pitch-deck-builder

---
name: pitch-deck-builder
description: Use when a founder needs to build or fix a fundraising pitch deck. Triggers on "build my pitch deck", "investor deck", "seed deck", "Series A deck", "what slides do I need", "fix my deck", "deck for VCs". Turns the narrative into the exact slides investors expect, in order.
---

# Pitch Deck Builder

A pitch deck is not a document; it is the spine of a 30-minute conversation. It
must be skimmable in five minutes when forwarded without you in the room, and
expandable into a story when you present it. This skill builds both.

## When to use this skill

Use it after [[fundraising-narrative]] produces the five-beat story and
[[fundraising-stage-selector]] fixes the ask. The deck renders the narrative; it
never invents it.

## The 11 slides, in order

1. **Title** - company, one-line positioning, the ask in the corner. The
   one-liner is "we help [who] do [what] so they get [outcome]."
2. **Problem** - the painful, specific, expensive status quo. One customer's
   reality beats a market abstraction.
3. **Insight** - the non-obvious truth you have that others miss. This is the
   slide that separates fundable from forgettable.
4. **Solution / Product** - what you built, shown not told. A real screen or a
   10-second demo, not a feature list.
5. **Why now** - the shift (tech, regulation, behavior) that makes this
   inevitable today and impossible three years ago.
6. **Market** - bottom-up TAM/SAM/SOM with the assumption visible. Pair with
   [[market-sizing]]; never use a top-down "1% of a huge number."
7. **Traction** - the hero metric with a denominator and a trend line. Lead
   with retention or revenue, the metrics that reduce doubt fastest.
8. **Business model** - how you make money, unit economics, CAC/payback.
9. **Competition** - the honest landscape and your structural moat. Name
   incumbents; explain why they cannot follow.
10. **Team** - why this team wins this specific bet. See [[fundraise-team-hiring]].
11. **The ask** - amount, the milestone it funds, and the use of funds. Close on
    the future, not a thank-you slide.

## Stage calibration

- **Pre-seed/Seed**: weight Insight, Why-now, Team. Traction can be qualitative.
- **Series A**: weight Traction, Business model, Market. Show the engine working.

## Design rules

- One idea per slide. If a slide needs a paragraph, it is two slides or a verbal
  point with a visual.
- Every number gets a denominator and a date.
- Build a tight 11-slide main deck and a fat appendix (cohorts, detailed model,
  security, roadmap) you reveal on demand in diligence.
- The forwarded deck and the presented deck are the same file; design so it
  reads both ways.

## Anti-patterns

- The "no competitors" slide - reads as naive.
- A wall of logos with no metric attached.
- Burying traction at slide 9. If you have proof, it earns its way forward.
- A vision so grand there is no wedge. Show where you start.

## Deliverable

An 11-slide main deck mapped to the narrative beats, a clearly separated
appendix, and a slide-by-slide note on the single point each slide must land.
Take it to [[pitch-practice-coach]] before any live meeting.