- Lea-Sophie Cramer is a German entrepreneur who founded the startup Amorelie.
- She is also a venture capital investor and investment advisor to companies such as KKR.
- Cramer shares the key things founders should consider when building their pitch deck.
This is the edited, translated version article First appeared on January 9, 2023.
Lea-Sophie Cramer founded Amorelie, a leading e-commerce company that sells sex toys.
Today, she is one of Germany’s most active angel investors, investing in various startups through her venture capital firm, Pink Capital. In addition to this, she advises companies such as: Global Investment Company KKR On identifying new investments.
As an entrepreneur and VC, Cramer has worked on a huge number of pitch decks.
She shared her top tips on LinkedIn Create an effective pitch deck.
1. “Tell me your story”
A pitch deck is all about telling a good story. You need “awesome moments and a sense of suspense,” Cramer wrote in his LinkedIn post.
She said she took inspiration from entrepreneur and best-selling author Simon Sinek. “How?” Why? “It was important when talking about products and companies.
Cramer said he searched the pitch deck to answer the following questions.
- Why this market, why this idea now?
- How can I do this differently than others?
- What exactly am I doing and who are we?
2. “Less is more”
Cramer writes that it’s better to be concise than verbose.
She identified key points to cover as “team, topic, timing and market.” She added that founders can also mention valuations and funding needs in chats with prospective investors.
3. “Know the numbers”
Cramer recognizes that most numbers during the pitching stage are predictions, but she said it’s still important to understand these well and include them in your deck.
“Investors want to know how you think, how you calculate, how ambitious your goals are, and how realistic your marketing spending assumptions are.
4. “Slide to show who you are”
The pitch deck should be tailored to each startup’s product and style.
“If you want to build a brand, you need a pitch deck that highlights that brand. If you want to build a tool, you need a pitch deck that shows a mockup of your product,” Cramer wrote.
5. “Looks matter.”
Cramer added that the presentation of the deck is important as well as the content.
For those who don’t feel confident doing this themselves, Cramer recommends using: pitch, provides templates that allow you to create and work with others in the cloud on your presentations. She also suggested her Beautiful.AI, which offers a similar service.
For those in need of professional help, we recommend UnicornPitch, a design and content service.
6. “Control distribution”
“Sending via DocSend is better than PDF,” writes Cramer.
This gives the sender more control over who can read the pitch deck and who can forward it. It also allows investors to see which pitches they spent more time on, helping them learn and improve on subsequent pitches.