The other day I was eye balling a pitch deck and here I am jotting down my reactions as I go page by page:

• Logo and colour on the front page looks nice, a grammatical error and an over used buzz word in the slogan

• Vision statement instead of describing what the app is all about. Vision statement contains overused buzzwords, and lists actually multiple possible consumer hooks, each could be a business in its own right, some are features, some are business models

• App screen shot looks nice, but highlighted features do not match the vision of the previous page

• Lots of market data, but in this industry, no one will ever doubt that the market is small, the question is how to take on the existing giants and way of doing things

• Product description (matches the screen shot, not the vision). Trying to relate this product to products I know (both traditional ones, and other innovators I am aware of). Maybe this product is new and does not merit a direct comparison, but still I am trying to understand what it actually does before getting into the positioning. Existing product comparison are good for the purpose of educating.

• Very dense internal consulting chart that shows how the team came up with the value proposition

• Competitive analysis is a detailed spreadsheet, competitor columns need re-ordering, feature rows need re-ordering and grouping

• A key strategic partner pops up at the end of the slide deck as a very important part of the brand

This is not a critique of a final, polished investor pitch, this document was just version 0.1 of an interested customer of SlideMagic, asking me what templates to use. SlideMagic can instantly upgrade the looks of these slides, some of the consulting frameworks are on board as a template already. But designing the deck is too early.

It looks like the project started as an original product idea with a very distinctive feature. Now the team is working to build the right consumer positioning out of it and is mid-way. Some recommendations:

• Keep the investor positioning and the consumer positioning separate. For investors, be very clear how your product/technology fits, relates, is different from other players in the market. The consumer pitch can sound different. You need to have a consumer pitch, since the investor wants to be confident that you know how to market, but that is a different check box you need to tick.

• Separate the charts from you internal consulting project from the pitch deck, they are totally different. Not only in graphical style, but also in content. Working documents show doubts, trade offs, analysis, pitch charts have a very clear and confident message

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