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My First MillionThe Exact Pitch Deck I've Used To Raise Millions From Investors (#436)
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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Shaan Puri Walks Through His Battle-Tested Investor Pitch Deck Template
- Shaan Puri shares his dummy pitch deck template, which he says he has used to raise money, sent to other founders, and included in his power writing course.
- The deck opens with a title and outcome-focused subtitle, then a credibility slide, a problem slide backed by data or a personal story, and a look at how people try to solve the problem today before introducing the solution.
- Rather than detailing how the product works, Puri says investors mostly want to know whether the opportunity is big, so he stresses a vision slide anchored to known companies, plus a hero traction chart.
- Later slides cover differentiation, bigger trends, why now, why you, unit economics, and milestones tied to the raise, all aimed at building investor confidence.
- He recommends saving about 15% of the good news as a closing pot sweetener, and he cautions that a deck cannot rescue a weak business.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasLead with credibility only if you have it
Puri says investors first ask whether you have something they want and whether you're legit. If you lack accomplishments, he says to skip the credibility slide rather than lead with weakness.
Show how people solve the problem today before your solution
Instead of jumping to "here's why we're great," Puri sets up the failures of current options, then reveals the solution as a Steve Jobs-style moment.
Investors care about size more than product internals
He says people tend to over-explain how the solution works, when investors mainly want to know if the company can get big and make them money.
Anchor your vision to something familiar
Comparisons like Calm and Headspace for meditation, or Little League baseball for e-sports, make a niche idea feel larger by tying it to something investors already understand.
Your hero metric determines how strong the pitch is
Puri says no pitch can fix a terrible business. If traction isn't there yet, he suggests showing why you believe it will work, such as a wait list or a track record.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesNo pitch can fix a terrible business. You shouldn't be pitching a terrible business. You should be pitching a business that's working or going to work.
— Shaan Puri
As an investor, you don't need to know how the whole product works yet. You instead need to know, is this big? Am I going to make money?
— Shaan Puri
What most people do is they just explain their features. That's not what you wanna do. You wanna say, "Everybody does X and we do Y." Right? That's the core differentiator.
— Shaan Puri
You wanna take some of your good news and move 15% of it to the end of the show. It's like your little good news dessert at the end of the thing.
— Shaan Puri
If your business is not very good, then don't worry about the deck. Make your business better first, then go raise the money.
— Shaan Puri
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
