How to make a convincing Pitch Deck for investors? Top 5 free resources

As the owner and founder of a business venture, you know that the Pitch Deck is the most important document of your startup. At Startup Pedia, we always say that the Pitch Deck is like a trailer for your venture. A pitch deck is also what takes the most amount of thought, design, and ideation – to make it crisp, neat, and presentable. 

So it does not matter if you sell milk, or build nuclear weapons – the only way to put forward that idea to a host of investors is your pitch deck. 

You are not alone when you face the challenges of making a pitch deck, therefore, today we made a list of the top 5 platforms that you can use to build the perfect pitch deck for free. 

1. Prezi

This a good option for those looking for a unique and beautiful presentation. Prezi is a SaaS company that offers what we like to call a “slide deck on steroids.” Because Prezi uses motion-based design, presentations tend to look a lot slicker than they do when created using classic presentation tools like Powerpoint.

Essentially, it’s a SaaS alternative to PowerPoint or Keynote. It lets you sync lots of different presentations; it allows you to present when you’re offline and it gives you more of a “blank canvas” feel rather than constraining you to the structure of a traditional slide deck.

Core benefits –

• Huge deck library, so it’s really easy to find inspiration
• Significant online support infrastructure
• They have a supporting app for iPhone, iPad, and one in the Play store, so you can present or work on your presentation from anywhere 

    2. Haiku Deck 

It is a fast and easy way to create a beautiful slide deck, especially if the design isn’t your “thing.” But, what you get in simplicity is you give up on customization and features.

Haiku Deck has got all the same functionality and the same basic structure as PowerPoint, but it’s completely mobile and it gives you a helping hand with design.

It’s a little bit like Instagram for slides—you put in your ideas, and then you can add filters to make it look more attractive. While Haiku Deck is free, one paid feature is worth looking into, especially if you don’t feel you’re very savvy with design. 

Core benefits –

• Completely, seamlessly mobile
• Quick to get started, plus social media sign-in
• Completely free, including the iPad app
• Really handy image finder feature
• Zuru service integrates with a lot of different programs including PowerPoint, Evernote, and Keynote

    3. Improve Presentation 

A good template service, with lots of customization and add-ons for good prices. Improve Presentation has designed dozens of different templates you can download, plus add-ons like pitch deck icons, medical-specific icon sets, SWOT analysis decks, map decks, and lots more. Plus, each template comes with different color schemes and icons, so you can tinker with their design quite a bit. 

Improve Presentation also has a custom option, although there’s no indication of pricing on their website. Also worth mentioning is their blog, which is a superb resource for presentation information in general, with posts like Handling Questions & Answers in Your Presentation and How to Reduce Presentation Anxiety (not to mention some of our own excellent pitching resources on Body Language and Pitching, and Pitching Your Startup in Social Situations).

Core benefits –

• There is a huge range of templates to choose from
• There are decks for specific industries, like medical
• You can download and preview templates in a nice format
• Gives general awareness of the presentation as well

    4. Sketchdeck 

SketchDeck is a custom design company that works to make it easy to hire a designer. 

They work by signing up customers for free who then get the design on demand. That is, whenever they need it on a pay-by-project basis. Their process is that you place an order online, upload any ideas you have, and select a few various options, such as rush order if you’re matching existing branding (you can upload documents), and what level of designer you want (junior, intermediate, senior).

Core benefits –

• Makes it easy to hire a designer
• Upfront about the costs—in addition to ballparks for common projects, it gives you a pretty specific number for pitch decks as you go through the process
• Fast to get started
• Lots of customization, depending on how much you want to spend
• A 10% discount option if you don’t need the PPT immediately

    5. LivePlan

LivePlan is a SaaS (software as a service) product that has three applications for your business: a pitch feature, a business plan feature, and a feature called the Dashboard.

It’s an online application, so you sign up and pay from the website and then have a login that you use to access the software at any time. You simply access the pitch feature and fill in your information in the corresponding fields; it’s user-friendly and basically walks you through the process.

Core benefits –

• Straightforward and inexpensive pricing options.
• User-friendly interface that allows you to get started immediately and create your own pitch, business plan, and financial dashboard.
• Pitch creation options are a one-page pitch that can be printed or created as an unsearchable webpage, or exported to PowerPoint as a pitch deck.
• Part of an inclusive tool with other helpful and practical applications for your business.