Iskender would not create an extended pitch deck. The first deck should be short and compelling, with no detailed appendix slides. An extended deck costs time on design and means maintaining two versions. Instead, he would put all detailed information into a well-structured Notion data room that links to the pitch deck as a single source of truth.
Last week, a founder in my FundraisingCOUP program asked me a question about providing VCs with extended information.
This is a classic one:
The first deck you send to an investor to get invited to a pitch meeting should be short and tell a compelling, easy-to-understand story.
But there is much more information a VC wants to know when you start the conversations and the VC is intrigued to learn more about your cases:
Details about your market potential, competitors, product, traction, etc.
So, how can you convey this additional, more detailed information?
First, never add detailed slides to your slide deck’s appendix. End your initial deck with a compelling last slide–and that’s it.
If an investor wants to know more, they should ask you for it and earn it by engaging with you.
The classic way to solve this would be to create an extended version of your deck.
It’s not wrong; it’s not a bad thing per se, but I wouldn’t do it.
Main reasons: It’s time-consuming, and you’ll spend time with your layout and other visual things. Moving pixels doesn’t have a significant added value in conveying detailed information (it’s different for the first impression with your initial pitch deck).
Besides that, it’s creating overhead to manage two deck versions. Imagine you want to change some fundamental things that you’d need to always change in two deck versions.
A solution I recommended in the last years was putting all detailed information into a text document (Google Doc or Word) that focuses on the content (not the design).
A narrative is also easier to read.
But here is what I’d do today:
I’d set up my whole data room in Notion and provide all detailed information within that Notion data room – no extended slide deck version, no separate document.
There is just one information hub: The Notion Data Room. It’s all there on sub-pages, and there’s a link to the pitch deck.
As a VC, I appreciate just having one single source of truth for all information related to a startup I’m looking at, instead of coping with several separate documents.
A well-structured Notion Data Room with extended information makes finding the information I’m looking for easier, too.
So, that’s what I would do: A super compelling, succinct pitch deck and everything else is part of a Notion Data Room.
Frequently asked questions
Should I add detailed appendix slides to my pitch deck?
No. End your initial deck with a compelling last slide. If an investor wants to know more, they should ask for it and earn it by engaging with you.
Why not create an extended version of the pitch deck?
It is time-consuming, much of the time goes into layout, and it creates overhead because fundamental changes have to be made in two deck versions.
Where should detailed information for VCs go instead?
Into a Notion data room that holds all detailed information on sub-pages and links to the pitch deck. Earlier, Iskender recommended a text document focused on content, since a narrative is easier to read.
Why do VCs like a single data room?
Because it gives them one single source of truth for everything related to the startup instead of several separate documents, and a well-structured data room makes information easier to find.
