You have spent months building something important, something real. You know every number, assumption and possible risk. Your pitch? rehearsed so many times that it plays on a loop. And then the investor opens your deck the night before the meeting, skims three slides, and walks in already unimpressed.
The problem almost certainly is not your business. It is your writing. Your pitch deck is the first impression an investor sees way before you enter the room, and so if it fails on paper, there’s no doubt it’ll fail in person. The good news, however, is that this writing is fixable, and the fixes are often simpler than founders expect.
The Deck Is Read Before It Is Heard
Investors review decks in advance. Sometimes they are shared with partners or analysts or are forwarded to sector specialists. The words you write, not the ones you say, are accountable for the first round of persuasion.
What this means is that your deck must communicate clearly without you in the room to explain it. Every slide that requires interpretation is a slide that is doing its job badly.
Here are some of the mistakes founders make, which do nothing for their pitch decks but make them fail.
#Mistake One: Writing That Sounds Like a Press Release
"A revolutionary, AI-powered platform disrupting the global supply chain ecosystem."
Nobody who wrote that sentence believes it means anything specific, and neither does the investor who reads it. Superlatives without evidence signal that the writer is not sure what they are actually saying, and not that they are confident.
The solution to this is to write more precisely.
Instead of: "transforming the way businesses access working capital" — try: "helping SMEs access invoice financing in under 48 hours, without collateral." The problem which you plan to solve must be specific, as they’re more persuasive than grand ones. They show you understand your own business well enough to describe it plainly.
#Mistake Two: Burying the Problem
The problem slide is often the most underwritten slide in a deck. Founders spend two sentences on it before rushing to the solution, their product, which is what they actually want to talk about. The problem here is investors fund problems, not products. A product is only interesting in proportion to how clearly the problem has been established. If the reader does not feel the pain, they will not care about the cure.
A strong problem slide does three things:
names who has the problem,
quantifies how serious it is, and
explains why current solutions fall short.
It should take as much space as the solution slide, if not more.
#Mistake Three: Passive, Hedging Language
"It is anticipated that the platform will potentially be able to generate significant revenues within the next 18 to 24 months."
This sentence is afraid of itself. Passive voice and hedge words (examples include: potentially, anticipated, significant) communicate uncertainty and fear rather than confidence and courage. They make the reader wonder whether the founder believes what they are saying.
Active, direct language is not arrogance, as many may call it, but is clarity. "We project revenues of $2.4M by month 18, based on current pipeline and conversion rates", says the same thing with far greater conviction. Your reader should be able to tell you believe in the solution as much as you want them to.
#Mistake Four: The Financial Slide No One Can Follow
Financial slides often look like they were designed to impress rather than inform. Tiny font. Too many rows. Labels that only make sense if you already know the business. A financial slide should answer three questions immediately:
What does it cost to run this business?
When does revenue outpace costs?
What are we asking for and what will it buy?
If an investor needs five minutes to decode your numbers and what they mean, those five minutes are not working in your favour.
#Mistake Five: No Clear Ask
Startlingly often, pitch decks do not state what they are asking for. The round size is too vague and use of funds is generic.
Investors are busy people weighing multiple opportunities. Make the ask explicit, make it specific, and make it easy to say yes to. "We are raising $500K at a $3M valuation cap. Funds will be used as follows: 60% product development, 25% sales and marketing, 15% operations." That is a sentence an investor can act on.
Before You Send the Deck
Run your deck through these questions before it leaves your hands:
Can someone who knows nothing about your industry understand what you do within 60 seconds?
Does every slide communicate one clear idea?
Have you removed every adjective that does not carry specific information?
Is the financial slide readable without a guide?
Is the ask explicit, specific, and complete?
Your product deserves a deck that does it justice. Clear writing is not a cosmetic concern; it is a competitive one.
Not every entrepreneur has the skills needed to write a good pitch deck. Most times, the service of a professional is needed. Paperclip is a company that provides such a service.
We work with entrepreneurs to breathe life into their business ideas. We have experts and professionals on board who can help you create your business plans, pitch decks and business proposals or edit your already-made ones to improve their readability.
