Shadowing Practice: Ultimate Pitch Deck Guide with Examples [in 2022] - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Today we're going to look at what's in a great pitch deck, nothing else.

We'll go through every single element of a pitch deck.

I'll show you examples of great slides, a lot of fantastic slides from new pitch decks.

These are real pitch decks from startups that have raised money recently.

We're really getting a peek behind the scenes of what's happening right now when it comes to pitch decks and fundraising.

I've looked at thousands of different slides to pick the best ones for this video.

This is Raw Startups.

And I promise you, I've been through this full journey myself.

Everything from an angel round, from angel investors like NBA all -star Carmelo Anthony, or Skype founder Janos Fries,

all the way to raising a mammoth $155 million D round from the big venture funds for Vivino.

Yes, I've tried it all, raised over $200 million for Vivino, and built so many pitches you wouldn't believe it.

I've also helped startups, seen hundreds of pitches and thousands of slides.

I think I know what works by now.

Finally in this video I will show you what content you should focus on depending on what stage you're at.

Your content might look very very different for an angel stage company compared to a C round company.

It's very important that you put the right content in depending on what stage you're at

and I'll show you exactly what that is.

With that let's get going and look at the eight elements of a startup pitch.

Why are you doing this?

First element is motivation.

Why are you doing this and what are you trying to do?

Even if you have a good story here,

people sometimes make the mistake of building up a long story and spend too much time before they get to the point.

This will not work with a pitch.

You have to get to the point right away.

You have 30 seconds to get their attention or you might lose them forever.

So let's get them really interested in the first 30 seconds.

You have to win the first 30 seconds.

That's why you're here.

You lose them here, you might lose them for good and bye -bye investors.

First, tell a story.

Tell a story about why this is important, why this is a problem, and how you're going to change it.

The slide itself is less important here.

The story is important.

In some cases, you can show a picture while you tell a story.

And guys, I found the best one here.

This particular one mentions the founder's mother in the first slide of the deck.

I mean, if you can mention your mother in the first slide of a pitch deck, that's pretty good.

Take a look here.

This is Masava.

They make software for the liquor supply chain.

Asai worked with his mother's liquor store, he's trying to help his mother.

I mean, is there a better motivational story than helping your mother?

With the vino, I would usually tell the story about me being lost in the supermarket, not knowing what to buy,

and show a picture of somebody, or maybe me, lost in the supermarket aisle.

I would sometimes spice it up here a little bit by telling them how big the market is,

that the wine industry is a $400 billion industry.

We've now set the stage, and hopefully the investors are really interested in seeing the rest of the pitch.

Then there is the problem, the basic premise of the startup.

Sometimes this is forgotten and we move straight into the product.

Don't do that.

Tell the problem first before you move into the solution, the product.

Keep it simple.

There's a problem and we're building the solution.

Do assume that the people that are listening to you do not understand the problem as you walk into the room.

They just don't know it.

They're not in the same industry as you are.

So tell the story and tell it well.

Sometimes you can start with telling something that's broken in your industry.

Organic basics do sustainable basics like underwear.

They start by saying what's broken with the current brands before they get into their current offering.

In this case, the current brands are unsustainable, unethical, non -diverse, unable to transition to digital commerce.

And then we have RelyOn.

They make planning software for employees.

And I think this is a fantastic slide.

The problem is that 82 % of all this work is currently done in Excel or on paper.

You're setting the stage for your competitor being something old and not so great.

Kogo also does this well.

They're an aggregator for mobility apps, apps for scooters and bikes, etc. They clearly state the problem of needing multiple apps,

lack of transparency, and the annoyance of having to sign into multiple of these apps.

Something that a lot of us can recognize.

Voo Storefront is more of a technical product, but they list the problem with the current products.

Simple and straightforward.

This works.

It gets people into the problem, understanding the problem.

Your goal here is really to get people nodding.

So don't skip this part.

If I don't understand the problem, how am I going to understand the solution?

You might lose the entire premise of the pitch.

Some people think this is the most important part of the pitch.

If I don't believe there's a problem, why would I invest in a solution that I don't believe exists?

Solution, product.

Then we get to the solution of the problem, basically what we're building.

This really depends on how far you are.

But wherever you are, show them what you have or show them what you're building.

Don't tell them, but show them.

You may not have a product.

Either way, be visual show the mock -ups and explain how the product works.

Okay, let's dig into the examples.

Let's get back to RelyOn.

They do scheduling for teams.

We saw this problem slide earlier and boom they move into these beautiful solution slides.

You go from something that's quite ugly into a beautiful solution.

That works pretty well.

We also looked at Coco before, the mobility app.

