1. Title slide: state the category, not the tagline
The first slide should let a reader place you in a mental category in under two seconds. Company name, one line of plain-language positioning, the round you are raising, and the date.
Clever taglines cost you the category. "Infrastructure for real-time fraud detection" beats "Trust, reimagined" every time.
2. Problem: one number, one sentence
The problem slide is where most founders over-explain. Reduce it to a single quantified statement of pain and a single supporting figure. If the figure needs a source, put the source in small type at the bottom of the slide rather than in the body.
3. Solution: show the product doing the work
Replace the feature list with one screenshot, diagram, or before/after that demonstrates the mechanism. A reader should be able to describe what your product does after looking at this slide alone.
4. Why now: the shift you are riding
Every fundable company depends on a change in the world — a regulation, a cost curve, a behaviour shift. Name it explicitly. Decks without a "why now" read as good ideas with no urgency.
5. Market: bottom-up, not a triangle
TAM/SAM/SOM circles have lost credibility because they can be drawn to say anything. A bottom-up calculation — number of qualifying customers times realistic annual contract value — is harder to dismiss and easier to defend in the room.
6. Traction: one chart, up and to the right
This is the slide investors actually stop on. Pick the single metric that best describes momentum and give it the whole slide: one line, labelled axes, a clear starting and ending value.
Resist stacking four charts here. Secondary metrics belong in the appendix, where a diligence reader will find them.
- Pre-revenue: usage, waitlist conversion, or pilot count
- Early revenue: monthly recurring revenue with net retention
- Growth stage: revenue plus efficiency (payback, gross margin)
7. Business model: how a dollar arrives
Pricing, unit of value, and expansion path. Three lines of text and one small table beats a paragraph. If your model has a wrinkle — usage-based, marketplace take rate, hybrid — surface it here rather than letting it emerge in questions.
8. Competition: axes you can defend
A positioning matrix works only if both axes matter to the buyer. Choose dimensions a customer would use to make a decision, place competitors honestly, and accept that being top-right on axes nobody cares about persuades nobody.
9. Team: relevance over résumé
For each founder, give one line explaining why this person is unusually suited to this problem. Logos help; unexplained logos do not.
10. The ask: amount, allocation, milestone
Close with the number you are raising, how it splits across hiring and go-to-market, and the specific milestone the round buys. Ending on "Thank you" wastes the most-remembered slide in the deck.
Design rules that hold across all ten
Structure gets you read; craft gets you believed. A few constraints do most of the work:
- One idea per slide, stated in the headline as a full sentence
- Two typefaces maximum, one accent colour, generous margins
- Charts with no gridlines, no legends where labels will do
- Readable at phone size — if 18pt is your floor, you will write tighter