Deck design

Kevin Hale's YC framing still holds: legible, simple, obvious. The deck is a prop for you. Partners invest in teams; slides should make the spoken story clearer, not steal attention from it.

A partner will often see a phone screenshot of your deck in Slack. If the type is too small, the slide does not exist.

The big idea

Design is not decoration. It is whether the claim survives without you in the room.

• One idea per slide. If you need two ideas, use two slides.
• Readable without narration. Font large enough that a phone screenshot works. No paragraphs of prose.
• Obvious at a glance. Show the slide to a stranger; if they cannot say the point in one sentence, rewrite.
• Numbers over adjectives. "~38% MoM for 6 months" beats "explosive growth."
• No decorative clutter. Logos, gradients and stock photos compete with the claim.
• Consistent units. Do not mix ARR and MRR on adjacent slides without labeling.

Beautiful slides that hide weak metrics are design theater. Truncated axes, cumulative graphs that hide flat MoM growth, and "pipeline" presented as booked revenue are lying with charts. Partners will check. A single false claim — invented metrics, logos, customer quotes — kills trust for the whole raise, and often the next one.

The slide order already encodes the argument. Design's job is to not get in the way.

Walking through a live cut

For pitches under three minutes, cut ruthlessly: what you do, why it works, strongest evidence, ask. Leave discussion for the meeting — monologues lose rooms.

Draft the one-liner and traction chart before polishing typography. Circulate the deck to two operators who will be blunt. Then run the fundraising process — the deck is necessary but not sufficient.

Put the one-liner and the ask where a skimming partner cannot miss them. Many partners read the first two slides and the last one before deciding whether to keep going.

Common mistakes

• Design theater. Gorgeous type, weak numbers.
• Lying with charts. Truncated axes, cumulative-only graphs, pipeline as revenue.
• Paragraphs on slides. If you have to read it aloud, it is a speaker note, not a slide.
• Inventing logos or quotes. Diligence will find them.

Check yourself

What is Kevin Hale's three-word test for a slide?

Legible, simple, obvious — a stranger can say the point in one sentence.

Why draft the traction chart before picking fonts?

The argument is the product. Typography cannot rescue a missing time series.

Key takeaways

• One idea per slide, readable without you talking.
• Numbers beat adjectives; consistent units beat mixed ARR/MRR.
• Clutter and fake charts destroy trust faster than an ugly template.
• Cut live pitches to what you do, why it works, evidence, ask.

Further learning

Kevin Hale on making slides legible, simple and obvious:

Back to the pitch deck map.