At TechCrunch Disrupt, three investors took the stage to break down what makes — and breaks — a pitch deck. Jyoti Bansal, founder turned investor. Medha Agarwal of Defy; and Jennifer Neundorfer of January Ventures shared with the crowd their candid opinions on what works in a pitch deck — and what doesn’t.
Their biggest pet peeve? Buzzword overload.
The more a founder says AI on the pitch, Agarwal said, the less artificial intelligence the company is likely to use. “People who are doing things that are really innovative, they’ll talk about it, and it’s embedded, but it’s not the core of their talk,” he told the audience.
Bansal, who built and sold several companies before becoming an investor, distilled investor expectations into three key questions. First, it asks whether there is a large enough market to address it. Does the founder’s idea have the potential to become a huge company? And is the problem it solves really worth solving?
The second thing investors want to know is why this founder is the one who has to build the company. “There has to be something unique about you,” Bansal told the crowd, adding that this included having special members on the founding team or having special skills. “Why win? If the problem is interesting, there will be 20 other companies trying to solve it, so why win and what’s your chance?”
The third thing investors want to see, Bansal said, is some validation. “Attraction with customers,” he said. “The validation could be initial customer feedback, revenue, something, but some kind of validation.”
Those three questions, Bansal noted, all lead to the ultimate litmus test: Could this become a billion-dollar company?
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The panel also discussed how AI startups can differentiate themselves as the space becomes saturated. Bansal emphasized the importance of domain expertise and a clear competitive strategy. Neundorfer said the companies that catch her eye are those that enable new behaviors rather than simply improving an existing process incrementally.
Agarwal offered more tactical advice to founders, saying they need to explain how AI technology enables their product. articulate clear go-to-market strategies; and demonstrate how their business will be more effective than the incumbents.
It’s also very important to be honest about who the competitors are out there, he added. Some of you “lost some credibility with me because you didn’t have it on your slide,” he told the founders in the audience.
Finally, investors shared tips for navigating the rapidly evolving landscape. Agarwal urged founders to stay on top of industry developments. Neundorfer recommended staying connected to founder networks to share tools and information.
Bansal’s advice was simpler: “Focus on building your product.”
