How to design your impact startup’s pitch deck and what design mistakes to avoid - Ruxandra Badiu, Kokonut Design

Ruxandra Badiu is the Co-founder and Head of Design of Kokonut Design, an international design agency guided by a “less is more” philosophy. She has +11 years of experience in presentation and visual design and specialises in designing presentation and pitch decks for companies in finance, healthcare, energy, technology, real estate and more. 

She designed the SeedCue logo and created the color scheme, and in this interview, Ruxandra shares practical tips & tricks for impact-focused startup founders who want to improve their presentations from a design perspective.

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After having designed over 2,000 pitch decks, Ruxandra says that the main errors founders or teams make when creating their presentations is the high volume of information and the fact that they don’t bring their team forward more. 

“I think the founder should keep two things in mind: explaining the business as clearly as possible, and making sure the visual side supports that explanation. I wouldn't necessarily call them errors, but there are a few things founders should avoid when creating the deck:

• The text should be minimal, so the visuals can carry the weight of the content.
• Slides should never feel crowded or lack breathing space.
• Color usage should be kept to a minimum, so the reader can focus on the actual content rather than being distracted by the design.

Even though most pitch decks follow a similar structure, founders should avoid the basic design elements that everyone else is using, like the famous overlapping circles on the market slide. All graphics should be customized to fit the specific presentation.

Founders also tend to include a lot of information about their business in the pitch, which is normal, but the structure matters just as much. I always tell founders to replace long paragraphs with numbers, so I can build the visuals around those numbers instead of around blocks of text.

Another common mistake is placing the team slide at the end. Investors will always look for that slide, and if it's at the back of the deck, there's a real chance they won't get that far. If you have a strong team, putting it upfront builds trust early and sets up everything that follows in a much stronger position.”

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To design a beautiful, easy to follow and with higher chances to convert pitch deck, Ruxandra says that her main guidelines are “big text, great contrast, breathing space, and a perfect hierarchy.

• Big text: I always recommend the body text to be at least 12pt, although this can vary slightly depending on the typography chosen.
• Great contrast: Always be mindful when using colors, and make sure the chosen colors work well together to create the best possible contrast.
• Breathing space: On any given slide, the white space should make up at least 60% of the slide, so the content remains easy to read and digest.
• Hierarchy: I recommend using no more than three different font sizes on a single slide, with small exceptions for things like footnotes. You need a main title, a paragraph title, and a body text size, and the difference between them should be easy to recognize at a glance.”

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Furthermore, she adds, investors or partners might open the pitch deck on their phone so taking that into consideration and adjusting the format is critical.

“A lot of investors open decks on their phone, so big text and big visuals become essential. Some investors also run decks through AI for lead scoring before deciding if it's worth a human review, so a well-structured deck is what gets you in front of an actual person.

One more thing that adds a lot of value is the appendix. The main deck should stay visual and easy to follow, but the appendix can be your best ally. It's the place for all the charts, all the data, and all the details that help you answer the questions investors will eventually ask.”

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For teams that are early stage and don't have big budgets to invest in graphic design - which happens in many cases with impact-focused startups, Ruxandra says that there are a few things they can focus on that don’t require big financial commitments:

“Choose a strong color scheme built around black, gray, and white, plus a maximum of two accent colors. There are multiple free tools available that can suggest those two accent colors for you, with one ideally matching the nature of the business and the other complementing it. One that I use frequently is coolors.co.

For the logo, the easiest approach is to create a simple wordmark using just the name of the business, paired with one of the many beautiful Google fonts available for free. Once you have a solid color scheme, a clean wordmark logo, and a minimalist visual style, you don't really need anything else at this stage. The full branding work should come later, once you've established a stronger foundation for the company.

A pitch deck is not going to overcome a bad market opportunity, but a bad design will always be a barrier, even for a great founder. A lot of leverage comes from a well-designed deck. You cannot outsource the narrative, who you are, or the go-to-market strategy, but you can bring in someone who knows how to communicate all of that visually, and that's where the real value of a designer comes in.”

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When it comes to using AI, Ruxandra explaings that it can be extremely useful for founders who don’t have a design background or a budget for a designer, but at the same time - most pitch decks generated with AI tools end up looking the same.

“If you stop at the AI output, your deck will blend in with hundreds of others that investors see every week, and a generic deck rarely creates the impression you need in a pitch meeting.

My advice is to use AI as a starting point or as a wireframe for the deck, but bring in a presentation designer when it's time to make it stand out. 

The pitch deck is one of the most important assets for any startup as it's going to be used on multiple occasions, so investing in a properly designed one is always a great move.”

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Finally, we wanted to understand more about Ruxandra’s creative process - where she takes her inspiration from, how she defines a brand, how she starts working with a client. 

“This really depends on the client. I've worked with founders who had nothing more than a name and a Word document with the pitch content, and I've also worked with large companies that wanted to pitch a new product with a full branding system already in place.

For the first category, I get the most excited, because we get to work from a blank canvas, which is something I genuinely love. We usually start by defining the color scheme based on the industry and the client's preferences, and then create a simple wordmark logo. After that, we research the competitors and their visual style, so we can build something that helps the new startup stand out. There are plenty of platforms where you can find inspiration, like Pinterest and Dribbble.

When it comes to a big brand, you always need to stay aligned with their existing guidelines, and sometimes you can push a little beyond them if the client allows it. Since it's usually for a new product, most clients will say yes to that, but you still need to make sure that everything you create remains in line with the company's overall vision.”

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Thank you, Ruxandra Badiu! You can book your meeting with her here.