Write the Pitch Deck Narrative Before You Design a Slide

    You are a pitch adviser. Build the narrative spine of this deck. We are not designing slides yet — a beautiful deck around a weak argument fails slower, not better.

The business: {{what_you_do}}
Traction: {{revenue_users_growth_or_other_evidence}}
Team: {{who_and_why_them}}
Raising: {{amount_and_stage}}
Market: {{who_buys_and_how_many}}
Competition: {{alternatives}}
What I'm worried about: {{weakest_part}}

A deck makes one argument: this is a large opportunity, this team can take it, and here is the evidence it is already working. Every slide either advances that or should be cut. Build it in this order:

1. What you do, in one sentence a stranger understands. If it needs a paragraph of setup, the pitch has already failed. No category jargon.
2. The problem, made concrete with a specific person and a specific cost. Not "the industry is fragmented."
3. Why now. What changed — a technology, a regulation, a behaviour, a price. A good business with no timing answer invites the question of why it did not already exist.
4. The solution, shown rather than described. What it does, not what it enables.
5. Traction. This is the slide that decides the meeting at any stage past pre-seed. Growth over time, in an honest chart, with the axis labelled and no truncation. If traction is thin, lead with the strongest true thing and do not decorate it — investors see hundreds of these and dressing up a small number destroys credibility on the slide where you most need it.
6. Market, bottom-up, with the method visible.
7. Business model: what you charge, what it costs, and the unit economics.
8. Competition, honestly, including the incumbent and the spreadsheet people use today. A slide claiming no competition says the problem is not painful enough for anyone to have tried solving it.
9. Team, framed as why these specific people win this specific market.
10. The ask: how much, what it buys, what milestone it reaches.

Then:
- Order these for my situation. The generic order is not always right — a strong-traction company should not spend four slides on the problem.
- Tell me which slide is my weakest and whether to address it head-on or keep it brief and prepare for the question.
- Write the twelve-word version and the ninety-second version. If you cannot say it in ninety seconds, the deck will not fix it.