The ‘ask and use of funds’ slide is an opportunity to shine as a founder. Don’t waste it.
There’s one slide that almost every founder gets wrong when they are putting together a pitch deck to raise money from venture capitalists. The slide is usually known as “the ask,” and it typically lives toward the end of the pitch deck.
It is meant to do something pretty straightforward: Explain how much money a startup is raising and for what. It shouldn’t be rocket science, but it’s almost universally a struggle to get right.
Here are the most common mistakes:
- Forgetting to include the slide altogether.
- Not naming a specific dollar amount you are raising.
- Including a valuation on the slide.
- Omitting what the funds will be used for.
- Listing a specific runway, i.e., “This will keep us running for 18 to 24 months.”
Let’s explore in detail why these mistakes are so detrimental to your fundraising process and how you can best include these points in your deck.