A ten-slide pitch deck, in the right order

Order comes before content

Most decks get written content first. Three slides end up on market size and the team gets one line. Investors skim rather than read. A first pass usually takes under three minutes, and the questions that come up in those minutes arrive in a fixed order. Good decks follow that order. The ten below are the widely used skeleton, close to the outline Sequoia published, and the sequence holds across industries even when the details do not. Each slide answers one question. A slide that tries to answer two blurs both. Ten is a working number rather than a rule. An appendix can hold the rest, and anything a reader has to reach for belongs there instead of in the main line.

1. What does this company do

That one line of description is the most important sentence in the deck.

A cover needs the name, one line of description and a date. That one line is the most important sentence in the deck. "An AI-powered innovation platform" says nothing. Whose problem, which problem, and how you approach it all have to be in there. Keep the slogan and the description separate. Slogans work once a brand is established; what you need today is the description. The cover is one of the few slides where centering is right. With few elements, size differences carry the hierarchy. If the file gets forwarded, this slide is the preview. Assume it will be seen alone and without you in the room.

2. Who is struggling

Start with a person, not a statistic.

A problem slide lands harder when it starts with a person rather than a market statistic. Say who, when, and what makes it hard. "Many companies struggle with data management" is background, not a problem. "The finance team merges twelve spreadsheets by hand at month end" is a problem. The more specific the problem, the more inevitable the next slide feels. A broad problem makes any solution look arbitrary. If you use a number here, prefer frequency or cost over market size. How often it happens and what it costs when it does.

3. How you solve it

Write the approach. Features belong to the next slide.

Write the solution as an approach, not a feature list. Why this approach fits that problem comes before what you built. Listing five features here turns the deck into a product brochure. Features have a slide of their own, and it is the next one. Reuse the exact words from slide two. If the problem was twelve spreadsheets merged by hand, the solution is that those twelve merge themselves. When the vocabulary shifts between slides, the reader assumes the subject shifted too. Keeping the same nouns across two slides is a small edit that does more for comprehension than most visual changes.

4. Does it actually work

One screenshot moves faster than four lines of description.

On the product slide, showing beats explaining. One screenshot moves faster than four lines of description. Pick two or three screens in the order a user meets them. Trying to show every feature means none of them register. If you have a demo video, link it and move on. Time spent playing video in the room rarely pays for itself. If there is no product yet, do not pad this slide. Replace it with what you are building and in what order.

5. How big is the market

A defensible number beats a large one.

The part that breaks most often here is sourcing. A market size with no year and no source is the same as no number. A single huge figure is also weak. Narrowing in three steps toward what you can realistically sell is far more convincing. Widening the definition to make the number bigger costs you credibility. A smaller number you can defend is worth more. This slide reads better as a shape than a table. Three nested circles or a narrowing bar makes the argument before you speak, and the chart layouts collect that shape.

6. How you make money

Leave this vague and the traction numbers stop meaning anything.

Pricing, the unit you charge on, and what one customer is worth. Hedging here makes the traction numbers on the next slides unreadable. No revenue yet is fine. Writing down your current hypothesis still beats writing "to be determined". If there are several plans, use a table and stop at three. What is needed here is an understanding of the model, not an accurate price list.

7. What have you proven

Slope matters more than size.

Traction can be the strongest slide in the deck, because numbers retroactively support everything before them. Direction matters more than magnitude. A small number with a visible slope works. One monthly trend beats one large figure. Choose the metric attached to the verb your business depends on. People who use it over people who signed up, returns over downloads. With no numbers yet, show evidence of validation instead: pilots, a waitlist, the number of customer interviews. Whatever you show, label the window it covers. A metric without a period invites the assumption that you picked the flattering one.

8. Why you win

No competitors reads as no market.

The common mistake on the competition slide is choosing axes where you happen to be ahead. Readers usually notice. Acknowledge what competitors do well first, then name the axis you are actually different on. That is what earns the claim. "No competitors" reads as "no market". There is always a substitute, and spreadsheets and manual work count.

9. Why this team

Show the distance between these people and this problem.

The team slide is not a resume list. It is the link between these people and this particular problem. One line each, and that line should connect to the problem. "Six years on this problem at that company" beats the company logo. The earlier the stage, the more weight this slide carries. Products change and people mostly do not.

10. What are you asking for

The amount and the use of funds belong on the same slide.

The last slide carries the amount and what it is for. An amount with no use of funds starts the questions right there. Write the use as outcomes rather than line items. "The team needed to reach 100k MRR in 18 months" reads faster than "hire three engineers". End with contact details and a next action. A closing slide that only says thank you wastes a slide. It is also the slide most likely to sit on screen through the questions, so it should be worth looking at for ten minutes.

Then, and only then, build it

With the ten decided, what remains is choosing an arrangement for each. A cover, a problem, a market and a traction slide all want different shapes. The deck templates are this sequence worked out as layout combinations, so you start from something proven rather than an empty file. With an agent connected over MCP, saying "a seed round pitch deck" gets you a proposed sequence and a preview link. You confirm the order before any slide is written. Either way the point is the same. Decide what you are saying, then decide how it looks.