Pitch decks for small businesses, made from plain text
Every week, small businesses and charities stand up in front of a buyer, a funding panel or an investor with 30 cluttered slides, and the dates are public in advance. Turn their mess into a clear 10-slide deck, a one-page summary and speaker notes in a week. Find them before their deadline, run the interview, and build every deck on a reusable Slidev theme.
165 minBeginnerTools: Free tools. Your time: about 5 to 7 hours a week of outreach while you get goingStep 1 free
An offer you can sellthree packages with example prices, your real hourly rate and a "not included" list
The structure that works for sales pitches, tenders, grant panels and investors, plus the interview questions and six AI prompts
A reusable Slidev theme with a finished 10-slide sample deck, three skeleton decks and one-page summary templates
- A kit: QA checklist, handover pack, outreach and proposal templates, terms outline, pricing calculator, scoreboard and lead tracker
Before you start
01/08Pick who you'll make decks for, and what it takes0 done- The technical lessons this builds on: Make slick pitch decks from plain text (Slidev), Write once, convert to anything (Pandoc) and Invoices and CVs from text (Typst)
- Node.js 22.12 or newer for Slidev (the slides lesson shows how to check)
- Optional: Turn the audit into a pitch deck shows a fast AI route with Gamma, handy to compare
- About 5 to 7 hours a week for the first month: practice, sample decks and outreach
STEP 01 of 08~15 min
Pick who you'll make decks for, and what it takes
Plenty of small organisations have to pitch and hate making slides. Know exactly what the job is before you sell it.
Small businesses pitch for money all the timeA bakery pitching to a supermarket buyer. A building firm invited to present for a council contract. A charity shortlisted for a funding panel. A start-up at an accelerator's demo day. Most of them are experts at their work, not at slides, and the deck they have is 30 slides of everything they could think of. You turn it into 10 slides that make one clear case, with notes and a one-page summary. Free tools do the layout. You do the thinking.
Who actually pays:
- Small businesses pitching for contracts: supplier days, trade buyers, corporate clients, tender presentations.
- Charities, CICs and community groups going to funding panels, community foundations or council funds.
- Start-ups heading to angel investors, accelerator demo days or pitch competitions.
- Established small firms with a new product to launch to partners, or a bank or landlord to persuade.
What it takes:
- Sell the thinking, not the slides. AI tools and templates make a decent-looking deck in minutes. What people pay for is the story, the cut, the honesty of every number and a fast, reliable turnaround.
- Drawing out the client's information is the core skill. Clients are often vague about their numbers and keen to include everything. Good questions, and a polite "that's a different slide", are what you bring.
- Work follows deadlines. Pitches cluster around funding rounds, demo days and tender dates, so plan for rush requests and quieter weeks.
- Keep new clients coming. Most decks are one-off jobs until upsells (step 8) bring repeat work.
- The client's offer wins the money. A clear deck helps it land. Never take credit, or blame, for a result that isn't yours.
- Outreach is half the job. In Hunter's State of Cold Email 2026 ↗, the average reply rate across 31 million cold emails was 4.5%, so plan on steady weekly volume.
The timelinea week or two of practice to get confident with Slidev and the structure. Then several weeks of steady outreach before your first paying client; two or three months is common. Keep your day job while you build it. Everything in this mission is free, so there's nothing to buy first.
TipWho this suits: you enjoy asking questions and writing short, clear sentences, you're comfortable with hard deadlines, and you'll tell a client when their favourite number has no source and has to go.Pick one group to start withYour sample decks, messages and prices get sharper when you do. Charities and community groups are a good first niche: lots of them, clear deadlines, funders publish their criteria, and many are charitable companies or CIOs you're allowed to email (step 6 explains the rules).
TipYour first win, today: set a Google Alert for"shortlisted" pitch finalor"finalists announced"plus your region. Every result is an organisation with a fixed pitch date and a panel to impress, and "congratulations on the shortlist" is a warm opener. Step 7 shows how to work these leads properly.
✓
CheckpointYou've picked one group of clients to start with and written down three places you'd find them.
If it breaksWhy would anyone pay me when Gamma or Canva exist? + 1 more
Why would anyone pay me when Gamma or Canva exist?
Because the tool doesn't know what to leave out. The client still has to decide the story, find the evidence and cut 30 slides to 10. That's the part they want to hand to someone. You can use AI tools too: Turn the audit into a pitch deck shows one. The Slidev route gives you a theme you own, editable files and no subscription.
I'm not a designer
You don't need to be. Pitch decks reward clarity over decoration: big text, strong contrast, one idea per slide. The theme in this mission does the design. Your job is the words and the cut.
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