One of my editors at Wired used to say, “Put a fact in every sentence.” It was a way of eliminating throat-clearing intros and excess opinion. In our era of ghostwritten gray goo, my key element of style is this: put a piece of you in every sentence.
If a line doesn’t contain your DNA, delete it.
I have the great privilege of seeing a lot of startup pitch decks and have noticed a few common narrative patterns that are counterproductive for otherwise interesting companies. If you’re getting ready to pitch a VC, try to avoid these traps.
If you’re pitching investors, one of the easiest ways to improve your deck is swapping out blank interstitial slides, or the dull logo cover slide, with pictures of your product in use or in context.
In my role at a VC firm, I have the privilege of seeing the pitch decks of startups as they set out to raise new funding. In the main, they’re masterful, but I’ve seen a lot of founders making a similar mistake—including quotes from random users in their presentations.
These are the liquidity events that give the impression that startups are a great way to “get rich quick,” even though building a saleable company often takes the better part of a decade. Less often discussed, or championed, is a third option — the “get rich slow” method of building a company and making millions of dollars in profits, for years or decades.
While collecting the stories of more than 50 startups that got big before they raised venture capital, it was surprising to learn how many founders claimed to get their business off the ground with just $5,000-$10,000. In a world where companies that have raised more than $5M describe themselves as “seed stage,” a four-figure sum seems insufficient to start a billion-dollar business. But it’s not. So, how do you become humongous with humble financing? There are a few principles that seem common: