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.
Draft your slide, then click Mark complete to move forward. The checklist and quiz below are optional self-tests. You can mark complete anytime.
Include, tick each as you draft
Nothing checked yet. You can still mark this module complete and continue.
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 investors call out
- !No named user, 'people' or 'businesses' in general
- !The pain is a mild annoyance, not urgent
- !Problem statement fits any company in the category
Common failure patterns
What experienced readers spot first when this slide is weak.
- 1The pain is described with adjectives ('painful', 'inefficient') where a number belongs.
- 2The 'user' is a plural noun ('teams', 'businesses'), not a named role with a workflow.
- 3The slide describes a market condition, not a bill the customer pays today.
Run this against your own slide (60 seconds)
- ?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?
If either answer is no, the fix is above in Include or in the Weak vs. strong block below.
Starter template
[Specific user] currently [painful workaround], which costs them [time / money / risk]. There is no good option.
Weak vs. strong, the same slide, rewritten
“Small businesses waste time on paperwork.”
“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.
Check yourself
Sources
See the full methodology for how dwell seconds and scoring weights are derived.