Best Pitch Deck for VCs. A few insights for Founders building consumer brands.

5 min readMar 30, 2021

MeetFounders meeting. March 29. North America.

“I was excited to be part of the fully virtual event with 6 Panels of Venture Capitalists (with 30 VCs! And 150+ founders) giving advice to the founders participating (with an affordable ticket for entrepreneurs, thank you Andrew!).” Odile Roujol founder of global Fab community and Fab Ventures (seed stage, consumer brands in conscious Fashion and Beauty

Funding questions answered. In great company in a panel about “Later Stages”

* Reuben Levinsohn: Washington Avenue Ventures

* Eli Velasquez: Investors of Color Network

Danielle D’Agostaro: WV Ventures

Always learning when listening to other VCs: know who you are, keep it simple (the big idea), and engage the conversation, as VCs are partners in the long term (know to who you talk, do your due diligence, check their portfolio, read their post on Linked in!).

The Fundamentals of a Pitch Deck

Can you let us know which are the most crucial parts within a pitch deck?

First slide is key. What are you trying to fix?

You can build a D2C consumer brand or a tech platform with a B2B2C business model, your purpose matters.

Suggested resources that founders can visit to develop their pitch deck: YC frame for seed stage companies in less than 12 slides, from market to consumer insights, tech part, team, traction… You have it all.

Effective Pitch Decks

Take care of your community! Build engagement.

Especially for Fashion and Beauty, design and look and feel is key to make sure you can engage with your community, I always check the instagram account, Tiktok for companies targeting GenZ. It’s not only quantitative, it’s the quality of engagement of the followers, comments. And if the team listens to people and interact with them.

But it’s not enough! I need to understand the business model, what secret power you have in a period of rocketing price for CAC, how you create virality, how you leverage your community and the data you collect to better serve your customers.

Prepare your “secret recipes” reveal for deeper conversations. Tease, but don’t say it all.

You can keep a longer deck and some “secret” slides for the Zoom conversation. For instance when I received the Bubble deck for teens skincare, it was clean and simple, but to be honest, I was not that excited. But when I met Shai Eisenman, understanding her engagement on the Geneva platform and the 10 top influencers she had as partners, and at the same time making me try the products and showing to me how she rigorously tested them, screening ingredients for a gentle skincare routine for them, and a great and innovative packaging, I signed and was proud to be a first investor even before the launch in November 2020.

In seed stage, we invest in founders first.

How should pitch decks evolve, as a startup grows?

Startups should those adjustments when growing, sharing even in their short decks they key metrics/ KPIs, for Consumer goods it could product margins/cost of shipment, monthly revenues, average orders, retention rate, and how their community is growing and what they learn from their customers.

The Team Slide

Who are the co-founders, how did they meet? We’re here for the long run and investors are partners for 7 to 10 years.

Diversity matters! Gender, ethnicity but also just simply to have different backgrounds and “super powers”.

I always look carefully if I talk to “self-aware” founders, ready to hire talent, ready to grow as leaders. If not a scientific background in skincare for instance and building a clean company, do they have an advisory council with experts? If about to secure some partnerships with retailers, any advisor knowing retail could add skills to the table.

Having a “circle of trust”: mentors, advisors shows the ability to work in a collaborative way, to convince people to believe in what you are building.

Common Mistakes and VC Advice:

Do your due diligence!

Don’t stick to you power point deck. Adapt the conversation to who you talk to. Do your due diligence and know who are the partners VCs you have a conversation with: stage, thesis of investment, latest post.

Use connections with Associates and Principles to know more about the targeted top tier VCs in your list. Looking for insights is the best way for you to show that you understand it’s not just about money/investment but about skills/ and the value they could add to the team.

The Power of the network.

My profile as an operator, as an ex CEO of Lancome ($3 Billion dollars revenues, L’Oreal group) and Board member understanding “guidance”.

As a first fund Fab Ventures, if I’m not leading the round, founders choose me as I’m adding skills to the table in the verticals of fashion and beauty. Supporting the founders in the long run with my global network of Corporations, later stage VCs, experts…

Your fund, and how to reach you

Join the conversation! You can attend Fab Fashion and Beautytech meetings on clubhouse and webinars: AI, computer vision, market places, Saas solutions, consumer brands we cover every category. We are now 7000 founders who have met and 15 chapters https://www.beautytechcommunity.com/