Most decks are not rejected for one big reason. They are rejected because of a handful of small pitch deck red flags that add up, slide by slide, until the reader decides the meeting is not worth taking. The good news is that almost all of them are easy to fix.
Here are seven we see often, what the investor is likely to think, and what to do about each.
1. No clear ask
What the investor thinks: “They do not know how much they need, or they are hoping I will tell them.”
The fix: State the amount, the instrument (equity, loan note, convertible) and what the money will achieve. Put it on its own slide, near the end, in plain words.
2. A market size that is the whole world
What the investor thinks: “If every business is a customer, none of them is.”
The fix: Show the slice of the market you can actually reach in the next few years, and how you worked it out. A smaller number with a clear method beats a huge number with none.
3. “We have no competitors”
What the investor thinks: “Either they have not looked, or there is no demand.”
The fix: Name the alternatives your customers use today, including spreadsheets, doing nothing, or a bigger rival. Then explain why customers switch to you.
4. A hockey-stick forecast with no explanation
What the investor thinks: “This is a wish, not a plan.”
The fix: Show the two or three drivers behind the growth, such as new customers per month, average order value or retention. If the curve bends sharply upwards, say exactly what causes it.
5. A team slide that hides the gaps
What the investor thinks: “Who actually runs the finances? Who sells?”
The fix: Show who does what, and be open about the roles you still need to fill. Investors expect gaps at an early stage. They worry about gaps that have been glossed over.
6. Numbers that do not match
What the investor thinks: “If they are careless here, what else is wrong?”
The fix: Check every figure in the deck against your model and your accounts before it goes out. Revenue, customer counts and headcount should agree everywhere they appear. When the investor asks for more, a tidy data room should tell the same story.
7. Too long, too dense
What the investor thinks: “If they cannot say it simply, they do not understand it yet.”
The fix: Aim for one idea per slide and a deck that can be read in a few minutes. Move the detail into an appendix or a separate document. A useful rule of thumb is that if a slide needs you in the room to make sense, it needs rewriting.
A deck does not need to answer every question. It needs to make the reader want to ask them in person.
Run the red flag check before you send
Print the deck, or open it on a phone, and read it as a stranger would. Then work through this short list:
- Is the ask on one slide, with an amount and a purpose?
- Could someone outside your sector explain your market slide back to you?
- Have you named at least three alternatives to your product?
- Does every growth number have a stated driver?
- Do all figures match the model and the accounts?
- Is the team slide honest about who is still missing?
- Can the whole thing be read in under five minutes?
Better still, give it to someone who has never seen the business and ask them to tell you, in one sentence, what you do and what you want. If they cannot, the deck is not finished. For a fuller walk-through of structure, see the pitch deck investors read.
None of these fixes takes long. Together, they turn a deck that gets skimmed into one that gets a meeting.
This article is general information, not financial, legal or tax advice. If you are planning a raise, talk to BDM Capital.
Frequently asked questions
Market size claimed without a bottom-up calculation, revenue projections with no stated drivers, no competition slide, a team slide that hides gaps, and an ask that does not match the plan.
Long enough to answer the first questions an investor will ask and short enough to be read in one sitting. Many effective decks are between ten and fifteen slides, with detail held in an appendix or the data room.
The amount, the instrument, what the money will be spent on, the milestones it will reach and how long it will last. An ask without a use of funds is the most common single weakness.
