The Market and Competition Slides in Your Investor Pitch

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2. Strategy & Positioning

By Saroj Jha · October 4, 2026 · 11 min read

The market slide shows who buys, how many of them there are and what each pays, with a source for every number. The competition slide shows what buyers use today, including doing nothing, and where you win and lose; never claim you have no competitors.

These two slides are where a pitch can easily lose credibility. A market slide with three circles and a borrowed number, or a competition slide with a grid of green ticks for you and red crosses for everyone else, signals that the homework is missing.

In my view, founders struggle here because they build both slides as sales material, while investors read them as evidence. This post shows how to build both so they hold up, in five steps, with one company’s slides from start to finish.

Running case: Example Co. Fictional

Example Co. is a seed-stage MedTech startup with a benchtop blood analyzer for outpatient clinics. From a fingerstick sample, in about 12 minutes, it runs routine tests such as HbA1c and a lipid panel, so the clinician can discuss results during the visit. Its first customers are independent primary-care practices. It has done its research (see the Market Research Playbook) and sized its market (see the TAM, SAM and SOM post). Now it needs a market slide and a competition slide for its seed pitch that will still hold at Series A. Example Co., its numbers and its rivals, Competitor A, B and C, are all fictional.

Step 1: Know what investors look for in these slides

They look for evidence that the company can get big, and that you understand your buyer better than anyone. Four findings from research on investors help:

• The team comes first, but the market counts. In a survey of 885 venture capitalists, 95% named the team as an important factor and 47% named it the most important. The market was named as important by 68%, behind business model (83%) and product (74%)^[1]. The survey ran in 2015–16.
• Market matters more for big outcomes. In a 2025 study of more than 8,000 deals seen by one early-stage investor, the team best explained which startups raised at least $1 million, but market and product had more explanatory power for which raised more than $10 million, and for longer-term outcomes^[4].
• Investors differ. A study of 564 venture investors found the weight they put on criteria such as international scalability varied with their education and experience^[5]. Research each investor before you pitch.
• Angels screen out fast. In a study of 150 pitches to business angels on the Canadian television show Dragons’ Den, angels tended to rule out an opportunity if it fell short on any one of eight criteria, including market potential^[6].

The funnel is narrow. In the same survey of 885 investors, about one in four opportunities led to a meeting with management, and term sheets were offered in about a third of the deals that reached due diligence (Gompers and others, 2020). Your slides need to survive a quick first read.

Example Co., step 1 Fictional

The founders accept that these two slides will not win the round on their own. Their job is narrower: to survive a two-minute read by a partner who knows medical devices and diagnostics, and to prompt questions the founders can answer from the appendix.

Do this

Before you design anything, write the one sentence you want an investor to repeat after each slide.

Step 2: Build the market slide

One slide, six elements:

1. The customer, defined precisely. Industry, size, geography and the trait that gives them the problem.
2. The bottom-up math. Number of customers × annual revenue per customer, for your first segment.
3. SAM and SOM, with a sentence on how you get from one to the next.
4. Sources and dates in small type under the numbers.
5. Why now. What has changed (a rule, a cost, a technology, a behavior) that makes this the moment. It needs a source too.
6. The expansion path. The next segments and how they add to the market.

The TAM, SAM and SOM post shows how to build the numbers, and the Bottom-Up Market Sizer does the arithmetic. Keep the detail for the appendix; the slide should be readable in the time it takes to say it.

Example Co., step 2 Fictional

The headline says the point: independent primary-care practices first, a $164 million market it can serve today. Three layers carry one line each: TAM about $1.02 billion (an assumed 20% of the 204,617 physician offices counted in the Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns for 2023^[7], which is about 40,923 practices, × an assumed $25,000); SAM about $164 million (6,548 practices in its first states that send bloodwork to an outside lab); SOM about $7 million a year by year 3 (about 280 clinics, from sales capacity). The right side names the buyer, holds one sourced “why now” line, and shows the expansion path: urgent care centers, then health-system outpatient clinics.

Do this

Read your market slide aloud and time it. If it takes more than a minute, move detail to the appendix.

Step 3: List every real alternative

The competition slide shows the alternatives your buyers actually consider. Build it from customer interviews and lost deals, not from a list of companies you found online. Include direct competitors, indirect ones, the spreadsheet or manual process, building in-house, and doing nothing. The SBA’s guidance on competitive analysis lists “indirect or secondary competitors who may impact your success”, and notes that several industries might be competing to serve the same market^[8].

Why never “no competitors”? I know of no study that measures how investors react to it, so this is practice, not research. But every buyer solves the problem somehow today, even if by doing nothing, and an investor will think of an alternative within seconds. Claiming none suggests you have not looked.

