Pitch decks for early-stage startups

DatesDates:: Mar 2024–Sep 2024
RolesRoles:: Consultant, Designer
MediumsMediums:: Slide deck
ToolsTools:: Figma, Keynote
TypeType:: Freelance
CollaboratorsCollaborators:: Foundation Studio (agency)

In 2024, I designed pitch decks for Wscripted and Ranked through Foundation Studio’s work with Techstars Atlanta. Wscripted’s founder later referred me to Callo, which I worked with independently.

Wscripted

Wscripted helps entertainment companies review and discover scripts. I split the opening across two slides so the audience could recognize the frustration of managing submissions before taking in the numbers behind it. Across the deck, I used serif typography, deep teal, and warm cream backgrounds for a more editorial feel.

Selected slides

After:

Messages and attachments piled over scripts to introduce the submission backlog.

Supporting figures follow on a separate slide.

Copyright, security, and data usage grouped within the technical approach.

A photograph of the founder speaking at an industry event accompanies partnership figures.

Expanding shapes show successive stages of growth.

Individual tool categories sit within the broader Wscripted offering.

Founders, advisors, and supporting organizations arranged in distinct groups.

Before:

The original problem slide combined script imagery and industry statistics.

Ranked

Ranked connects brands with nano-influencers. The founder had settled the copy and narrative, so I focused on visual structure and a bolder look inspired by platforms like Spotify. I separated statistics from product screenshots and used large type, diagrams, and color to establish emphasis.

An existing infographic about their Black Panther: Wakanda Forever campaign was too dense to read on a slide. With limited time to rework it, I kept the campaign imagery and pulled three key figures into the deck’s own typography.

Selected slides

After:

Three market figures, each paired with a simple graphic.

An oversized field of obstacles puts the emphasis on getting paid.

Campaign imagery retained, with three figures pulled out below.

A single product screen accompanies the campaign pricing point.

Nested shapes organize the market estimates.

Before:

The original market slide combined statistics and product screenshots.

The original slide on challenges facing creators.

The supplied campaign infographic within the original deck.

Callo

Callo helps film and other media professionals find collaborators through shared creative interests and projects. The founder already had strong ideas about its positioning. We worked together on the deck’s pacing, sequence, and presentation of the company’s future growth. It also needed to make sense as a pre-read, without the founder there to explain it.

I helped articulate and visualize a progression from a project network to creative development tools and a broader media intelligence platform. The roadmap uses expanding frames and film imagery to give each stage a sense of increasing possibility. The growth slide takes a similar approach, opening up the initial market’s acquisition plan while showing later markets as tabs extending to the right.

Film stills and interface-like panels gave the deck a visual connection to both the creative work and the product.