What should be in my seed pitch deck, and what kills a deck in the first 30 seconds?
The short answer
Ten to twelve slides: problem, insight, product, why now, traction, market, business model, team, competition, ask. Lead with what you have actually built and any early traction, not a market-size fantasy. Decks die on wall-of-text slides, vague one-liners nobody can repeat, and a hockey-stick chart with no engine underneath it. Every slide should make one point a tired investor can restate after one read.
Go deeper, your way
3 hand-picked resources, 3 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
📄 Article
✓ Link checkedFreeBeginner
Why we picked it
A slide-by-slide walk through Airbnb's actual 2009 seed deck (the one that raised $600K), covering all 14 slides from cover to financials and calling out exactly why the business model slide was the killer. It shows the discipline you are aiming for: the problem stated in three plain lines, the solution compressed to save money while traveling, one restatable point per slide. Study it as the worked example of the Sequoia skeleton, then copy the restraint, not the layout.
Why we picked it
This is a working Indian seed VC (Blume backed Unacademy, Purplle, Slice) writing down what it actually looks for, slide by slide, from the people who read hundreds of Indian founder decks a year. It is blunt about the mistakes that kill decks here: a vague problem statement, a team slide buried too deep, and no customer validation when Blume wants to see the product already live with signups. Use it as the reviewer sitting across the table before you send.
Why we picked it
The de facto global standard for pitch deck structure, straight from Sequoia. The same outline Airbnb's founders used; if you follow one template, follow this one.
