What to send a pitch deck designer before they start

The short answer

A pitch deck designer works with what you send. Send a logo and a rough draft, and you get your rough draft with better fonts. Send a clear outline, one file of numbers and a sentence about who will read the deck, and you get slides that do a job.

Eight things, before the first draft: the company in one paragraph, a one-sentence-per-slide outline, one numbers file, the audience, brand assets, the tool you will edit in, the scope, and the revision rounds. They match the fields of the pitch deck brief. This guide covers why each one matters and how to prepare it in an evening.

Why the designer cannot fill the gaps for you

My day job is investing in early-stage startups, so I read decks from the other side of the table. One of the first things I check in any deck is whether the slides agree with each other, because the usual problems are not about looks: a growth figure on one slide that differs from the chart two slides later, a round size that does not add up to the use of funds, a market number with no source.

Most of those problems start in the brief. A designer who gets twelve loose screenshots and a long email has to decide what each slide says, which version of a number is current, and how much text the reader can take. They will decide something, quickly, and you will spend your revision rounds undoing it.

The eight things to send

Here is the same list as a table, with what typically goes wrong when an item is missing:

Send	Why it matters	If it is missing
Company paragraph	Sets the tone and level of the deck	Generic “startup” visuals that could belong to anyone
One-sentence outline	Each slide gets one job	The designer decides the order and the headlines
One numbers file	One source to check against	Numbers retyped from several places, some outdated
Audience and format	Decides how much text each slide carries	A presentation deck emailed cold, or a reading deck shown on a screen
Brand assets	Consistency with your site and product	Colours picked from a template, then redone
Editing tool	You keep the deck alive between meetings	A deck you cannot edit five minutes before a call
Scope and slide count	Price and effort are clear	Surprise extras in a custom offer
Revisions and acceptance	A clear end point	Open-ended rounds, or a final file you cannot check

The outline: one sentence per slide

If you prepare only one thing, make it this. Write the deck in plain text, one sentence per slide. For a made-up booking product: “Small clinics lose hours every week to scheduling by phone.” “We replace the phone call with a booking link that syncs to their calendar.” And so on through the problem, product, traction, market, business model, team and the ask.

Under each sentence, add what the slide must prove. “Traction: paying customers are growing every month, not only sign-ups.” That second line is what tells the designer which chart to build and what to leave out.

If you cannot write the sentences, that is useful to know before you order. It means you need storyline help, not only design. Some gigs on the pitch deck page cover that; Alestra, for example, lists the fundraising storyline as part of the work. Choose that kind of gig on purpose rather than hoping a design-only gig will fill the gap.

One numbers file

Put every figure that will appear in the deck into one short document or sheet: revenue, customers, growth rate, retention if you show it, market size with its source, round size, use of funds, key hires. Next to each number, write the period it covers and where it comes from.

Three rules make the file work:

• One version of each number. If your model says one thing and an older investor update says another, decide now which one is current.
• Do not round or restate. Ask the designer to copy figures exactly. Rounding is a decision you make, not one they make in a chart label.
• Dates on everything. “Customers as of end of September” ages better than “customers”.

When I open a deck, I compare the numbers with each other before I look at the design. A single source file is what lets you run the same check on the designer’s draft: one place to compare every figure against, instead of several. If the figures come from a financial model, the financial model page has the checks to run on that model first.

Who the investors are, and how they will read it

Tell the designer how the deck will be used. It changes the slides more than most founders expect.

• Emailed before a meeting. The deck has to read without you. Slides carry full sentences, charts have clear labels, and the ask is spelled out.
• Presented live. Less text per slide, bigger visuals, and the detail lives in your voice and in an appendix.
• Both. Ask for two versions from one design system: a reading deck and a presenting deck. Agree this in the scope, because it is more work.

Describe the reader in general terms too: early-stage investors who see many decks in your sector, or a generalist audience that needs the problem explained first. You do not need to name anyone. The designer only needs to know how much the reader already knows.

A message you can copy

Paste this into your first message, before asking for a quote, as in the first message guide:

Hi, I am preparing an investor deck for a [stage] round and would like your help with [design only / design plus storyline edits].

1. Company: [one paragraph attached].
2. Outline: [N] slides, one sentence each, attached, with what each slide must prove.
3. Numbers: one file attached. Please copy figures exactly; do not round or restate them.
4. Use: [emailed ahead / presented live / both versions].
5. Brand: logo, colours and fonts attached; website: [link].
6. Final files: editable [PowerPoint / Google Slides / Keynote] plus a PDF, charts as editable objects.
7. Revisions: [N] rounds, [turnaround] each.
8. Final payment when every number matches the numbers file and the file opens and edits on my computer.

Could you confirm the scope and price for this?

When the first draft comes back

Check it against what you sent, in this order:

1. Numbers. Every figure against the numbers file, including chart labels, footnotes and the cover.
2. Outline. Does each slide still say its one sentence? If the headline changed, was it better or just different?
3. Editing. Open the file on your own computer. Fonts render, charts are editable, and you can change a number without breaking the layout.
4. Reading test. Send the PDF to someone outside the company and ask what you do and what you are asking for.

Collect all changes into one list per round. The guide to asking for changes covers how to phrase them so a revision round is not spent on misunderstandings. The full acceptance list is on the pitch deck page.

Wrap-up

A good deck designer makes your thinking easier to read. They cannot supply the thinking, and they should not have to guess which number is right. Send the outline, one numbers file and a sentence about the reader, agree the scope and revisions up front, and check every figure yourself before you accept the file.