What's the worst pitch-deck advice you've ever gotten?
I spend a lot of time on the investor side of the table, and the thing that surprises me most isn't bad decks. It's good founders following bad advice with total confidence. Someone they trust told them to do it, so they don't question it. Then they watch a raise stall and never connect it back to the "tip."
A few I run into constantly, and what I think actually works instead:
"Put your team slide second, lead with credentials." Before I understand the problem, a team slide is just names and logos I can't weigh. Set up the problem and solution first, and the same slide suddenly means "here's why we're the ones to solve it."
"Round your ARR up, everyone pads the numbers." We always diligence ARR. The moment I catch padding, every other number in the deck is suspect. Under-claim and let the growth rate do the talking.
"List every GTM channel so it looks like you've got options." A go-to-market that could belong to any company tells me you haven't found your real channel yet. One channel you've proven beats five you're guessing at.
"Skip the deck, just send a one-pager, it's faster." A dense page of text and I read none of it. A deck gives an investor a clean, focused way to follow your story, one idea at a time.
"Don't mention competitors, it makes you look weak." A blank competition slide reads as naive, not dominant. Showing you understand the landscape is what makes the "here's our edge" line land.
I've watched each of these cost founders real momentum in the room. Curious what's on your list. What's the worst deck advice you were handed, and did you realize it was wrong before or after it bit you?
Replies
"More features = more impressive." I realized pretty quickly that listing every feature just diluted the core value proposition and doesn't help you get a call.
Worst advice I see founders take: "puff up the resume, investors won't verify." They will. Watched someone claim "Y Combinator" who'd actually just taken the free online course anyone can enroll in. Real credential or not, the moment I caught the stretch, every other claim on the deck lost the benefit of the doubt.
At UC Santa Barbara, I was in an entrepreneurship class where we had a 2 week-long subject discussion about pitch decks. Etched into my mind, the worst advice my professor shared with me, and noted it as such, had to do with putting the valuation at the front of a pitch deck, to "not waste anyone's time." It can stop the conversation within its flow, and can invite a fast "pass." Like any salesman, it is important as a founder to lure in the potential investor, and make them believe in your valuation.
Leaving investors guessing so they ask questions got to be one of the worst fundraising advice I've ever heard. If I have to connect the dots myself, you've made the pitch harder than it needed to be.
Great list, @lucasjpols . Another one I hear often is, “The market is huge—we only need to capture 1%.” The math sounds impressive, but it says nothing about how the company will win its first customers. A focused initial market, an urgent problem, and a credible path to expansion tell a much stronger story.