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Pitch Deck Pointers Part 9: The Team Slide

Blackbird Ventures Principal Tip Piumsomboon reveals the key to an investor-friendly team slide.

The pitch deck is an essential tool for startup founders trying to fundraise. We created Pitch Deck Pointers to take the guesswork out of the pitch deck. We brought in those who know pitch decks best — investors — and asked them to analyse each slide of the pitch deck. We’re nearing the end of our analysis; here’s what we’ve released so far:

  1. The Intro Slide featuring Sian Priest of Innovation Bay
  2. The Problem Slide featuring Emily Close of AirTree Ventures
  3. The Solution Slide featuring Hannah Field of Tempus Partners
  4. The Market Slide featuring Alon Greenspan of Jelix Ventures
  5. The Unfair Advantage Slide featuring Benjamin Chong of Right Click Capital
  6. The Competition Slide featuring Hugh Bickerstaff of Investible
  7. The Business Plan Slide featuring Kylie Frazer of Eleanor Venture
  8. The Traction Slide featuring Dan Gavel of Black Sheep Capital

To demystify the team slide, we’ve brought in Tip Piumsomboon, Principal at Blackbird Ventures, a VC firm based in Australia and New Zealand. Tip will take us through the purpose of the team slide, common mistakes she sees on this slide, and her top pitch tip.

Meet the VC: Tip Piumsomboon of Blackbird Ventures

I’m Tip Piumsomboon and I’m a part of the Blackbird team. We invest in ambitious Australian and Kiwi founders building global legacies. I spend my days in the community meeting founders and am currently based in Auckland, New Zealand.

The Team Slide

The purpose of this slide and why it’s important to an investor

The team in an early-stage company is everything. Before there’s any product or traction, investors are backing the founding team’s vision, so it’s important to answer the “why you?” question with this slide. At Blackbird, one of the most important things we look for are founders doing their life’s work. Tell us your story, your relationship to the problem and why you and your team are the ones to solve the problem. –TP

Common mistakes made on this slide

Putting the whole team on there (including the part-time advisors and contractors), putting in irrelevant experiences, writing a full bio rather than the key points. Keep it simple and include only the people who are meaningfully involved with the company such as the founders and key employees. –TP

Top tip for founders

Don’t fit your story into a template, create a template to suit your narrative. Start with a blank piece of paper and write down why your company exists (the painful problem, why you’re the ones to solve it, what your big picture vision is) and fill in the missing pieces from there (industry/market overview and where you fit, product roadmap, key milestones). A pitch deck is a roadmap to the future you want to build and the story you tell to get the right people on board. –TP

Next up:

Disclaimer: At the end of the day, this series is just a guide and should not be taken as gospel. Just as every business is different, every slide deck should be different. While the general order and number of slides we’ll use in the series is a good jumping-off point, perhaps a few more or less slides or a completely different sequence would better fit your company’s story.