About this design
Where the LinkedIn Pitch Deck style comes from, and what it signals.
Reid Hoffman raised LinkedIn's $10M Series B from Greylock in 2004 and posted the full LinkedIn pitch deck in 2013, with his notes on each slide. Founders study it because Hoffman had a growing network and almost no revenue to show. He opens with the investment thesis and argues by analogy to eBay, PayPal and Google before any numbers appear. This prompt keeps his order. It is an unofficial homage, with no LinkedIn logo and no affiliation.
You get the 2004 PowerPoint look: white slides, bold Arimo (metric-compatible with Arial) and royal blue #1111cc titles over a 3px steel-blue #5b8ec6 rule. Light-blue #99ccff boxes hold segments and product names. The signature slide is the network growth chart, drawn the way Excel drew it then: a yellow #ffff99 plot, black gridlines and a lime #33dd33 actual line pulling past a navy #000066 projection, with a cyan #ccffff press quote below.
Use it when your round depends on a thesis and your revenue is still small, as with network businesses, marketplaces and platforms that have users but no pricing yet. You close on the opening thesis, as Hoffman did in the LinkedIn Series B deck, so investors see your core argument while you take questions.
Use it for
- Series A and B decks for network or marketplace startups raising before revenue
- Pitches that argue by analogy to companies investors already know
- Founders who want the LinkedIn Series B deck's order as a working outline
- Board updates that plot actual growth against the last round's projection
- Startup classes that take apart a famous pitch deck
Skip it for
- Consumer brands that sell on taste and photos; try Airbnb Pitch Deck or Hearth
- A modern SaaS raise, where 2004 styling would look dated to investors; Runway or Traction fit better
- A three-minute stage pitch; Demo Day puts one idea on each slide at stage size
The presentation design prompt
This is the exact text that gets sent to your AI.
Create a presentation in the 'LinkedIn Pitch Deck' theme, an unofficial homage to the 2004 Series B deck Reid Hoffman later published with commentary: a network pitched before revenue, in 2004 PowerPoint form. Background white #ffffff. Typography: 'Arimo' (Google Fonts) throughout, 400 and 700 plus italics. Content slide header: a Title Case claim in Arimo 700 at 24px, royal blue #1111cc, top-left, two lines max; the company wordmark as plain bold navy #000066 text top-right with a 10px italic tagline; then a 3px steel-blue #5b8ec6 rule across the full width. Footer: month and year over 'CONFIDENTIAL', stacked bottom-left in Arimo 700 11px gray #808080; page number 14px black bottom-right. Body text black #000000 at 14 to 17px; secondary statements in #3366cc with the key word bold and underlined. Follow Hoffman's order: investment thesis, pitch by analogy, growth against the last round's plan, market leadership, revenue plan and pricing, five-year financials, team and investors, then the thesis again as the close. Cover: wordmark at 64 to 72px navy, italic tagline, 'Series B Financing' in bold #1111cc, a network of gray #b3b3b3 nodes around one light-blue #99ccff node, between two steel-blue rules. Thesis: market segments in rounded #99ccff boxes with 1px black borders at left, revenue streams numbered in launch order beside them, and money-flow glyphs: peach #ffcc99 and yellow #ffff99 circles, one marked '$', joined by a black arrow. Analogy: two 1px black-framed panels, 'X 1.0:' against 'X 2.0: Company', navy bold heads, verdicts in #3366cc with 'network' underlined. Signature slide, the growth chart drawn as 2004 Excel: yellow #ffff99 plot area, thin black gridlines, comma-formatted y-axis, dates rotated 45 degrees, a lime #33dd33 actual line pulling past a navy #000066 projection, a boxed legend at right, and a rounded cyan #ccffff press-quote callout below with the key phrase bold. Market map: a 2x2 with arrowed axes, the company quadrant filled #99ccff, competitors as bold navy names with '~' estimates, an italic sourcing line above and a yellow #ffff99 note defining the metrics. Revenue plan: #99ccff label boxes at left, 'Pricing plan' and 'Launch timing' columns of short bullets. Financials: spreadsheet table with 'Historical' and 'Conservative projections' brackets, a navy #000066 header row in white bold, right-aligned figures, losses in parentheses. Team: bold names, two bullet credentials each, investors below. Strictly avoid: the LinkedIn logo, its boxed wordmark or tagline, claiming affiliation with LinkedIn or Reid Hoffman, clipart, stock photos, gradients, drop shadows, dark backgrounds, fonts other than Arimo, topic-only titles, charts without a legend or source line. Use this theme for my slides. Ask me what the presentation is about first, then apply the theme to every slide.View this prompt and its data on GitHub
How to use this prompt
From copied text to a finished LinkedIn Pitch Deck deck in four moves.
- 01
Copy the prompt
Use the copy button, or open it pre-filled in Claude or ChatGPT with one click from the panel on this page.
- 02
Tell the AI your topic
The prompt instructs the AI to ask what your presentation is about first. A sentence or a pasted outline is enough.
- 03
Generate and iterate
Ask for more slides or swap a layout. The avoid list at the end of the prompt keeps LinkedIn Pitch Deck on-style while the content changes.
- 04
Or skip straight to a deck
SlideSpeak turns your topic or document into a finished LinkedIn Pitch Deck presentation, exportable as PowerPoint or PDF.
Common questions
Working with the LinkedIn Pitch Deck presentation design prompt in practice.
