The pitch deck stack: what slides matter at each stage of your raise

Read time: 4 min

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The first deck I ever built had 28 slides.

I thought: “The more detail, the more impressive.”
I was wrong.

An investor stopped me after slide 6.
He said: “Hold on. I’m still not clear what you actually do.”

That stung.
Not because I was rejected (that happens all the time).
But because he was right. I didn’t know how to tell the story of my company.

I crammed everything into one deck: the scrappy pre-seed vision, the seed traction slides, the Series A metrics… all in one Frankenstein presentation.

And here’s the truth:
I’ve now seen 1,000+ decks since, and most founders make the same mistake.
They don’t realize: each stage of fundraising requires a different story.

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The pitch deck stack (steal this outline)

Here’s the exact slide order I recommend for each stage.

Pre-seed (10–12 slides)

• Problem

• Vision

• Team

• Market size

• Product mockup / demo

• Roadmap

Goal = sell the dream. Can these founders attack a massive market?

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Seed (12–14 slides)

• Problem + solution

• Product demo (real screenshots, not mockups)

• Traction (users, revenue, pilots)

• GTM strategy (how will you grow?)

• Team

• Competition

Goal = show early traction + repeatable growth potential.

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Series A (12–15 slides)

• Metrics (growth, retention, CAC/LTV)

• GTM engine (not theory — what’s already working)

• Team scaling plan

• Market expansion opportunity

• Financial model

Goal = prove the model works and scales.

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Series B+ (12–15 slides)

• Unit economics

• Margins & burn profile

• Market dominance story

• Expansion roadmap

• Exit potential

Goal = show you’re building a category winner.

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👆 That’s the cheat sheet.
Keep it simple. Stop mixing stages.

But here’s the thing: a list won’t win you a round.
The difference between a “meh” deck and a killer deck comes down to how you tell the story on each slide.

And that’s where most founders trip up.

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🔒 Inside Premium: the pitch deck playbook

Here’s what you’ll unlock as a Premium member:

🦄 My annotated pitch deck template

• Pre-built for Pre-seed, Seed, and Series A

• Includes “do’s and don’ts” for each slide

• Shows exactly where founders overshare (and where they underdeliver)

📊 Side-by-side analysis of unicorn decks

• Airbnb → how they made TAM sexy

• Coinbase → why their traction slide worked with just 3 numbers

• Canva → the story arc that made design feel like destiny

🚨 The 5 biggest pitch deck mistakes I see every week

1. Mixing Pre-seed “vision” with Series A “metrics”

2. Product demo that looks like homework, not magic

3. Competition slides that scream insecurity

4. “Hockey stick” revenue projections with no engine behind them

5. Forgetting the ask slide (yes, it happens)

🎯 My founder storytelling hacks

• The “2-minute investor test” → if they don’t get it by slide 2, you’ve lost

• The single metric that should headline your traction slide (hint: not total users)

• Why your team slide matters way more than you think at Pre-seed

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You don’t need 28 slides. You need the right 12.