First you have the problem then boom you have the solution and one app that solves all your problems.

gives you a complete overview with organic basics

they go from what the others are not to what they

are an inclusive digitally native sustainable brand good stuff let's take

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a few more here is pastimes with their outdoors app

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they show the product show the features all the elements of the app

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and can walk through this on the screen looks great

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and tells the product story in a very visual way

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then we have slime

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they replace the old security tag with something more like an amazon go experience first

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they show the product then they explain what the product

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and the full platform can do generally

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I would not use video in a pitch they can do watch a video before or after

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when you meet investors they're there to meet the founder not to watch a video however

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sometimes it can work really well

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if you want to show something demonstrated in the field in

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this case slide use the video to show exactly how the product works in a store

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so it does make sense in this case and

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if you choose to do it keep it short very short people will fall asleep

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and start checking their phones in seconds if you don't do a short video.

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And then we have the beautiful dating app Smitten.

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They want to show that their app looks beautiful and more fun than other dating apps.

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And finally we have a more technical platform like Voo's Storefront.

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It is a little bit boring but it's all about the audience.

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This slide shows what the product does and the audience, the engineers, they will get that.

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And then to a tricky question here, should you do a live demo in a real meeting?

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Hell yes.

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If that makes sense you should definitely do it but do it

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so that it looks spontaneous

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but actually you really practice the way through this no spontaneous demos

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and don't ask them for input just do something you practiced already live demos are super compelling

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but they can be risky next

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we have traction how is the startup actually doing numbers on

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how we're doing how many new users are we getting how

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much are they using the product how long are they staying

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and what is the revenue and so on and

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so forth this is about showing how incredibly well your startup is doing

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and this is quite simple show whatever puts your product your startup in the best possible light basically whatever makes

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you look great there is one thing about traction

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that makes it extra important traction overrides everything else because

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if a product has traction meaning the users are using

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or buying the product then understanding the problem and solution matters less

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because the user are telling you

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that this is a great product traction overrides everything else

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so what do you show here i like to show a minimum of two things retention

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and activity retention means how long do people keep using the product

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if users stay with the product for a long time it shows

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that the product is a good product for the long term

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activity is how much these users are using the product also

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showing a solid product some people would definitely put growth in here too

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and i think that's okay but growth is less important

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because you can get all these users if they don't stay and keep using the product.

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Retention and activity it doesn't really matter.

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Okay let's have a look at the slides.

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First we have a Dent Health.

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They make an app for dental care.

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This one looks great.

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Nice and simple as to show user growth and activity.

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No retention on this one but the activity in this case is really really healthy.

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Here's a pro tip on this one.

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Always make the slides tall, not wide.

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See what happens here?

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We stretch it out.

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Suddenly the numbers don't look that good anymore.

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So tall, not wide.

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Then we have Prepio.

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They make onboarding software for employees.

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Again, a nice VC -friendly graph that shows their revenue.

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The org creates transparency for org charts.

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They show how many new users they get every month.

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Again, a nice and tall graph.

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They also show the growth in usage over time.

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This is slide.

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They show totals instead.

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Both can work, but investors very often want to see things over time that's what they show here different kinds of performance

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and having graphs for every single one of these would probably be too much finally we have something

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that investors love with a passion a growth flywheel can you

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find a growth flywheel where you put money put resources in

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and just keep growing and growing in most cases you really don't have a growth flywheel but

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if you have one

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you should definitely show it one of the most famous ones is Amazon's growth wheel it just keeps going

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and keeps going investors love that the org has it in their presentation

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but i can only show you a part of it

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but this is the basic idea the key here is

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that once you get the growth flywheel going it keeps going

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and you grow

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and grow as you put more resources in next is the market the market is important

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because a startup really isn't investable

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if the market isn't big enough it really isn't something you should spend a lot of time on

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but it is a box that needs to be checked

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You have to show the market is huge.

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There's massive potential for a big company in this space.

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With the market, you really want to show two things.

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The market potential, but also the startups position in the market.

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The latter is not always relevant.

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I also have a video on how to find total addressable market.

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You should definitely check that out.

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Cool.

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Let's have a look at the market slides.

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With Dovino, we always had one slide.

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The market is huge and unconquered.

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It is a plus 400 billion dollar market and nobody has really taken it yet.

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That's enough.

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It's simple and it tells the story.

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Another very typical way of doing it is like Finuprise does here.

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They're a service for impact investing.

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First there's a big circle with the full market and then they break it down to the market they're actually targeting.

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Oscars and car rentals, they do a similar thing but with different visuals.

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First the full market, then they focus in on the geography where they want to focus.

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Plantura sells plants and they do a similar thing too.

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Pastimes go straight to the numbers and that can be very efficient too.

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You can also go really simple and I like what

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Fine Matter does here.

