Eight slides, one question each
A pitch deck is the short slide presentation a founder uses to convince someone to back their idea. You build one slide a week, in the order an investor would ask the questions.
The same questions come from a customer, a grant committee, a hiring manager or a boss inside a large company. Not every good venture is a high-growth startup, and small businesses, social ventures and bootstrapped companies use the same thinking. No student work is shown on this site.
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Slide 1
Problem Statement
The question an investor asks: Who has this problem, and why is it bad enough that they would change what they do?
Class sessions that feed it
Follows week 2.
- Team Formation Day
- Jobs to Be Done
- Problem Statement
Frameworks you will use
- The problem statement template: “This group of people has the problem of ___, which is bad because ___”
- Jobs to Be Done
- The Business Model Canvas
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Slide 2
Solution
The question an investor asks: What is the solution, and what evidence shows it solves the problem?
Class sessions that feed it
Follows week 3.
- Solutions
- Minimum Viable Product
- Using AI Well in the Startup World
Frameworks you will use
- Hypotheses over plans
- The minimum viable product
- Using AI well
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Slide 3
Customers
The question an investor asks: Who are the first customers, and what do they say they need?
Class sessions that feed it
Follows week 4.
- Value Prop (Customers)
- Customer Segments
- Customer Relationships
Frameworks you will use
- Customer discovery interviews in the past tense (no pitching, five whys)
- The market segmentation worksheet
- Value propositions
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Slide 4
Market Opportunity
The question an investor asks: Which market do you win first, and how big can it grow?
Class sessions that feed it
Follows week 5.
- Beachhead Market
- Market Size
- Go-to-Market and Product-Market Fit
Frameworks you will use
- Beachhead selection
- TAM, SAM and SOM
- Go-to-market and product-market fit
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Slide 5
Competitive Advantage
The question an investor asks: Why will customers choose you over every other option, and why is that hard to copy?
Class sessions that feed it
Follows week 6.
- Competitive Advantage
- Disruptive Innovation
- Pitching
Frameworks you will use
- Disruptive innovation
- Positioning
- Pitching
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Slide 6
Revenue Model, Pricing Model and Traction
The question an investor asks: How does the company make money, and what proof is there that it works?
Class sessions that feed it
Follows week 7.
- Revenue Models
- Pricing Models
- Growth (Traction)
Frameworks you will use
- Revenue and pricing models
- LTV and CAC
- Growth and traction
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Slide 7
Team
The question an investor asks: Why is this the right team to build this company?
Class sessions that feed it
Follows week 8.
- Team: Rich vs. King
- Team: Radical Candor and Founder Mode
Frameworks you will use
- Rich vs. King
- Radical Candor
- Founder Mode
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Slide 8
Investors and Exit Strategy
The question an investor asks: What does an investor get back, and how?
Class sessions that feed it
Follows week 10 (the weeks 9 and 10 sessions).
- Value Prop (Investors)
- Investors, Exits and pitch preparation
- Investors, Exits and pitch preparation
- How Will You Measure Your Life?
Frameworks you will use
- The investor’s lens: scalability, market size and a path to a 10x return
- Liquidation-preference math on term sheets
- Exits
The timing of this write-up is set on Canvas.
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The finish: final presentation and paper
Presentation. A recorded pitch of 5 minutes or less. Every team member speaks, and the pitch is built to persuade an investor, not to recite the company's history.
Paper. A paper of 4,800 to 5,600 words, stitched together and improved from the eight weekly write-ups.
There is no final exam. Exact deadlines are on Canvas.
See when each slide happens
The schedule shows each week’s sessions and where each write-up falls.