How we read pitch decks (and what we wish founders led with)
Two weeks to a decision is a promise. Here is the read-order we actually use, the three slides that decide every meeting, and the deck-killers we see most often.
We commit to a decision within two weeks of every application. That's not marketing copy — it's an operational constraint that forces us to read decks efficiently and with discipline. Here's exactly how we do it.
The read order we actually use
Slide 1 — the one-liner. If the one-liner doesn't tell us what the company does, what the market is, and why now, we know the deck wasn't pressure-tested with non-technical readers. That's a soft yellow flag.
Slide 2 — the team. Two questions: do the founders have category-relevant operating experience, and is there evidence they've worked together before? Co-founder fit is the single most predictive variable for whether a seed company makes it to Series A.
Slide 3 — the traction slide. Numbers, with denominators. "10 customers" means nothing without "out of how many tried" or "added in the last X months." We're looking for slope, not absolute volume at the seed stage.
Everything else. After those three slides, we have a 70-30 read on the company. The rest of the deck either confirms or surprises us.
The three slides that decide every meeting
When we invite a founder to a first meeting, we have three slides we want to discuss in depth, regardless of what's in the deck:
- The problem narrative. Not the slide that says "the problem is X" — the underlying observation that made you certain. We want to hear the customer conversation that crystallized it.
- The wedge. What part of the market do you start with, what's your unfair right to win there, and how does that wedge expand?
- The next 9 months. What does success look like by the end of the seed runway? If you can't articulate three concrete milestones, we'll worry.
The deck-killers we see most often
Decks we pass on usually share at least one of these traits:
- Market size pulled from a generic research report with no internal analysis
- A go-to-market section that's just a list of partnerships you'd like to pursue
- Financial projections that hockey-stick after month 18 with no underlying customer math
- A team slide where one cofounder is full-time and the others are advisors
- An "AI" framing applied to a problem that doesn't actually need AI
None of these are dealbreakers on their own. But two or more, and we're usually a no.
What we wish founders led with
Just one thing: what's the most counterintuitive thing you learned in the last six months building this? That's the question we ask in every first meeting. Founders who have a sharp answer almost always end up in our portfolio.