It’s funny to find a page titled “Competitors” in many startup’s pitch decks. To them, “competitors” mean a) big bosses they are trying to emulate, b) foreign analogs whose names would bring investments (at least they hope so), and c) small companies with similar products, just so that they don’t leave this page empty.
Come on! A competitor is someone you want to slay! You want to completely or partially destroy competitors for particular audience segments — kill them, not be like them.
This is how the pitch deck should look: The first page has to demonstrate the main competitor and describe how big and powerful it is. The next pages show a detailed plan of how you’re going to destroy them. The final pages show what prevents you from doing that now successfully. That is!
Don’t want to “slay” or “destroy” or “kill”? Open a charity fund. Don’t have anyone to slay? There’s no market. Have no idea of how to slay? There’s no startup.
Who’s our competitor, you may ask. It is traditional fundraising systems for small businesses, which have proved their incompetence during the economic crisis.
