There was an interesting Twitter thread from @thedanigrant, CEO of jam.dev. We suggest you read the entire thread, but she begins, “When you start a startup, so many people tell you to ship fast and ship messy. They tell you: you’ll know you have product market fit when people are willing to jump through hoops to use your broken product. This was great advice in 2013. But not in 2023.”

Grant said that Jam.dev first released a buggy product, and while users might have been willing to put up with bugs in those earlier days of tech, meaning long before 2013, these days, not so much. And MVP is a good way to start – providing that the ‘M’ is sufficiently engaging to users, and case in point is the meteoric rise and cataclysmic disengagement of Meta’s Threads, which we mentioned just last week.

Oh, once the bugs were out, jam.dev relaunched and found its userbase.

Same goes for your pitch deck, in many ways. Just as the MVP release is there to engage users, always with more to come, founders tend to put everything into the deck and it’s TMI.

Keep it simple. As we’ve said many times, the deck is a teaser to get you to the first meeting with the investor. You can go into details once you get that meeting.

Know your userbase. A fund whose focus is on, say, crypto, will have no interest in meeting with an ESG company. The same way you supposedly do your homework to find out who your competitors are and what differentiates your product, do your homework and focus on the investors who are focused on your space. Then start by sending your deck to the investors who are not on your ‘A’ list. Get feedback. Make changes to your deck or oral presentation. They might not be your preferred investors, but they might offer invaluable insights. Listen.

Include financial projections. You’d be surprised how many founders feel that they’re unnecessary, since the startup so early stage. Investors want to know how you’re thinking – and how realistic you’re being. And do be realistic. Investors know you’re not going to be a unicorn in a year or two. Don’t overpromise. If you do that, you will no doubt underdeliver. Promise.

Don’t forget the disclosure page and pay attention to the language, including “financial projections are no guarantee of results.”

Number your slides. We know that they can see the numbers at the top of the PDF. Still, include numbers. Make it easy to see clearly where they are in the deck.

Have an outside party look at your deck before you submit it to investors. If he or she has questions, so will the investor. Find out what you haven’t clarified – or have over-clarified – before you drive investors crazy. In most cases, it’s the latter. Keep in mind that white space is a good thing: make it easy. Clear and concise.

Do the numbers. And look at everything. Can you make money by running a profitable operation or by creating intellectual property that can be sold (and make you and your investors whole)?

Presentation counts. Okay, so you’re not a designer, but be consistent in your slide formatting. Have you been consistent in the fonts you use? The colors? Are the colors attractive and the deck readable? Everything counts. If you happen to be colorblind, find someone who isn’t and have them choose the colors. Also, try to find a balance between the text and images.

Do an Executive Summary. We know it only gives you a page or two to get the essential information in, but it will also force you to get to be concise. There are investors who only want to see the executive summary first, and then decide if they want to know more. It’s not a throw-away. It’s a possible foot in the door. As Dani tweeted, re the product itself but good advice here, too:” cut every non-essential feature.” Again, the ES will help you achieve that.

Each slide should be informative. We actually received a deck where the ‘problem’ slide headline read  ‘business software needs disruption.’ Tell us – and the investor – something we don’t know.

The Ask must always be included. It’s amazing how many founders leave that bit out. You’re approaching investors. Investors deploy money. How much do you need and for what? Founders often say they don’t know. That’s what the financials are for. Figuring out what you’ll need to get to the next level.

Say ‘Thank You’ on your contact info slide. You’ve taken the investor’s time, and they’ve gotten that far. A thank you is always appreciated.

We will leave you with this from Dani: “the game in startups is you have to build something 10x better than alternatives. For most things, in order to be 10x better, it has to be a seamless product experience.”

Funds look at hundreds of pitch decks each and every week, so you have a lot of competition, so remember: you need to put your absolutely very best foot forward with your deck. It’s your foot in the door and if it’s not a ten, sorry to say but it’s going to be a great big ‘X,’ and not as in the Roman numeral. As in NeXt. Onward and forward.