There are nine sections in our short pitch template that correspond with nine facts about your company that investors expect to see. Each section consists of explanation of its purpose and forms for filling in your narration and the copy for the slide in support of your spoken words. The order represents the most common short pitch flow. But we specifically designed this tool to create standalone slides. Change this order, or even omit some slides, to follow the arc of your story. For example, some founders open with an impressive revenue number, statement of profitability, or a unique insight before presenting the expected details.









1 What your company does

State concisely what your company does and for whom. Be as specific as possible. The more specific you are in this statement, the less time you need to spend on explaining the problem you are solving.
Playing with our Messaging Tool will help you tailor these statements.







2 How your company does it

Explain how your company delivers what it promises. Describe the process as you would in a “how it works” section on a typical landing page.
Playing with our Messaging Tool will help you tailor these statements.





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3 Who your customer or user is

Mitigate the fear many investors will have about you building a product based on your assumptions of a need, rather than a well understood and tested need. Sharing your story, or someone's story close to you, about a need that inspired your business is a meaningful way to contextualise your product.
Playing with our User Observation Tool will help you tailor these statements.










4 What your unique insight is

Share a unique insight that either you’ve discovered during interactions with your users or you know because you’re an expert on the subject matter.







5 What your market size is

State how big your market is. There are two methods for estimating market size - top down and bottom up. The bottom up approach is more credible, therefore we suggest using that. First, figure out who buys products similar to yours. These people are your potential customers. If your product is novel, look for current solutions to your problem and determine who buys those. Then figure out how much your potential customers would be willing to pay for your product, i.e. the unit price. Last, multiply the number of potential customers by the unit price to estimate your total addressable market.















6 How much progress you have made

Help investors understand how effective your team is. Describe when you started, what you have built in that time, if you have users or customers or LOIs (Letter of Intend).








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7 Growth

Share an impressive growth number if you have one. If you share something it *must* be true and impressive. You can show revenue, a statement of profitability, a significant number of customers or users, or any other number that communicates a healthy upward trend.








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8 What is impressive about your team

Convince investors that you are the perfect team to deliver on your mission. Focus on showcasing only the most relevant experience. For example, if you are entering a highly regulated market or building a sophisticated technological product, investors will look for founders with specific expertise and a proven track record.









 


9 Summary of the most powerful facts

This is the grand finale. Plant in the heads of the investors the three most powerful facts about your company. These can be repeated statements from previous sections or specific to this slide.






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Click PITCH to review your pitch deck. Click NARRATION to review your presentation notes. Use both to practice your pitch. Share them with others to test clarity and excitement of your pitch. Use our tool to iterate. Good luck!

  



About use of image:
Image is worth thousand words. But it is not trivial to choose an empowering image for a short pitch. Most founders get that wrong. So rather than incentivizing you to waste a valuable time browsing image banks and arguing with your co-founders about the image meaning, we have designed pitch that requires no images. This format works for 99% of early stage companies. Invest your time in practice.

Memo:
Not to confuse YC founders – our largest user group – when we designed the 150 SECOND PITCH TOOL we have closely adhered to the YC advice on pitching. These are the publically available resources:

How to Present to Investors, YC founder Paul Graham
How to Pitch Your Company, YC partner Michael Seibel
A Guide to Demo Day Presentations, YC partner Geoff Ralston
Advice on Pitching, YC partner Kevin Hale
Advice on Pitching, YC partner Aaron Harris