Pitch Deck Bootcamp
Build a head-turning pitch deck that attracts investors and brings your fundraising goals within reach.
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Course overview
Turn your startup idea into an investor-ready pitch deck.
A well-crafted pitch deck creates a winning narrative and crystallizes ideas for your audience, bringing your fundraising goals within reach. In this highly interactive, actionable training, you'll create an effectively-designed pitch deck to attract investors to your startup.
This training is for founders and execs looking to take their startup's pitch to the next level.
01
You're a founder raising initial funds for your startup from angels and seed investors.
02
You're a startup CEO or executive raising a seed or pre-series A investment from VCs.
03
You're anyone working to attract investors and customers to your startup and its mission.
Craft your raise-ready pitch deck in under two weeks with this actionable, in-depth training.
Telling a great story that captivates.
You’ll weave your startup idea into a clear, cohesive and attractive narrative that lands with your investor audience.
Creating a simple and effective pitch deck structure.
You’ll distill your pitch into the 9 - 13 core slides that most investors look for in an early-stage pitch deck.
Clearly articulating your solution's superiority.
You'll help investors grasp a specific problem in the world and why your startup's solution is best-positioned to solve it.
Making your product demo the hero of the story.
You'll make your product demo the apex of your story clearly, concisely and without missing a beat during your pitch.
Keeping your TAM simple and specific.
We'll cover techniques to make your Total Addressable Market (TAM) slide specific and believable.
Clarifying your business model.
Using common mental models for quicker orientation, you'll keep your business model slide clear and easy-to-understand for investors.
Standing out from the competition.
You'll design your competition slide in a way that emphasizes your startup’s differences, and shows how your startup is a vast improvement over the competition.
Highlighting your team’s unfair advantages.
You'll learn how to build a team slide that highlights your team's winning strengths and exudes confidence.
Effectively communicating your vision.
You’ll learn how to best communicate your vision to investors, in a way that builds on your story and keeps you in the driver's seat of the pitch conversation.
Leveraging design fundamentals.
You’ll take a deck design crash course to help you master your presentation's layout and design details to keep your audiences rapt attention.
BONUS: Accessing the best presentation tools and resources.
You'll get recommended resources and tools like stock imagery, illustrations, and fonts, as well guides and cheatsheets you can use while building your pitch.
Michal says thank you for "...an incredible presentation... so packed with value..."
Michal Eisikowitz, Founder & CEO of CopyTribe
What people are saying
David Tisch
David Stark
Foti Panagiotakopoulos
Liz Cohen
Emma Datny
Dalia Landes
Michal Eisikowitz
Thomas Mazimann
Meet your instructor
Jack Zerby (Instructor)
Jack Zerby (Instructor)
Seasoned design professional, entrepreneur, and pitch deck expert
Jack has been pitching investors and designing pitch decks for over a decade. He's seen what works, what mistakes to avoid, and built this Pitch Deck Bootcamp to share his design principles, systems and methodology with other founders and operators.
- $2+ billion raised using Jack's deck designs
- Current Head of Design at Gumroad and DesignForDecks.com
- Ex Design at Vimeo; Pentagram; Frog; R/GA
- Ex Consultant at Teachable; American Express; Staked
Course syllabus
4 lessons • 2 projects
Week 1
- Tell a great story - How to use tried-and-true story frameworks used in Hollywood movies and classic novels to engage your audience.
- Know your audience - Understanding the conversation going on inside your audiences head is critical to delivering a powerful pitch.
- Be clear & concise - Getting your message across as succinctly as possible is critical when you're pitching busy investors with tight time constraints.
- Avoid complexity
- Avoid mystery
- Avoid jargon
- Avoid "prove it"
- [Name] helps [audience] + [solution] + [how]
- Name] + [solution] + [how]
- [Name] is building [what] to help [audience] + [do]
- 📄
Figma Slides
- Intro - What is your one sentence summary?
