The 10 things every pitch deck needs
The slide-by-slide checklist the strongest seed decks share — what each slide must say, and why an investor looks for it. The same ten our tool checks first.
A seed deck is a short, legible argument. The modal deck that raises is around nineteen pages, and each slide carries one idea. You do not need a novel structure — you need the ten things below, done plainly, in roughly this order. This is the same list our free tool checks first, and it is drawn from what the best investors already publish.
1. A one-line description
Say what you do in one plain sentence, on the cover or the first slide. Name the user and what they get. No jargon, no “platform,” no “operating system for X.” The test is simple: could a smart outsider repeat it back after reading it once?
This is the slide founders most often over-think. Clarity here buys you attention for everything after it.
2. The problem
State a specific pain, name the customer who feels it, and back it with one fact — a number, a quote, or a concrete example. “Creators are overwhelmed” is not a problem; “a solo creator spends nine hours a week reformatting one video for five platforms” is.
Investors are not judging whether the problem is real to you. They are judging whether you have talked to the people who have it.
3. The solution and product
Describe what you have built in plain language, and give the investor one thing to look at — a screenshot, a mockup, a demo link, a prototype. Tie it back to the problem with a before/after. A roadmap and five feature names are not a product; “demo coming Q4” does not count.
4. Why now
A good “why now” points to a specific shift — a technology, a cost curve, a regulation, a behavior change — with a date or an event. “AI changes everything” is an assertion; “inference costs fell 90% in eighteen months, so this is now affordable per-creator” is a reason.
5. Market size
Show TAM, SAM and SOM — or an explicit bottom-up decomposition — with a source or method, and name the first segment you will win (your beachhead). One big top-down number with no source reads as a placeholder.
Our tool never judges whether the number is right — only whether the work is shown: three tiers, a source, and a named beachhead.
6. Competition and alternatives
Name the competitors or substitutes — the status quo counts — and state one specific advantage the alternatives cannot match. A logo grid with no line of differentiation tells an investor you have not thought about why you win.
7. Business model
Say who pays, the pricing mechanics (price, unit, period), and the basic logic — margin or unit economics. An investor should be able to see how the money is made without doing the arithmetic for you.
8. Traction and validation
Show evidence with specific numbers and dates, define your metrics (what counts as “active,” revenue versus bookings), and show growth period over period rather than a cumulative line that only ever rises. A waitlist and “hundreds have told us” is a start; the counts and dates are what make it believable.
9. Team
Name the founders with titles, give one relevant-background line each, say who does what (product versus go-to-market), and state full-time status. Investors check the team first, and “are the founders full-time?” is one of the first questions they ask; answer it on the slide.
10. The ask
State the amount, a use-of-funds breakdown, the runway it buys, and the milestones the money reaches. If you can, name the instrument and terms. A number with no plan behind it invites the wrong conversation.
Three more investors expect
Beyond the core ten, most investors also look for a financials slide (projections or a burn figure, with the assumptions stated), a one-slide cap-table summary (founders' share, option pool, prior instruments), and contact basics (company name, website, a working email on one slide). Missing these rarely kills a deck, but including them well signals that you are ready for the next conversation.
In our words, from: Y Combinator — Kevin Hale and Aaron Harris on building and designing a seed deck, and Michael Seibel's plain-language standard; the Sequoia deck template, which YC's seed-fundraising guide points founders to; a16z's speedrun guidance on the teaser deck and “16 Startup Metrics.” Referenced for their published guidance; none is affiliated with or endorses Seed2Table, and no logos are used.
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