We suggest you treat your pitch as if a major donor/investor has asked you to present for 9 minutes to their board, including both opportunities and real challenges that you face in your venture.
For those of you who already have a well-oiled pitch, we are not asking you to create a new version just for the Lab, but to be prepared to sharpen a 9-minute version of your existing deck.
Remember that everyone in this community cares about what the gospel has to do with your venture. Whether or not you are explicit about faith in your venture’s external messaging, there is theological significance to what you do, why you do it, and how you do it. We encourage you to ensure that your pitch reflects and articulates the redemptive opportunity and impact for your venture.
Lastly, please note the following specifications for your pitch:
There are two ways to prepare a deck that covers the elements above. For the Redemptive Business Lab, you'll want the first type, a presentation deck:
1. Presentation deck. A visual to assist your oral presentation in an investor meeting or on stage at a demo day. Limited, large-font text that doesn't compete with what you're saying. No appendix.
2. Reading deck. A more thorough and detailed deck that can be read and understood without you being there to fill in the gaps.
We suggest that you prepare a 6-12 page pitch deck that collectively covers most of the following elements (displayed in the slides or voiced over as you present). This outline is adapted from Praxis Mentors Evan Loomis & Evan Baehr's book Get Backed (Harvard Business Review, 2015). You won’t be able to cover all these angles in a seven-minute pitch, so treat this list as a menu of possible slides, and build a deck of the ones that best help you tell your venture’s story.