Why Your Deck Isn’t the Problem — Your Framing Is

Why Your Deck Isn’t the Problem — Your Framing Is

Every week, a founder sends me a “revised” deck.

It’s usually v4. Or v9. Or v15.
They’ve tweaked the font, reordered the slides, added a new market size chart.

And still — investors aren’t biting.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:

It’s not your deck. It’s how you’re framing the opportunity.

VCs don’t fund slide design. They fund beliefs:

• “This founder sees something the market doesn’t.”

• “This is a secret that’s about to be obvious.”

• “This is a rocketship and I’m early.”

But most founders frame themselves like safe bets — not like bold ones.

Let’s unpack how to reframe your story so VCs stop skimming and start chasing.

1. Founders Pitch for Approval. Winners Pitch for Alignment.

A lot of pitches sound like this:

• “The market is $20B.”

• “Our CAC is lower than peers.”

• “We have a unique AI workflow.”

All technically true. All instantly forgettable.

Why?

Because you're trying to get the VC to approve you — instead of showing them who it’s for and who it’s not.

Here’s what winners do:

• They say: “Most people underestimate X. We don’t.”

• They say: “We’re not building for everyone — just the ones who obsess over Y.”

• They say: “This seems small, but it unlocks something massive.”

A pitch isn’t a job interview. It’s a declaration of intent.

Be clear enough to polarize.

2. VCs Don’t Fund Problems — They Fund Momentum

Founders love talking about “the problem.”

They’ve got graphs. Quotes. Testimonials. Pain points.

But pain alone doesn’t create a venture outcome.

VCs don’t fund problems — they fund the escape velocity from the problem.

The better pitch isn’t:
“We’re solving X.”

It’s:
“We’re already pulling away from X — and picking up speed.”

Your job isn’t to educate the investor on what’s broken. It’s to show them:

• Why now is the moment of inflection

• Why you're uniquely placed to accelerate

• Why resistance is already giving way to momentum

Startups don’t get funded because they might work.
They get funded because they already feel inevitable.

3. Insight > Information

The best pitch decks don’t just inform — they reveal something.

An insight is what makes the investor sit up and say,

“Wait. Why hasn’t anyone else said it like that?”

You can’t Google an insight. You earn it.

Here are examples of real ones:

• “There are 100,000 designers in Webflow — and zero tooling for managing projects at scale.”

• “50% of SMBs switch banks in the first 18 months, but no one sells financial software in that window.”

• “AI support tools are great at detection — but 90% of churn happens after the ticket’s closed.”

These are specific. Sharp. Strategic.

The founder isn’t throwing facts at the wall. They’re showing how they think.

Insight is how VCs judge the founder's taste — not just their tech.

4. There’s No “Right” Deck — But There Is a Right Shape

I’ve seen winning decks that are 5 slides. Others that are 30.

But they all do one thing well: they shape the investor’s mental model.

They answer:

• “What’s the wedge?”

• “What’s the flywheel?”

• “What unlocks scale?”

• “What’s the defensibility?”

Shape ≠ structure.

It means: when the investor closes the deck, do they see the business?

If they can’t explain it to a partner in 2 minutes, you’re dead.

5. The First 60 Seconds Are Everything

Most investors skim.

They don’t read linearly. They jump:

• Cover → Market → Team → Traction

If your first 2–3 slides don’t create intrigue, they’ll close the tab.

So here’s how to hook fast:

1. Start with the sharpest insight or future-state vision.

2. Follow with proof: “This is already happening.”

3. Show momentum: “We’re not just seeing it — we’re driving it.”

Think of it like a cold open.
You don’t start with backstory. You start in the action.

6. Don’t Be Obvious — Be Obvious in Hindsight

The best founders pitch things that sound weird… until they don’t.

• Uber: “Strangers will get in strangers’ cars.”

• Airbnb: “People will sleep in strangers’ homes.”

• Figma: “Design should be multiplayer.”

All these sounded insane — until the world shifted.

What made them work?

They weren’t just ideas. They were inevitabilities hiding as edge cases.

Your pitch doesn’t need to sound safe. It needs to sound like a secret that’s just starting to go mainstream.

That’s the signal VCs are trained to find.

7. Most Founders Wait Too Long to Be Interesting

Here’s the paradox:

The more traction you have, the less interesting your story becomes.

That’s because once a company is “working,” the only question is growth.

But when a company is just starting to work, there’s mystery. Movement. Conviction.

That’s when you raise the best round — when it’s early, but starting to click.

Founders wait for perfect metrics. But VCs don’t buy spreadsheets.

They buy belief.

So if you’re seeing signal — engagement, word-of-mouth, pull — even in tiny numbers?

That’s your moment. Don’t wait for 10x.

Final Thought: Framing Is the Founder’s Superpower

You can’t control how many intros you get. Or how many investors ghost.

But you can control how you frame what you’re building:

• As a movement, not a product.

• As an insight, not just a problem.

• As a fast-moving train, not a concept on the tracks.

Great framing doesn’t manipulate.

It reveals what’s already true — in a way that finally clicks.