Startup pitch deck template: a slide-by-slide outline
By Vikram · Updated 26 Oct 2026
Your pitch deck is usually the first thing an investor or judge reads, often without you in the room. It needs to make sense on its own in about three minutes. Use this 12-slide outline as your template, in PowerPoint, Keynote or Google Slides.
The 12 slides
| Slide | What to put on it | What the reader checks |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Title | Company name, logo, one-line pitch, your name and contact | What is this, in five seconds? |
| 2. Problem | Who has the problem, how often, and what it costs them | Is the problem real and painful? |
| 3. Solution | What your product does for that customer, in plain words | Does it clearly solve the problem? |
| 4. Product | Two or three screenshots or a link to a demo video | Does it exist and work? |
| 5. Traction | Your best numbers in one chart: revenue, users or growth, with dates | Do people want it? |
| 6. Market | Target customers counted bottom-up, then the wider market | Can this get big? |
| 7. Business model | Who pays, how much, how often, and your margins | Can it make money? |
| 8. Go-to-market | How you reach customers and what each one costs | Can growth repeat? |
| 9. Competition | The alternatives and why customers pick you | Do they understand the landscape? |
| 10. Team | Founders and key people, their roles and relevant experience | Can this team win? |
| 11. Financials | Revenue and costs so far, and a 12–18 month plan | Is the plan realistic? |
| 12. The ask | How much you are raising and the milestones it reaches, or what you want from the judges | What happens next? |
For a hackathon idea round rather than a startup, use the shorter hackathon PPT template instead.
Design tips
- One message per slide, written as the slide title: "Clinics lose 20% of appointments to no-shows" beats "Problem".
- Big numbers, few words. If a slide needs a paragraph, it needs to be split or cut.
- Readable fonts: at least 24 pt for body text, and high contrast.
- Export as a PDF so it looks the same everywhere, and keep it under 10 MB.
- Put your contact details on the first and last slides.
Mistakes judges notice first
- No traction slide, or traction without dates.
- A market slide that only shows a huge top-down number.
- Screenshots too small to read.
- A team slide without roles.
- No clear ask at the end.
Use your deck in a competition
The Hack4Hack Global Startup Challenge 2026 asks for a pitch deck as a PDF of up to 10 MB, or a link. It is free to apply until 30 November 2026, open to startups from any country, and the top 3 win $12,000, $8,000 and $5,000 and a sponsored trip to San Francisco.
Frequently asked questions
How many slides should a startup pitch deck have?
About 10 to 12 slides. Investors and judges read decks quickly, so shorter is usually better.
Should my pitch deck be a PDF or PowerPoint?
Send a PDF. It looks the same on every device and can't be edited by accident. Keep the editable file for yourself.
What is the most important slide?
Traction, if you have it: real numbers with dates are the strongest evidence. Without traction, the problem and team slides carry the most weight.