A strong pitch deck problem slide makes a simple case: a defined group of people has a meaningful problem, and the problem is worth solving. These pitch deck problem slide examples show how to move from a broad complaint to a specific, credible story that can support the rest of your presentation.
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In brief: Name the audience, describe the difficult situation in its own terms, and show evidence that the problem matters. Use a short example, observed behavior, or a well-sourced fact. Then explain the consequence without claiming more than your evidence can support. The slide should make the audience want to hear how your approach addresses the issue.
What should a problem slide help the audience understand?
The problem slide is the point where a listener should recognize the need behind your idea. It is not a list of every frustration in an industry, nor is it a place to introduce every feature of your offer. Its purpose is to make one important difficulty plain before you present your solution.
A useful test is whether a person outside your team can answer three questions after seeing the slide:
- Who experiences this? Identify a real group with enough detail to distinguish it from a vague mass audience.
- What is hard for them? Describe the task, delay, cost, risk, or missed opportunity in language they would recognize.
- Why does it matter? Show the effect on the person or organization, using evidence that fits the claim.
Those answers form a chain. If one link is missing, the problem can feel like a slogan rather than a business case. For example, “teams waste time” does not tell a listener which teams, what work is delayed, or what the delay changes. Narrowing the situation gives the audience something to assess.
The problem slide also sets expectations for the next slides. If you describe an administrative bottleneck, the solution should address that bottleneck. If the slide focuses on customer access, the next step should show how the approach improves access. A clear problem creates a standard against which the proposed solution can be judged.
How do you make the audience specific?
Start with the people closest to the problem, not with the largest possible market. “Small businesses” can mean a one-person studio, a growing service company, or a regional manufacturer. A more useful description identifies the role, setting, and circumstance that shape the experience.
Consider this illustrative starting point: “Owners struggle to keep up with operations.” It is understandable, but it covers many situations. A more focused version might be: “In a growing home-service company, the owner still assigns daily work, answers routine questions, and handles customer escalations.” That description identifies a role and a work pattern. It does not pretend every company has the same issue.
Use the level of detail your evidence can support. You might distinguish by:
- Role: the owner, office manager, dispatcher, clinician, or purchasing lead.
- Organization: a particular type or stage of company, rather than all organizations.
- Moment: the event or recurring condition that makes the problem visible.
- Current workaround: what people do today to cope, and why that workaround falls short.
These details help keep your audience description human and practical. They also help you avoid claiming that everyone in a broad sector faces the same situation. If your evidence comes from a small number of conversations, say what those conversations revealed; do not present them as a universal measure.
For a business plan, audience and customer evidence should connect to the wider market case. A useful next read is how business plans support growth. For this slide, however, keep the focus tight: show the group whose problem your proposal is designed to address.
How can you describe the problem without exaggerating?
Use specific, plain language. Replace a broad label such as “inefficient” with a visible event: requests wait in an inbox, work is entered twice, or an owner has to approve routine decisions. The concrete version gives the audience a way to picture the friction and ask useful questions about it.
Then trace the consequence one step at a time. A missed handoff may create rework; rework may delay a customer response; delayed responses may affect service. Do not jump from one observed inconvenience to sweeping claims about lost revenue or industry-wide failure unless you can show the supporting evidence. A restrained, accurate statement is more persuasive than a dramatic one that invites doubt.
Use evidence in proportion to its source:
- Direct observation: Describe what you saw, where, and over what period. Keep a note of how the observation was gathered.
- Interviews: Summarize a recurring theme, but distinguish a pattern in your conversations from a representative survey result.
- Operational records: If you use response time, repeat work, or another internal measure, state the period and how the measure was calculated.
- Published research: Cite the original source, make sure it concerns the same population and issue, and do not stretch its finding beyond its stated limits.
A guide from East Carolina University’s Licensing & Commercialization office recommends opening a problem presentation with a story, fact, or question, then identifying who has the problem and quantifying it where possible. That is a helpful structure, not permission to invent a number: use a quantity only when you can explain where it came from. See the pitch presentation guide.
