Most CEOs jump straight into designing slides and end up with a beautiful deck that says nothing.
The better order is content first: answer the hard questions about your business, then build the outline, then make it look good. This free questionnaire walks you through those questions so your pitch deck has a clear, fundable story. Here's how to use it.
Why Start With a Questionnaire
A pitch deck is an argument, not an art project. Investors decide in minutes whether your story hangs together, and no amount of design saves a deck that hasn't answered: "why this, why now, why you." Working through the questionnaire forces clarity on each piece before you commit it to a slide, which is faster and produces a sharper deck. See the science behind winning pitch decks for the slide order investors respond to.
The Slides a Strong Deck Covers
Use your answers to build an outline around the slides investors expect:
- Problem: the real, painful problem you solve, and who has it.
- Solution: how you solve it, simply stated.
- Why now: what's changed that makes this the moment.
- Market: how big the opportunity is, built bottom-up.
- Product: what it is, ideally shown, not just told.
- Business model: how you make money.
- Traction: the evidence it's working (revenue, users, growth, pipeline).
- Competition: who else is in the space and why you win.
- Team: why you're the ones to pull this off.
- The ask: how much you're raising and what it buys.
How to Use It
Make a copy of the questionnaire, answer every question honestly (the gaps you can't fill are exactly what investors will probe), then turn your answers into an outline before you touch slide design. Then pressure-test the story with someone who'll be candid.
Get the Questionnaire
Get the Pitch Deck Outline Company Questionnaire (Google Doc, make a copy).
For the relationship side of raising, pair it with our guides on nurturing investor relationships and building fundraising momentum, and see Your Guide for Fundraising for the full process.