Pitch deck template & structure
Guy Kawasaki 10/20/30 pitch deck template ten slides, twenty minutes.
Guy Kawasaki's rule made concrete: ten slides, sized for a twenty-minute pitch, with type big enough to read. Preview the structure below, then have us design it around your company.
Sample slides
The structure, in our house style.
This is the slide sequence and design language we build a guy kawasaki 10/20/30 pitch deck template on — framed to your vertical and your numbers. Every deck we ship is original and bespoke.
The outline
The slides, in order.
A proven narrative sequence. Reorder to lead with your strongest argument.
- 01
Title
Company, one-line pitch, and your contact details.
- 02
Problem / opportunity
The pain you relieve or the pleasure you provide.
- 03
Value proposition
The value you create, in the customer's units.
- 04
Underlying magic
The secret sauce — show it, don't describe it.
- 05
Business model
Who has your money, and how you get it.
- 06
Go-to-market plan
Reaching customers without burning cash.
- 07
Competitive analysis
A complete, honest view — including a row you lose.
- 08
Management team
Relevant scars and shipped things, not all-stars.
- 09
Financial projections
Bottom-up — customers times price.
- 10
Status & ask
Where you are, and what the money does.
N° 01The rule
Why 10 / 20 / 30 works.
01
10 slides
The number a normal person can absorb in one sitting. More than ten and you're describing, not pitching. This structure holds to ten.
02
20 minutes
Even in a one-hour slot, assume laptops that won't connect and conversations that run long. Twenty minutes of content leaves room for discussion.
03
30-point type
Big type forces you to know your material — you can't hide behind notes on the slide. We design the layouts so text stays large and legible.
N° 02Kawasaki's advice
Honesty
The competition slide includes a row where a rival beats you — a complete, honest grid builds more trust than a rigged one.
And if you can demo live, the “underlying magic” slide is just a backdrop. We design it to frame the demo, not replace it.
Questions
The answers we give most often.
- What is the 10/20/30 rule for pitch decks?
- Guy Kawasaki's rule: a pitch deck should have ten slides, take no more than twenty minutes to present, and use no font smaller than thirty points. We design to all three constraints.
- What are the ten slides?
- Title, problem/opportunity, value proposition, underlying magic, business model, go-to-market plan, competitive analysis, management team, financial projections, and status/ask.
- Why thirty-point type?
- Big type forces you to know your material rather than read dense slides, and it keeps each slide to a single point. Our layouts are sized so text stays large and legible.
- Can you design our 10/20/30 deck?
- Yes — we design this structure around your company as a fixed-price, done-for-you package. Start your deck to begin.
- Does 10/20/30 work for every raise?
- It's an excellent discipline for seed and Series A pitches. Larger, more technical raises often need an appendix behind the ten slides — but the ten-slide core still holds.
Done for you
Have us design your deck.
Fixed price, fixed scope — send us your raise and inputs and we'll design this deck around your brand and numbers.