What a16z, YC & the top accelerators look for
Team, market, product, traction — the order the best firms read in, from what a16z, Y Combinator, and top accelerators publish about decks. Referenced, not endorsed.
Underneath the slides, early investors are weighing a small number of things, and they weigh them in a fairly consistent order. Knowing that order lets you put your strongest evidence where their attention already is. Everything below is drawn from guidance these firms have published; none of them is affiliated with or endorses Seed2Table.
Team first
Almost every published framework starts with the founders: are they formidable, do they know this space, and are they committed. Paul Graham's short version is that investors want formidable founders, a promising market, and evidence of progress so far — and the founders come first because they are the one variable that changes everything downstream.
Concretely: relevant background, a clear split of responsibilities, and full-time status. If you bury the team at the back, you are hiding your strongest or weakest card exactly where the reader looks first.
Then the market
Investors size the opportunity before they fall in love with the product, because a great product in a small market is a hard business. They want to see that you understand the market's shape — where the money is, who the first customers are, and why the market is ready now. A credible beachhead beats a giant, sourceless total-addressable-market number.
Then whether the product is clear
a16z's speedrun guidance on the teaser deck describes a reading order close to team → market → product → go-to-market → traction. By the time they reach the product, the question is not “is it clever” but “is it clear” — can they tell what it does and see something real. This is why one screenshot outperforms five feature names.
Then how you reach customers, and what traction you have
Go-to-market and traction close the read. Investors want to know how you acquire customers and what evidence exists that the motion works — defined metrics, dated numbers, period-over-period growth. None of this is about a prettier deck; it is about whether the deck lets them see these things quickly.
The three things a good deck always does
Across all of it, the strongest decks share three qualities: they are legible (big type, high contrast, readable across a room), simple (one idea per slide, only the visuals that earn their place), and obvious (a stranger understands it without a narrator). Two more separate a good deck from a fine one — a real “why now” tied to a dated shift, and one clear story a listener can repeat back.
What the accelerators add
Accelerators and seed programs publish scorecards and screens that overlap heavily with the above, with extra weight on the team and on evidence of customer discovery. Our readiness read is built on those smaller-fund screening practices — how angel networks and seed funds screen a deck before a first conversation — with YC and Sequoia used only as calibration anchors. It reads the deck the way they do; it does not verify people or search records, and a real investor will.
In our words, from: Paul Graham and Y Combinator on convincing investors; a16z's speedrun guidance on what a teaser deck must establish; and the published screening practices of angel networks and smaller seed funds. Referenced for their published guidance; none is affiliated with or endorses Seed2Table, and no logos are used.
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.
a16z’s Pitch Deck Priorities
A practical synthesis of a16z's public fundraising, diligence, and metrics guidance: the thesis, evidence, team, market, and plan your deck needs to make clear.
How Investors Read Your Deck — In About Four Minutes
Most investors spend minutes, not hours. The order they skim, the slides that decide the meeting, and where good decks quietly lose the room.
Put the guidance into practice: see what investors may notice in your deck — free, in about a minute.
Use the free Pitch Deck Analyzer →