Create a Pitch Deck: 12-Slide Guide

How to create a pitch deck, in short

To create a pitch deck: decide the one outcome you want, write your story in five sentences, then build 10 to 12 slides with one takeaway each.

Pick the decision you want: a meeting, a shortlist, an intro or a term sheet.
Write problem, solution, proof and ask in five sentences first.
Use the 12-slide order below.
Make each slide title a full sentence that states the takeaway.
Design it to be read alone, on a phone, in under five minutes.
Test it on a stranger and fix what confuses them.
Send a PDF under 10 MB, with an appendix ready for follow-up questions.

Many pitch decks are never presented. They are forwarded, opened on a phone between meetings, and judged in a few minutes. So the deck has to make sense with nobody talking over it. That one fact explains most of the advice on this page.

The 12-slide pitch deck structure

Each slide below says what to include, one line that works, and the mistake to avoid. The examples use an invented company, so replace every detail with your own verifiable facts.

Slide 1: Title — say what you do

Include: Company name, a one-line description a stranger understands, your name and contact.
Example: Fieldly: software that lets small farms sell directly to restaurants.
Avoid: A clever tagline that does not say what the company does.

Slide 2: Problem — make the pain specific

Include: Who has the problem, how often, what it costs them in money or time, and how they cope today.
Example: Independent restaurants lose roughly a day a week chasing produce orders by phone.
Avoid: Describing an industry trend instead of a person's problem.

Slide 3: Solution — show the change

Include: What you do about the problem, in plain words, and the before and after for the customer.
Example: Chefs order from nearby farms in one app and get a delivery window the same day.
Avoid: A feature list. Lead with the outcome, then the features that cause it.

Slide 4: Product — let them see it

Include: Two or three real screenshots or a short flow. Show the moment the user gets value.
Example: A screenshot of an order placed in under a minute, with the delivery slot confirmed.
Avoid: Mockups of features that do not exist yet, presented as live.

Slide 5: Market — size the first slice

Include: Who you sell to first, how many of them there are, what they pay, and how that grows.
Example: 12,000 independent restaurants in our launch cities, paying about $90 a month.
Avoid: One huge top-down figure with no path to your first thousand customers.

Slide 6: Business model — explain how you earn

Include: Who pays, how much, how often, and your margin or cost to serve.
Example: Restaurants pay a monthly subscription; farms pay a small fee per completed order.
Avoid: Leaving pricing vague. Investors read vagueness as not having tested it.

Slide 7: Traction — prove people want it

Include: Revenue, users, retention, pilots, waitlist or signed letters of intent. Use the metric that fits your stage.
Example: 38 restaurants paying after six months, with the month and the source of the number on the slide.
Avoid: Vanity numbers such as page views, or any figure you cannot back up.

Slide 8: Competition — be honest about alternatives

Include: What customers use today, including spreadsheets and doing nothing, and why you win.
Example: Customers currently use phone calls and WhatsApp groups. We replace both.
Avoid: A grid where you tick every box and competitors tick none.

Slide 9: Go-to-market — show how you get customers

Include: Your first channel, the cost to win a customer, and what you have already tried.
Example: We onboard restaurants through two food distributors, who already serve them.
Avoid: Listing every channel. Pick the one you will actually run.

Slide 10: Team — why you can do this

Include: The few people who matter, with the one fact that makes each credible for this problem.
Example: CEO ran purchasing for a 40-seat restaurant group. CTO built the ordering system it used.
Avoid: A wall of logos and job titles with no link to the problem.

Slide 11: Financials and ask — say what you need and what it buys

Include: Amount raising, what milestones it reaches, runway, and a simple forecast with its main assumptions.
Example: Raising a defined amount to reach a named revenue milestone in 18 months.
Avoid: A forecast that goes up and to the right with no assumptions shown.

Slide 12: Contact — make the next step easy

Include: Email, website, and one clear call to action such as a demo or a call.
Example: Name, email, link to the live product, and the date you plan to close the round.
Avoid: Ending on a generic thank-you slide with no way to follow up.

What changes by stage and audience

The structure stays the same. The weight on each slide changes with who is reading.

Audience	Lead with	Show the most proof on	Cut or shrink
Pre-seed investors	Team and the problem	Problem, early users, why you	Detailed financial models
Seed investors	Traction	Traction, go-to-market, unit economics	Long market-size essays
Series A investors	Repeatable growth	Retention, revenue, sales efficiency	Vision before evidence
Grants and funders	Impact and outcomes	Beneficiaries, milestones, budget use	Exit and return language
Accelerators	Founders and speed of learning	Team, progress in the last 90 days	Five-year projections

Raising from more than one source? Keep one master deck and make a short variant for each audience. Do not send an investor deck to a grant funder unchanged. Still working out who to send it to? Browse grants, accelerators and investors.

Design rules that matter

One idea per slide. If you cannot say the slide's point in one sentence, split it.

Titles that argue. "Revenue grew 3x in six months" beats "Traction". Someone skimming only the titles should still understand your business.

Type that survives a phone. Keep body text at 24 pt or larger. If it needs squinting, it needs cutting.

One chart per slide, labelled. Axes, units and time period visible. Never make the reader work out what a chart means.

One or two typefaces and a restrained palette. Consistency reads as discipline. Decoration reads as hiding something.

Honest numbers. Investors check. A claim you cannot back up costs you every other claim in the deck.

Three ways to create a pitch deck

Approach	Best when	Watch out for
Blank slides in a presentation app	You have design skill and time, and a strong point of view	Blank-page paralysis, inconsistent layouts, missed sections
Template	You know your story and want a clean layout fast	Templates give layout, not content, so the writing is still yours to do
AI generator	You have your facts and want a structured first draft to edit	AI cannot know your real traction. Verify every number and claim

Choosing an AI tool? We ran eight of them against the same brief in our AI pitch deck generator comparison.

Pitch deck questions, answered

How many slides should a pitch deck have?

Ten to twelve for the main deck, plus an optional appendix for detail. Investors spend only a few minutes on a first read, so every extra slide dilutes the ones that matter.

What should a pitch deck include?

Problem, solution, product, market, business model, traction, competition, go-to-market, team, financials and ask, and contact details. The twelve-slide guide above covers each one.

How long does it take to create a pitch deck?

A first draft can take an hour if your numbers are ready. A deck you would send to investors usually takes several revision rounds over a few days, mostly spent tightening the story and checking figures.

Can I create a pitch deck with AI?

Yes. AI is good at structuring your inputs into slides and drafting copy. It cannot invent your traction or market data, so supply real numbers and verify every claim before you send.

Should I send a PDF or a link?

Send a PDF for cold outreach because it opens anywhere and cannot be edited. Use a tracked link only if you want view data and are comfortable with that.

Is a pitch deck different for grants and accelerators?

Yes. Funders weigh impact, team and execution more than exit potential. Keep the structure but swap the investor return story for outcomes, milestones and how the money will be used.

What is the biggest pitch deck mistake?

Claiming a huge market without showing how you win the first small slice of it. Specific, believable first customers beat a large top-down number.

What fonts and design work best?

One or two typefaces, body text of at least 24 pt, high contrast and one idea per slide. Plain and legible beats decorated.

Turn this structure into your deck

Answer a few questions about your startup and the generator drafts 10 story slides: Title, Problem, Solution, Why now, Product, Market, Business model, Go-to-market, Traction & team, The ask. Competition, team detail and financials are yours to add from your own figures. Then edit it and send it.

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Updated October 2026. The company in the examples is invented. Startup Map Hub does not fund startups; we help founders prepare decks and applications and find the funding open to them.

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