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The 10-slide deck
Sequoia's 10-slide format works. In order:...
Telling the why
"Why this company exists" is your most important slide. Investors back stories, not features....
Pitching the team
Your team slide answers: "Why are *you* the people to win this?"...
Market sizing without lying
Investors hate top-down market sizing ("the global X market is $400B, we'll get 1%"). Build bottom-up:...
Q&A: the meeting after the meeting
The pitch is a setup for Q&A. Most decisions are made in the questions, not the slides....
Common deck mistakes
The classics: - Wall-of-text slides (no investor reads paragraphs) - "We have no competitors" (you're either lying or in a worthless market) - 50-page...