The 10-Slide Pre-Seed Deck
The minimum viable deck for pre-seed: ten slides, one frame, zero filler.
EE
Published 1w agoUpdated 2h ago 3,226
Pre-seed investors decide in five minutes. Your deck has ten slides and one job: get the next meeting.
The slides
- Title — name, one-line tagline (verb-led), logo.
- Why now — the one thing that changed in 2026 that makes this possible.
- Problem — one customer quote.
- Solution — a screenshot, not a description.
- How it works — three steps, max.
- Market — bottom-up, not TAM hand-waving.
- Traction — retention curve, not vanity MRR.
- Business model — who pays, how much, how often.
- Team — why YOU.
- Ask — specific dollar amount, specific milestones.
What goes in the appendix
- Competitive matrix (one slide)
- 18-month financial model summary (one slide)
- Detailed roadmap (one slide)
The two most-broken slides
Why now
If you can't name a regulatory, technological, or behavioral shift that opened the window — you don't have a "why now," you have a hobby.
Ask
"Raising a pre-seed round" is not an ask. "$1.2M, 18-month runway, hitting $40k MRR" is an ask.
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