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Here's some interesting insights from the 5 million+ data points collected so far 1. Shorter decks are better decks The average number of slides for a deck submitted to Pitch League so far is 19. The best scoring decks had 12-13 slides. The average Pre-seed & Seed investor spends less than 3 minutes looking at a deck according to Dropbox DocSend. The goal of your deck should not be to answer every question an investor has: it is to get a call with the investor. As I often say: 'There's no romance without mystery'. 2. Detailed slides scored better The average words per slide was 33. The decks that scored over 80 had on average 39 words per page. Top 3 scorers all had over 40 words per page. But there is a limit to this - scores reduce beyond 60 words per slide. 3. 'Why Now?' is critical Founders are generally very good at including market size slides. The most common thing they leave out though is 'market trends' i.e. 'why now?' Typically 'why now' will include things like regulatory changes, demographic changes, technology platform shifts - and why you're poised to take advantage of them. As an example in the sequel deck we looked at trends in Venture Capital and the emergence of NIL rules in the US opening up a new $13b market. 4. Demonstrate your progress The lack of a traction / progress slide is the second most frequent mistake founders made in their decks. As Steve Jobs said: 'To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.' Even if you are pre-launch there are many ways to demonstrate execution including idea validation, hiring, potential customer testimonials / signed contracts. 5. Iterate to win Founders that submit their deck more than once achieve a mean rating of 77.8 compared to a mean score of 68 for founders that submit just once. Related to this: ~15% of founders uploaded their deck multiple times and the current top company on the chart has submitted the most times (20+). As an investor I like investing in people who are on a constant path of improvement and learning - a founder who constantly iterates is a good indicator of this.

The teaser deck. The send-ahead deck. The presentation deck. The leave-behind deck.