Paige Finn DohertyFounding Partner, Behind Genius · Founding Partner at Behind Genius Ventures

which parts of the deck should you index on?

1 Nov 2023 · 1 min

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In a venture capital class at San Diego State, the instructor recounts an entrepreneur’s pitch where the slide deck was heavily focused on product functionality but failed to demonstrate that anyone in the audience experienced the problem being solved. The students’ attention waned, and their questions shifted toward market sizing, go‑to‑market strategy, traction, and testimonials. The instructor uses this example to argue that effective pitch decks must show how the founders have explored and validated their problem‑solution hypothesis, highlighting unique insights and evidence of real‑world need rather than just product features.

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I was teaching a venture capital class at San Diego State, and we had an entrepreneur come in and pitch and have our students ask like basically the 5 most important like deal point questions and then give feedback. And one of the points of feedback is their deck focused very heavily on the functionality of the product, but no one in the room had experienced the problem that they were pitching. Although it was a big one, they focused very heavily on the functionality, and you could start to see like the students' eyes glaze over, and it was just like you could tell they weren't engaging with the material. Versus the questions that they asked were around like market sizing, go-to-market traction, like lessons learned from testimonials. So that for me is what I like to see in a deck is how have you thought about exploring this hypothesis that you have about solving the problem that you've identified and have unique insight about?