ddri / pitchlist

A list of resources for people learning to pitch

On the topic of startup pitches

A sequence of resources for startup pitching. Collected for a lecture for the 2019 Startup Onramp cohort. Mostly resources or well articulated examples of ideas I found useful in my own journey learning to pitch, and then raising multuple rounds of venture funding (along with the distractions of pitch comps, tech events, demo days, etc).

Get the structure right

• Intro to the YC seed deck
• Guy Kawasaki's 10 slide deck

Understand the context of what you're communicating

• Three Steps to an Amazing TEDx Talk
• The myth of the perfect pitch deck

Make it look great

• How to design a better pitch deck

Learn how to present better

• Learn how to pitch with Anabelle Roberts and earlier version and longer version.

Do it right on the day

• Perfecting your pitch
• Guy Kawasaki giving tips to Stanford BSB

Go pitch it and pitch it and pitch it and...

• Skip down to read the tips section of this otherwise sprawling piece.

Now go back and fix these issues in your deck

• Ten steps to fix your shitty pitch blog post and no-holds-barred video.

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Q&A

Some questions you should be asking in the Q&A section:

• How much time will it take me to make my perfect deck?
• How will I know when it's good enough?
• How "optimistic" should it be?
• How much detail should I put into the deck (graphics versus facts)?
• How much effort should I put into the design quality?
• How often will I need to update the deck?
• Should I just email the deck to people?
• Should I always pitch with the deck and a projector?
• What's this whole "details in the appendix" trick I hear about?

Parting reminder

Pitching doesn't really matter. Finding big problems to solve matters. Building the right solution matters. Shipping products to solve problems matters. Charging users to pay for solutions to problems matters. Revenue matters.

Pitching is a process that can support that. Don't confuse process for purpose.