Every application to the Medical Innovation Expo requires a pitch deck built on the Sequoia Capital business plan format — a 10 to 12 slide structure designed to tell a clear, compelling story fast. It’s not a formality. Reviewers read a lot of decks; the ones that follow this structure are the ones they actually finish.
The structure, slide by slide
- Company purpose. Define what you do in a single declarative sentence. Avoid listing features — state the mission.
- Problem. Describe the pain your customers face today, and why the solutions available to them now fall short.
- Solution. Your “eureka moment” — the unique value proposition that resolves the problem you just described.
- Why now? The market or technology shift that makes this the right moment for your solution to exist. Investors weight this more than almost anything else.
- Market potential. Identify your target customer and size the opportunity — TAM (Total Addressable Market), SAM (Serviceable Available Market), and SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market).
- Competition and alternatives. List direct and indirect competitors honestly, then show your plan to win and your specific advantages.
- Product. A detailed look at what you’ve built — functionality, design, and the development roadmap ahead.
- Business model. How you generate revenue and how that scales.
- Team. Why this specific group is positioned to execute this vision — clinical, technical, and business expertise, named plainly.
- Financials. Historical performance if you have it, plus a forecast.
- Vision. What exists in five years if this goes the way you intend.
What separates a deck that gets read from one that doesn’t
The flick-through test. An investor should be able to understand your pitch from the slide titles alone, without reading a single line of body text. If your headings are generic (“Market,” “Team”), rewrite them as claims (“A $4B market growing 22% a year,” “Two clinicians, one device engineer, zero learning curve between them”).
Simplicity over density. Clean, focused slides beat comprehensive ones. If a slide needs a live explanation to make sense, it’s not ready.
Storytelling over statistics. Numbers support a narrative; they don’t replace one. Structure the deck as hook, interest, consideration, action — the same arc as any pitch that’s held a room.
Timing gets more weight than most founders expect. “Why now” is one of the strongest predictors of investor interest. If your answer to that slide is thin, it’s worth more work than any other slide in the deck.
Where to go from here
The Sequoia Capital business plan guide is the primary reference this format is drawn from. Design tools like Canva and Beautiful.ai both offer pre-formatted templates that follow this structure closely.
Download our Sequoia-format pitch deck template to start from the exact outline our reviewers expect to see.