Module 10 · The fundraising deck~23s dwell · weight 13
Team
Show why THIS team wins. The single slide investors spend the most time on at seed, they are betting on you.
Include
- Founders + one-line proof of relevant skill for THIS problem
- Why you're uniquely qualified (founder-market fit, not resume)
- Complementary strengths (build / sell / operate)
- One line on why the founders work well together (co-founder trust)
Cut
- Long resumes and titles
- Advisors crowding out founders
- More than ~3 people on the main slide
- Photos that look nothing like the founders in a meeting
Red flags a reader notices
- Advisors take more space than founders
- No explanation of why this team wins this problem
- Every founder has the same background (missing skill)
Pitfalls behind them
- Bios lead with degrees or titles instead of what each founder shipped.
- Advisors take more visual space than founders on the main slide.
- There's no line explaining why this team, specifically, wins this problem.
60-second self-test
- · Does each bio name a prior product or scope the reader can verify in one search?
- · If you swapped 'we' for 'they', would the slide still argue for THIS team over any other?
Template
[Name], [role]. [One line proving relevant skill for THIS problem]. Co-founders since [year / context].
Weak
"Passionate entrepreneurs with 20+ years of combined experience."
Strong
"Jane Liu, CEO. Built Rippling's international contractor product 0 → $40M ARR across 40 countries. Marcus Osei, CTO. Owned Wise's SWIFT + stablecoin payout rails for 8 years. Priya Rao, Compliance. Wrote Deel's LATAM/APAC playbook."
Each bio names the exact prior product and the exact scope, the same founder-market-fit story the Nimbus team slide tells.
Quick quiz
1. On the team slide, prioritize…
- ○ Full career history for each founder.
- ✓ One line per founder proving relevant skill for THIS problem.
Investors read fit, not resumes.
2. Investors spend the most time at seed on…
- ○ Product
- ✓ Team
- ○ Market size
DocSend put Team among the longest-dwelled slides at ~23s, tied with the Financials / Ask.