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They sell jewelry online.

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It's simple.

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It's like saying huge market.

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Let's not talk more about that which really makes sense.

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And then they say love and buy jewelry each year.

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Great to see some passion in here too.

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Finally in the market you can actually create some FOMO.

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Dating app Smitten shows how fast the dating market is growing.

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Something that can really create FOMO which is always good.

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Then we have the other part of the market, positioning.

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In a market with lots of competition you want to tell the investors how you're positioning the startup,

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how this startup is positioned different than anyone else in the market.

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This is mostly when you attack an existing market.

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If it's a new market, position is less important.

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There is a typical structure to a position like this.

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You have a couple of vertical and horizontal axis.

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Then you put in there what you think is most important for the startup, how you differentiate from the competition.

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Then you put yourself and the competition in there.

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For organic basics the dimensions are digital and not digital as well as their core sustainable and not sustainable.

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They put their shelves all the way up in the corner being natively both digital and sustainable.

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Another way of positioning yourself is comparing features.

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Here's an example from Prepio again.

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They do a comparison, obviously non -biased, comparison to the competition.

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This works well too.

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Sometimes you use features and sometimes you use dimensions.

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The market slide is required, the positioning is not.

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Sometimes it's just pretty obvious what kind of position you're taking.

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So that's really the market.

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This is a box that needs to be checked.

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We need to know the market's big enough and sometimes the position in the market.

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And remember there's plenty of good markets out there.

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A market doesn't create a startup.

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If you want to win that's all about execution.

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Next is business model and revenue.

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Now let's talk business model.

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Any startup is a business and at some point you have to make some money.

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And this varies a lot from startup to startups.

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Some companies are born with a business model, others wait very long till they actually make any revenue.

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You might well be pre -revenue and that's fine.

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A lot of startups wait a long time before they make any revenue.

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But even if you have a free app like Vivino,

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you have to have a pretty good idea about how you're going to make money at some point.

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So keep the slide in there even if you're pre -revenue.

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You have to show them how you're going to make revenue once you get there.

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And all startups are different here.

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If If you're a B2B SaaS company, you're born with a subscription model, so you're born with a revenue model.

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For some people, this can be hard to understand, and it kind of reminds me of this clip.

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Well, if so, how do you sustain a business model in which users don't pay for your service?

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Senator, we run ads.

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I see.

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I mean, Zuckerberg's look here is just golden, and then you have the senator saying, hmm, I see, like he's some kind of professor.

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He clearly isn't.

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Sorry, but this clip really isn't that much off topic.

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You have to tell the investors how to make money and for some people that can be hard to understand.

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Pastimes has three different ways of making money.

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A marketplace, ads and premium features.

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They put it really nicely on this one.

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SkinBliss is an app for cosmetics and they make money on user purchases and sponsorships.

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Slide gets very detailed and says how the money is made

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but also gets into what the actual unit economics are on the different areas.

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I'll talk more about business model and revenue later in the video.

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It all depends on what state you're at.

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Then we have the team.

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With the team it also matters quite a bit what state you're at and we'll get back to that.

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The team slides really aren't that complicated.

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Show what kind of relevant experience the team has

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and really tell the story of why this particular team is uniquely qualified to build this particular startup.

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Take Plantura here.

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They managed to tell the investors

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that two out of four of the team are second -time founders and the third has extensive startup experience.

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That is something investors really like to see.

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Pint Please do a beer app and they focus on the extensive

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and years of experience that each of the team members have in their different fields

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and obviously make it look pretty cool too.

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And finally on the team, don't go down the celeb route saying that Elon Musk is an advisor.

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What's important here is who is actually running the team.

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Don't mention five celebs that you had one call with.

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Fundraising plan and objectives.

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Next is, what is next?

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The fundraising plans and objectives.

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How are you going to invest that money and where will that take the startup?

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Obviously the investors are really interested in knowing how the money is going to spend

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and what goals the startup expects to reach with that money.

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FinnaPriest does this really well.

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A very clear ask but also say that some of the investment has been taken by other investors.

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So you better hurry up.

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Always good with some FOMO.

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They're also very specific on how the money will be spent in three different buckets.

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Next is dating app Smitten.

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And they have a little bit of fun by saying date us for 1 .5 million dollars.

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That is a pretty expensive date.

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Okay, good.

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Let's get to the second part of the video.

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I've got to look at every single stage for a startup.

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From idea to C -round.

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And we have that on the horizontal axis.

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Then on the vertical axis, we have the eight elements of content.

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Then we put a percentage on every single content depending on stage.

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I use a percentage because the number of slides in the deck can vary quite a bit.

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So just do some rough math from there.

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Okay, first we have the idea stage.