What ServiceNow’s, Zoom’s and QuidelOrtho’s filings show

Public companies describe their competition in their IPO and annual filings, and the good ones name categories, not only rivals. Three examples:

• ServiceNow (2012) listed the in-house option first: “We face competition from in-house solutions, large integrated systems vendors and smaller companies with point solutions including SaaS offerings”^[9].
• Zoom (2019) opened with “The market for communication and collaboration technologies platforms is competitive and rapidly changing”, then grouped rivals into “legacy web-based meeting providers”, “bundled productivity solutions providers with basic video functionality” and “point solutions providers”^[10].
• QuidelOrtho (fiscal 2024), a diagnostics company, treats two arenas separately and says what buyers choose on in each. For rapid diagnostics: “We believe that some of the most significant competitive factors in the rapid diagnostic market include convenience, speed to result, specimen flexibility, product menu, clinical needs, price, reimbursement levels, product performance and customer service, as well as effective distribution, advertising, promotion and brand recognition.” For the central laboratory market: “The competitive factors in the central laboratory market are also significant and include price, product performance, reimbursement, compatibility with routine specimen procurement methods, and manufacturing products in testing formats that meet the workflow demands of larger volume laboratories”^[11].

These are what the filings say, not an account of how the companies assessed their competition internally. The lesson for a seed deck is simple: group the alternatives by type, put the in-house option on the slide, and say what buyers choose on in each arena.

Example Co., step 3 Fictional

From its 20 interviews, the team lists five alternatives practices use to get routine bloodwork results: sending samples to the outside reference lab; Competitor A, a larger analyzer from an established maker; Competitor B, a handheld single-test device; Competitor C, a hospital-lab analyzer sold to health systems; and doing nothing beyond ordering the test again at the next visit. All three competitors are fictional.

Do this

Next to each alternative, write how many interviewees used it and one quote about why. Drop any competitor no customer mentioned, or say why it still matters.

Step 4: Compare on two or three buyer criteria, honestly

Choose the criteria your interviews say drive the decision, not features only you have. Then be honest where others are stronger. A slide where you win on every row is hard to believe; showing where a competitor is better, and why that matters less to your segment, builds trust. Finally, say why you will keep winning: data, distribution, switching costs, a network effect or focus on a segment others ignore.

Two formats work well: a short table of alternatives against buyer criteria, or a two-axis map using the two criteria that matter most. My post on competitive analysis for startups covers the research, and the Competitor Research Grid turns it into this slide.

Example Co., step 4 Fictional

Practice managers named three criteria: results during the visit, little staff time per test, and a cost and billing picture they can plan around. The team’s table is honest about where others lead. All entries are fictional.

Its “why we keep winning” line is about focus: it is built for independent practices, it runs in the exam room without lab staff, and the distributor reps practices already order from deliver the cartridges (fictional claims the team must be able to back).

Do this

Add one column called “Where it is stronger” and fill it for every alternative, including yours.

Free template

Turn your research into the competition slide

The free Competitor Research Grid profiles every alternative buyers consider, including workarounds and doing nothing, with a source and date on each entry, and turns it into where you win and your investor competition slide.

Step 5: Back up every number

Assume investors will check. A study of 722 funding requests to a venture firm found that whether a business plan was submitted, and some of what it contained, were only weakly linked to funding decisions; the authors conclude that investors learn this information independently of the plan^[12]. Your slides open the conversation; the evidence closes it.

Keep a short appendix or data room with:

• a sources log for every market number, with dates;
• the inputs to your market size, so an investor can change an assumption and see the result;
• a summary of customer interviews: how many, which segments, what you heard;
• the competitor research behind the slide.

Delivery matters too. A study of 1,139 accelerator pitch videos found that a delivery one standard deviation more positive (in tone, expression and wording) went with about a 3 percentage point higher chance of funding, against a base rate of about 8.5%, though, among funded startups, those with more positive pitches later underperformed^[2]. Delivery is not a substitute for evidence, but practising these two slides until you can explain the numbers plainly is worth the time.

One honest caveat: research on slide content itself is thin. A 2025 review of 173 articles on pitching found that only about 10% examined the pre-pitch stage, when materials are prepared^[3]. The advice on slide structure in this post is practice, grounded in the research on what investors weigh.

Example Co., step 5 Fictional

The appendix has five pages: a sources log with dates, a sizing sheet where an investor can change the 20% practice share or the $25,000 a year and see TAM, SAM and SOM move, the five paid pilots, a summary of the 20 practice interviews, and competitor notes. Each number on the two slides points to one of those pages.

Do this

For every number on both slides, write the appendix page it comes from. A number with no page is either moved to the appendix or removed.

What changes by stage?

• Pre-seed — One segment, sized bottom-up, and the alternatives your first customers used before you. Interviews are your main evidence.
• Seed — Add SOM from your sales and channel capacity, win-loss evidence on the competition slide, and the expansion path.
• Series A–B — Use your own data: revenue per customer, win rates by competitor, and how the next segments add to the market.

What mistakes should I avoid?

• A borrowed industry number as TAM. It sizes someone else’s market.
• “We only need 1%.” It shows no path to customers.
• “No competitors.” Every buyer uses something today.
• A tick-box grid you win on every row. It reads as marketing, not analysis.
• No sources. Investors will check, and missing sources cost trust.
• Leaving out doing nothing and in-house builds. They are often the real competition.