The pitch deck that works on a phone
Investors on Find open your deck after they've already hearted you, on a phone, to check they were right. Twelve slides, what each one is for, the three that decide everything, and the production rules that keep it readable at five inches wide.
A deck used to be something you presented in a room, with you talking over it. On Find it is something an investor opens alone, on a phone, after they have already expressed interest, to confirm the impression the listing gave them. That changes what it is for. It is not there to create excitement — the listing and the video did that. It is there to survive scrutiny in three minutes without you in the room.
Twelve slides. One idea each. Big type. Here is what goes on them and why.
The twelve slides
- Name and one line. Company name, the one-sentence description from your summary, your name. Nothing else. Investors decide whether to keep going on this slide.
- The problem. One customer, one cost. A photograph of the customer beats a stock image of a frustrated office worker. If you can put the cost in a single large number — "£6,400 a year per firm" — do.
- The product. A screenshot or a photograph of the thing. Not a diagram, not an architecture, not a list of features. If an investor cannot tell what the product is from this slide, the deck has failed.
- Why now. What changed — a regulation, a technology, a cost, a behaviour — that makes this possible or necessary today and not five years ago. "Making Tax Digital for Income Tax started in April 2026 and 864,000 sole traders need software they don't have" is a why-now.
- Traction. One chart. Dates on the x-axis, money or customers on the y-axis, a title that says the point: "Revenue doubled in six months." This is the slide investors spend longest on. Make the line real; they will ask for the spreadsheet.
- Business model. What you charge, who pays, gross margin. If you have them: customer acquisition cost, lifetime value and payback months. Three numbers, large.
- Market. Bottom-up: customers × price = serviceable market. Show the working in three lines. Leave the $18bn global figure to the people who will lose.
- Competition. A simple two-axis map or a table with names in it. Say why you win in one line. "No competition" ends the conversation on this slide.
- Team. Faces, names, one relevant line each. The relevant thing is what they have done that makes them the right person for this business, not where they went to university.
- The raise. Amount, instrument, valuation if you are stating one, minimum ticket, SEIS/EIS status with advance assurance if you have it. All in large type.
- Use of funds. Three bars or a pie, and one sentence: the milestone this reaches.
- Contact. Your name, the company, and "express interest on Find". Nothing else.
The three that decide everything
Most investors have made up their mind by slide five. Slides 1, 2 and 3 — what it is, who hurts, what you built — are where the deck is won or lost. Spend half your time on those three. If slide 3 is a product screenshot that makes the investor think "oh, I see", the rest of the deck is confirmation.
Production rules for a five-inch screen
- Minimum 24pt body text, 40pt titles. If it needs a pinch-zoom it will not be read.
- Landscape, 16:9. Phones rotate; decks should too.
- One chart per slide, labelled axes, the point in the title.
- No animations, no embedded video, no speaker notes. It is a PDF. The video is a separate link on your listing.
- Under 10MB. Compress images. An investor on a train will not wait.
- Two colours, one typeface. The brand of the deck is the business, not the template.
- Numbers as numbers. "£1.1m" not "1.1 million pounds"; "14%" not "fourteen percent".
What to leave out
The company history. The mission statement. The org chart. The list of every feature. The slide of logos of companies you have spoken to once. The exit-strategy slide that says "trade sale or IPO". Anything that exists to fill a slide rather than answer a question.
Generate it, then edit it
The pitch deck builder on Find produces these twelve slides from your listing and plan, in the right order with the right emphasis. Treat it as the first draft: export it, open it on your phone, and ask whether an investor who knows nothing about you would understand slides 1–3 in thirty seconds. If yes, you are close. If no, the problem is in your listing, not the deck.
Questions founders ask
"Do I need a designer?"
No. Two colours, one typeface, big type and one idea per slide is a design. What you need is editing: every slide should answer one question an investor would ask at that point. If you do want help, spend it on the product photograph for slide 3, not the template.
"What about an appendix?"
Put detail in the business plan, not the deck. If an investor wants the unit economics by cohort, they will ask, and you will send a spreadsheet. A deck with an appendix is a deck that did not trust itself.
"Should I state a valuation on slide 10?"
If you have advance assurance and a lead investor, yes — it saves everyone time. If you are still finding the lead, "raising £600k; terms to be agreed with the lead investor" is honest and leaves room. Never leave it blank without saying why; investors read a blank as "they haven't thought about it".