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Track 01Full course
The fundraising deck
The 10-15 slides seed and Series A investors actually read.
Step-by-step curriculum with modules, quizzes, teardowns, and a scored audit.
Reader
Seed and Series A investors, first read cold from an intro email. Partners scan; associates read a little longer.
Context
Sent ahead, opened on a laptop between meetings. Read in ~3:44 on average (DocSend, 2015 study of 200 funded seed decks). Newer DocSend reports show the average drifting toward ~2:45.
Read budget
~3 min first read, ~10 min if forwarded
Length
10-15 slides in the main deck, plus appendix
Success
The reader books a 30-minute call.
The jobs, in order
The slide-by-slide argument structure. Skip a job and the reader feels the hole.
- 01Cover: one declarative sentence a stranger can repeat
- 02Problem: a named user, a specific pain, a cost
- 03Solution: what the product is, shown not described
- 04Why now: the shift that makes this possible in 2026
- 05Market: bottom-up TAM with a beachhead named
- 06Product: the working thing, not the roadmap
- 07Business model: how the dollar comes in, unit economics
- 08Traction: real numbers with dates, honest denominators
- 09Competition: axes buyers actually use, not a 2x2 you win
- 10Team: why us, cold, without titles doing the work
- 11Ask: raise size, runway, milestone that earns the next round
Keep · earns the next meeting
- A one-sentence purpose a stranger could repeat
- The actual product shown, not described
- Market size built bottom-up with beachhead named
- Traction stated honestly: numbers, dates, denominators
- A team slide that proves 'why us', not just logos
- An ask that names the next-round milestone
Cut · triggers a pass
- 'We just need 1% of a $B market'
- 'We have no competitors' (reads as: you haven't looked)
- 40+ slides that open on molecular structure
- Sub-30pt font crammed with text you'll read aloud
- 'We'll go viral' as a distribution strategy
- Hockey-stick projections with no stated assumptions
- Jargon and buzzwords in place of a clear claim
Where attention concentrates
Attention concentrates on team and financials at the seed stage; business model and traction pull the most attention on decks that get read closely (DocSend, 2015).
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