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You're presenting an idea

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So there really isn't much of anything else.

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Basically talk about why you're doing this with the problem and solution

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Briefly show the market is big enough and talk about the team.

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Team is the biggest thing here because it's all about the team

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It's the only thing that's real at this stage.

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Can this team actually build what they say they're gonna build?

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That's the big question.

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And then we have the angel round.

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And the only real change here is that we start talking about the business model and revenue.

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Team is still the key part here.

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Next is the seed stage and things get a little bit more serious.

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Traction is shown for the first time.

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It doesn't mean product market fit, but it does mean that there's some sort of product in testing.

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Numbers may still be small, but there are some numbers that the investors can see.

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And here we are.

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We're at the A round and the traction is now up to 20%.

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This means that you do have a product market fit.

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Traction is expected here.

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Bivino had 1 million downloads when we did our A round.

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And at this point things change a little bit with the problem.

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The problem becomes less important because if you have traction there clearly is a problem.

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There's also more focus on business model and revenue.

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Doesn't mean you need a lot of revenue

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but have an idea about what it's going to be and maybe some testing somewhere.

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And then we have the B round and now the business model and revenue becomes important.

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You probably need to show some revenue numbers when you do the B round.

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There's also more focus on plan and objectives.

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You need to have a clear idea about how you're gonna scale this business.

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And finally you have the C round and at this point there's a lot of focus on the revenue, the business side of it,

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and preferably a plan to how you're gonna build this into a really really big business.

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And there you have it you know exactly what to put in your pitch deck and how big each part should be.

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Good luck with building your amazing pitch deck.

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If you want more content just like this please consider pressing like and subscribe

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so you won't miss any future videos thank you very much for watching raw startup now stop watching go build with something.

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13 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Ultimate Pitch Deck Guide with Examples”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: product, startup, slide, app, revenue. This video has 344 sentences and 3661 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:24. The speaker talks fast, about 210 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
startup noun	/ˈstɑɹtˌʌp/	The act or process of starting a process or machine.
slide noun	/ˈslaɪ̯d/	An item of play equipment that children can climb up and then slide down again.
pitch noun	/pɪt͡ʃ/	A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand.
investor noun	/ɪnˈvɛs.tə(ɹ)/	A person who invests money in order to make a profit.
deck noun	/ˈdɛk/	Any raised flat surface that can be walked on: a balcony; a porch; a raised patio; a flat rooftop.
traction noun	/ˈtɹæk.ʃən/	The act of pulling something along a surface using motive power.
depend verb	/dɪˈpɛnd/	To be contingent or conditioned; to have something as a necessary condition
sustainable adjective	/səˈsteɪnəbəl/	Able to be sustained.
angel noun	/ˈeɪ̯n.d͡ʒəl/	An incorporeal and holy or semidivine messenger from a deity or other divine entity, traditionally depicted as a youthful, winged figure in flowing robes.
retention noun	/ɹɪˈtɛnʃən/	The act of retaining or something retained.
founder noun	/ˈfaʊ̯n.dəː/	One who founds or establishes (a company, project, organisation, state, etc.).
organic adjective	/ɔːˈɡænɪk/	Pertaining to or derived from living organisms.
objective noun	/ɒbˈd͡ʒɛk.tɪv/	A material object that physically exists.
invest verb	/ɪnˈvɛst/	To spend money, time, or energy on something, especially for some benefit or purpose; used with in.
demo noun	/ˈdɛm.oʊ/	A demonstration or visual explanation.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
get back to verb	Return to (an activity)
build up verb	To erect; to construct.
go down verb	To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one.
go through verb	To travel from one end of something to the other.
walk through verb	To explain (something) to (someone), step by step.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Why are you doing this?
Why are you doing this and what are you trying to do?
I mean, is there a better motivational story than helping your mother?
There's a problem and we're building the solution.
They're not in the same industry as you are.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	being lost · is forgotten · be checked
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have raised · I've looked · I've been
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people that are · FOMO which is · people that can

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 75 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: math /mæθ/, mammoth /ˈmæməθ/, unethical /ʌnˈɛθɪkəl/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: traction /ˈtɹæk.ʃən/, retention /ɹɪˈtɛnʃən/, passion /ˈpæʃən/, dimension /daɪˈmɛn.ʃən/, transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/
Long words — get the stress right: sustainable /səˈsteɪnəbəl/, mobility /mə(ʊ)ˈbɪlɪti/, horizontal /ˌhoɹəˈzɑn.təl/, transparency /tɹænsˈpæɹənsi/, supermarket /ˌsupɚˈmɑɹkət/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like startup, slide, pitch.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Ultimate Pitch Deck Guide with Examples [in 2022] - Learn English Speaking with Video

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