- Problem - What specific, painful and picturable problem are you trying to solve?
- Solution - How will this problem be solved?
- Solution Problem Slide (optional) - What’s the problem with this solution?
- Product Demo - How does the product work?
- Market - How big is your market & how much can you make?
- Business Model - How will you make money?
- 📄
Figma Slides
- ✍️
Slide feedback from Jack
Submit by May 5
Messaging Fundamentals
👋 Welcome to Week 1 / Module 1 of the Pitchdeck Bootcamp!
In this first module, you will learn 3 principles of an effective pitch deck:
✍️ Work session (10 minutes)
In this module's work session, we will be writing the first draft of our companies one sentence summary using the following guidelines:
If you are having trouble writing your summary, try the following frameworks:
👀 Feedback session (10 minutes)
In this module's feedback session, we will be reviewing each others one sentence summary.
Building Core Slides (Part 1)
In this module you will learn how to build the following core slides:
✍️ Work session (10 minutes)
In this module's work session, we will be writing a rough draft our problem slide.
👀 Feedback session (10 minutes)
In this module's feedback session, we will be giving feedback on each others problem slide rough draft.
⚡ Project assignment
If you have questions about the 7 core slides we covered, please submit them in the next project "Submit your questions for Jack".
Week 2
- Competition - How are you different and 10x better?
- GTM - Who are your customers & how will you reach them?
- Team - Is this the right team to pull this off?
- Traction - How are you growing since launch?
- Fundraising - How much are you looking for and what type?
- Use of funds - How will you spend this money?
- Vision - What's your big hairy audacious goal?
- 📄
Figma Slides
- ✍️
Slide feedback from Jack
Submit by May 12 - Layout - How to use grids to set up a strong foundation for each slide
- Color - How to use contrast, opacity and brightness to enhance every word
- Font - How to use typography to create the perfect personality for your brand
- Images - How to use iconography to enhance each word
- 📄
Figma Slides
Building Core Slides (Part 2)
In this module we will be going through 7 of the remaining core 13 slides and what to include on each one:
✍️ Work session (10 minutes)
In this module's work session, we will be writing a rough draft our "Fundraising" slide.
👀 Feedback session (10 minutes)
In this module's feedback session, we will be giving feedback on each others "Fundraising" slide rough draft.
Design Fundamentals
In this final module you will learn how to integrate timeless design principles into your slides and elevate your messaging.
🎥 Live demo (15 minutes)
In this live demo, Jack will redesign one of your slides in real time, showing you how to integrate the principles we learned in this module.
You’ll see how to apply these tactics in a real world situation and will hear how Jack thinks through solving design challenges.
Week 3
Course schedule
2-3 hours per week
Kickoff: Day 1
11am PST / 2pm EST / 7pm GMT
Meet your instructor, your peers, and dive straight into to the first topic: Three Principles Of An Effective Pitch Deck.
Core Slides: Days 3 & 5
11am PST / 2pm EST / 7pm GMT
The first week of Jack Zerby's Pitch Deck Bootcamp will focus on live training sessions, happening Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Each session will last an hour and include short lectures on key topics, along with brief workshops and Q & A.
Rapid Feedback Round 1: Day 8
11am PST / 2pm EST / 7pm GMT
Submit drafts of your core slides for individual feedback, and experience a closed-door pitch feedback session with your cohort peers.
Rapid Feedback Round 2: Day 9
11am PST / 2pm EST / 7pm GMT
Submit drafts of your core slides for individual feedback, and experience a closed-door pitch feedback session with your instructor.
Final Session: Day 10
11am PST / 2pm EST / 7pm GMT
In our final session, you'll participate in a crash-course on pitch deck design principles. This session will help you level up when communicating with designers and/or using presentation design tools yourself, bringing your pitch deck to pixel-perfection.
Learning is better with cohorts
Active hands-on learning
This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects
Interactive and project-based
You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams
Learn with a cohort of peers
Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you