Module 02 · The fundraising deck~11s dwell · weight 12
Problem
Show a real, urgent, expensive problem the reader grasps in ~20 seconds. Slide two of the three-slide filter, the whole deck rests on it.
Include
- Who has the pain (name the persona, not 'businesses')
- How they cope today (the ugly workaround)
- Why the status quo is genuinely painful, quantified if possible
- Evidence it is urgent ('hair on fire'), not merely annoying
Cut
- Solutions in search of a problem
- Vague 'the world is inefficient' framing
- More than one core problem on one slide
- Statistics with no source or year
Red flags a reader notices
- No named user, 'people' or 'businesses' in general
- The pain is a mild annoyance, not urgent
- Problem statement fits any company in the category
Pitfalls behind them
- The pain is described with adjectives ('painful', 'inefficient') where a number belongs.
- The 'user' is a plural noun ('teams', 'businesses'), not a named role with a workflow.
- The slide describes a market condition, not a bill the customer pays today.
60-second self-test
- · Can you name the exact person you interviewed last week who has this problem?
- · Is there one number on the slide with a unit (hours, dollars, %, days) and a date?
Template
[Specific user] currently [painful workaround], which costs them [time / money / risk]. There is no good option.
Weak
"Small businesses waste time on paperwork."
Strong
"A Series B startup with 40 engineers in 18 countries takes 11 days and 4 tools to pay a new contractor, and eats a 2.4% FX + fee drag on every international paycheck."
Named user, named workflow, quantified time (11 days), tool count (4), and dollar drag (2.4%). Investor pictures the pain before the solution appears.
Quick quiz
Pick an answer. Nothing is graded, and correct answers stay hidden until you choose.
1. The problem slide should primarily convince the reader that…
2. Which is a red flag on a problem slide?