When no dependable quantity is available, a concise example can still make the problem tangible. Label an illustrative scenario as illustrative. If you have real customer evidence and permission to share it, explain what was observed without exposing confidential details. For guidance on connecting a presentation to its intended audience, see pitch deck support.
What makes a problem slide example convincing?
A convincing example contains enough context to understand the friction, but not so much detail that the point disappears. The following are fictional illustrations for shaping a slide; they are not customer results or claims about market size.
Example: the owner is the daily handoff
Too broad: “Growing companies have operational problems.”
More specific: “At a growing home-service company, the owner is the link between incoming requests, crew assignments, and customer updates. When each question waits for the owner, planning and customer follow-up compete for the same limited attention.”
This version names a setting, describes a visible role, and explains the consequence. If the founder has records showing how often approvals wait, one carefully defined measure could strengthen it. Without that record, the description should stay qualitative. The problem itself is still clear.
Example: repeat entry creates avoidable work
Too broad: “Office teams need better technology.”
More specific: “A small service team records the same customer details in separate places. Staff must check which entry is current before acting, and corrections take time away from responding to requests.”
This phrasing names the process rather than blaming the people doing the work. If observation confirms that records are duplicated, a slide can show a short before-and-after process sketch. The evidence might be a documented workflow review, not an unverified claim about hours saved.
Example: a patient-facing scheduling gap
Too broad: “Healthcare needs to be easier.”
More specific: “A patient trying to arrange a follow-up may need to call during office hours, while the care team is also handling current visits. The slide can identify the scheduling step that causes difficulty and show what evidence the team has collected.”
This example deliberately avoids claims about health outcomes or the scale of the issue. Those claims would require relevant evidence and careful review. The slide can still make a narrow process problem understandable.
Each example follows the same pattern: identify a group, show the situation, and connect it to a consequence. The examples do not establish demand on their own. Your own interviews, observations, records, or published sources should carry that burden.
How much evidence belongs on the slide?
Use enough evidence to make the central claim credible, then put supporting detail in your spoken explanation or backup material. A slide crowded with quotations, figures, and caveats is difficult to follow. A slide with no evidence may feel like opinion. Choose the strongest evidence that the audience can understand quickly.
A simple evidence note can help your team decide what belongs in the main presentation:
- Write the exact claim you want the slide to make.
- List the source that supports it and what that source actually measures.
- Check that the source concerns the audience named on the slide.
- Choose one figure, observation, or short quotation that clarifies the claim.
- Keep context such as date, sample, or method visible when leaving it out would change the meaning.
For example, if your evidence is a small set of interviews, the slide might say “In conversations with local operators, owners repeatedly described…” That is more accurate than implying a region-wide survey. If you have measured internal process records, state the period and how the measure was calculated in concise supporting text.
Keep a source note for every statistic, quotation, or factual claim. A reviewer should be able to trace where it came from. If a source does not support the exact wording on the slide, revise the wording or remove the claim. If the data is confidential, consider whether you can share an anonymized, aggregated observation without exposing private details.
How do common slide approaches compare?
Different evidence formats serve different purposes. Pick the one that shows the problem most clearly; do not add a chart simply to make the page look analytical.
| Approach | Works well when | What to show | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Short customer story | The audience needs to picture a recurring situation | Role, situation, friction, and immediate effect | Presenting one story as proof that everyone has the same experience |
| Measured process data | You have reliable records tied to a defined workflow | Measure, time period, and concise source note | Showing a figure without explaining how it was gathered |
| Interview theme | Several conversations reveal a consistent issue | A representative, permission-cleared phrase or careful summary | Implying that a small group represents a whole market |
| Before-and-after workflow | The difficulty comes from steps, handoffs, or duplication | The present process and the point where work stalls | Adding proposed solution details before the problem is understood |
The table is a decision aid, not a ranking. A customer story may be clearer than a chart for a human experience; process records may be better for showing repeated delay. The right format depends on the claim, evidence, and audience. A good slide can also combine a brief statement with one small visual, as long as both make the same point.
How should the problem connect to the solution?
