent and how it would be used to spur the next level of growth.

Here are a few things you can learn from these pitch deck slides:

1. Be realistic about what you’re asking for. Investors are usually analytical and if you’re asking for a certain amount, you better be ready to prove why you are worth it. Calculate your startup valuation and use that valuation to assess how much you should raise and what level of equity you should offer.
2. Don’t raise money just because it’s available, raise it to grow your business and know exactly why you are raising it. Even if you don’t show what the money is going to be used for in your pitch deck slides, the question will be raised at some point.
3. Mention previous funding raised and other investors who have invested. Risk doesn’t seem as risky when someone else is already on board. This creates FOMO, and you want investors to leave the pitch feeling that they’d be missing out on something major if they don’t invest!

Designing Your Pitch Deck Slides

Pitch decks weren’t meant to be extremely difficult to create, but there are elements that must go into your deck to maximize your chances of securing the seed money you need to build and launch your solution. As you send your pitch deck around and receive feedback from investors, continually adapt your presentation until it is perfect.

As always, our team at ThinkLions is here to help. If you need assistance creating your pitch deck, our pitch deck designers and consultants are ready to work with you. Check out one of our sample pitch decks and contact us today! 

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