As we get back from the holidays, some of us (Founders/PMs) are revisiting our pitch decks to approach investors. One critical slide is the one which speaks about your competition.
When building a pitch deck, the Competition slide is not there to show that you are better than the competition. When reviewing decks, I typically see competition slides with loads of tick marks showing that “we” are better than all of them… even when the others have been in the market for years and have millions of $ in funding. That shows either naiveté, overconfidence, or that you’re disillusioned… or outrightly lying.
The Competition slide should show a few important items:
- That you know the market and know who the key players are
- That there’s actually a market and an overall need for what you’re building. Big players in the market show validation for the need
- You can speak about how you’re looking at the problem or the market from a slightly different angle. Do not say that you’re better than all of them. What is your unique take? What are you doing differently? Which sub-niche are you targeting? Which part of the market are you focusing on?
In this way, you show that the market exists, there’s competition and that you know what you’re doing and think about your unique point of view.