Make the handoff explicit. The solution slide should respond to the specific difficulty you just described, rather than introducing a set of features that could belong to any offer. A listener should be able to draw a line from the friction on one slide to the proposed change on the next.
A useful working exercise is to write the connection in one sentence: “Because [audience] experiences [specific friction], our approach helps by [direct response].” This is a drafting aid, not a claim to place on the slide without review. If the response does not address the friction, either the solution needs a clearer explanation or the problem statement needs to be reconsidered.
Keep the problem and solution separate enough to be understood. The problem slide describes the present difficulty; the next slide explains the proposed response. Mentioning a solution too early can make the problem sound selected just to promote a product. Conversely, a problem with no evident relationship to what follows can make the presentation feel disconnected.
For a broader look at how presentation material supports a funding conversation, explore the practical pitch deck guide. If your presentation also includes a market case, the business-plan discussion of planning for growth and continuity can help you keep the larger narrative coherent.
What should you remove before presenting?
Review the slide for claims and details that distract from the central argument. A focused page is not an oversimplified one; it is a page where every element earns its place.
- Unbounded claims: Words such as “everyone,” “always,” or “no one” often go beyond the evidence. Name the group and limits instead.
- Several unrelated pains: A list of problems can make the audience unsure which one your proposal addresses. Lead with the strongest connected need.
- Unsupported market figures: Remove numbers that lack an identifiable source, period, or method.
- Feature lists: Save product functions for the solution section unless one detail is necessary to explain the problem.
- Internal shorthand: Replace team language and acronyms with words the audience uses.
- Long explanations: Move the detail into your spoken explanation or supporting materials while preserving a clear claim on the slide.
Ask someone unfamiliar with the project to read the slide in silence. Then ask them to describe who has the problem and what makes it consequential. If they repeat your point accurately, the slide is doing its work. If they focus on a minor detail or guess at the audience, simplify and test again.
How can you review the slide before it goes into the deck?
Use this short review sequence with a teammate or advisor:
- Read the headline alone. Does it name the central problem, not just a broad topic?
- Check the audience. Can a listener picture who experiences the situation?
- Trace the evidence. Does each factual statement have a source that supports the exact wording?
- Check the consequence. Is the effect clear, and is it proportional to what you know?
- Follow the story forward. Does the next slide answer the problem you just established?
- Remove what does not help. Keep the most useful example, measure, or visual rather than trying to include everything.
Ask the reviewer to point out any sentence that sounds more certain than the evidence. This is particularly useful when the team has been close to the issue for a long time. Familiarity can make a claim feel obvious internally even when an outside listener needs context.
Teams developing a wider business case may also find it useful to review business consulting and strategic advisory services or browse business case studies for examples of how a business narrative can be organized. Keep your own claims rooted in your own evidence.
Discuss your presentation goals
Frequently Asked Questions
How many points should a problem slide make?
Usually, make one central problem easy to remember. You can include a supporting detail or consequence, but a collection of unrelated issues weakens the connection to the solution. If several issues matter, decide which one is the clearest entry point for this audience.
Can I use a customer story instead of a statistic?
Yes, when the story is accurate, relevant, and shared with appropriate permission. Explain whether it is one example or a recurring theme. A story can make a process understandable, while a statistic can show a measured pattern; neither automatically proves the size of a market.
What if I do not have strong evidence yet?
Keep the claim narrow and be transparent about what you have learned so far. Gather more relevant observations, interviews, or process records before making a broader statement. Do not fill the gap with a guessed figure or language that implies certainty.
Should the slide include the solution?
It can hint at the connection, but the problem should remain understandable on its own. Describe the audience and difficulty first, then use the next slide to show how your approach responds. That sequence lets the listener assess both parts.
How do I make a problem statement memorable?
Use familiar words, a concrete situation, and a consequence the audience can follow. A short customer phrase or process example can help, provided it is accurate and appropriately sourced. Avoid dramatic language that your evidence cannot support.
Talk with The Chalifour Consulting Group about your deck if you want a second perspective on the story your slides tell. A clear problem slide earns attention by being specific, credible, and closely connected to the need your proposal is designed to address.