Guide
Pitch deck and financial model package: why the deck should be built from the model
A deck and a model bought as one job should be built in one order: the model first, then every slide from its cells. Here is why, worked on a sample company, with five checks for any package you buy.
By Amer Habeeb. Updated . 8-minute read.
Every sample number below comes from Hearthfold, a fictional company. You can see its slides and download its model in the Hearthfold sample.
The failure a package prevents: three mismatches in one first draft
Most decks and models are made apart. The founder builds a spreadsheet. Then a designer, or the founder at midnight, copies its numbers onto slides. A week later the model changes and the slides do not. Nobody notices until an investor puts the two side by side.
That gap is what a deck and model package exists to close. It is easiest to see in a worked example, so here is a first draft from a sample company.
Order of work: build the model first, then the deck
A deck states numbers. A model produces them. If the deck is written first, every number on it is a guess the model must later agree with, and the model gets bent to fit the slides: a growth rate typed in to reach a revenue figure, a margin rounded up to match a sentence.
Built the other way round, the deck has nothing to invent. The model answers the six questions an investor tests: runway, revenue drivers, unit economics, headcount, use of funds and tie-out. The deck states those answers.
In practice the order runs: assumptions, revenue build, costs from the hiring plan, the three statements, the checks, and only then the slides. The three-statement model guide walks through those steps.
Tie-out, and what it does not prove
A model ties out when the income statement, the cash flow statement and the balance sheet describe the same company. The test is one row: total assets minus total liabilities and equity. It should read 0.00 in every period. A deck built on a model that does not tie out inherits the error on every slide that quotes it.
Tying out is the floor. Surviving questions is the job. A model can balance perfectly and still describe a company that runs out of cash, or bill customers before they sign.
So ask a package for both: a model that ties out, and a deck whose every number survives the question “where does this come from?”
Mapping slides to cells
The working method is a map. For every number on every slide, write down the tab and the row it comes from. A number with no address was typed, and typed numbers are the ones that drift.
Keep the map as a short table beside the model, or as a footnote on each slide. Either way, when an investor asks where a figure comes from, the answer is a cell, not a memory.
If you would like your own deck checked against your model this way, send me both files. You get one written page back, and every point names the slide, the number and the fix.
When the model moves, the deck moves
A model keeps changing after the deck is “done”. A pilot result comes in, or an investor asks for a lower case. When the deck was built from the model, the slides are updated from the model, not edited from memory.
If separate people edit your deck and your model, ask who updates the slides when the model moves, and how they find each one. The map from the last section is that answer.
What the package should include
Whoever builds it, a deck and model package should hand you these, in writing, before you pay:
- The model as a live spreadsheet: every input on one assumptions tab, every other cell a formula, three statements that tie out, and a balance check you can see.
- The deck in a format you can edit, such as PowerPoint, Google Slides or Canva, plus a PDF for sending.
- Every figure on a slide traceable to a cell, through a footnote or a map.
- The ask stated as one calculation: the amount, the months it lasts and the milestone it reaches.
- Files that are yours to change after delivery, with no locked cells and no password.
The pitch deck and financial model package I sell is built in that order: a 3-year model with the P&L, cash flow and balance sheet tied together, all assumptions on one tab and no typed-over cells, then the deck from it. The one Fiverr project on this site was this kind of job: a 15-slide branded deck and a 3-statement model for a US startup raising a seed round. Read the project and its review.
Price and days
Prices for this work vary far more than the files do. Whatever you buy, get the price, the delivery days and what one revision round covers in writing before work starts. Published prices by kind of service shows the spread.
My package is $295 on Fiverr, delivered in 7 days: an investor deck plus a reconciled 3-year model. If your model is already final, the deck package is $95 in 6 days. Anything bigger, such as a 5-year monthly model like Hearthfold's, is quoted in writing first. Fiverr holds your payment until the order is complete and adds its own service charge at checkout. Compare every package on one table.
Revisions across both files
In a package, a revision rarely touches one file. Change the hiring plan and the cost line, the burn, the runway and the team slide all move. So the rounds should cover the deck and the model together, and each round should start in the model.
I count a round the same way for both files: one round is one consolidated list of changes, in writing. The package includes 2 rounds across the deck and the model. I make each change in the model, run the checks again, then update every slide that quotes a changed number. A change of scope, such as a new revenue line or two more years, is quoted separately before I start on it. The full rules are under refunds and revisions.
Check yours: five checks for a package bought elsewhere
Bought a deck and a model from someone else, or built them yourself? Run these five before the deck goes out.
- Pick five numbers from the deck: revenue, gross margin, burn, runway and the raise. Find each one's cell in the model. A number without a cell was typed.
- Change one input in the model, such as price. List the slides that should change, and check that someone can update all of them in an afternoon.
- Read the balance check row. It should read 0.00 in every period, before and after your change.
- Multiply the people on the team slide by the salaries in the model. The result should match the payroll in the model for the same year.
- Divide your cash by the monthly burn from the cash flow statement. The months should match the runway on the ask slide.
For a slower pass, slide by slide, try the 20-minute investor deck self-check.
Send the deck and the model together
Send the deck you have, and the model if there is one. Within 2 business days (India time) you get one written page: where investors will push hardest, two fixes you can make today, and what already holds up. It is a consistency check, not an audit.
Want the package built instead? See what the package delivers.
How this guide was made: written with Claude from the method I use on every read and the Hearthfold sample model. Every Hearthfold number on this page comes from that model; other figures link to their source.