Seven mistakes that make your pitch deck easy to ignore

Most pitch decks fail for ordinary, fixable reasons. Seven common mistakes, how to fix each one, and a 60-second test to run before you send.

By Olufemi Palmer, Managing Partner & Founder

You're not competing against bad decks. You're competing against every other deck in the investor's inbox that morning. Most of them are fine. Small, fixable problems decide which one gets opened twice.

I've raised $40M+ for clients, and the decks that struggle rarely fail because of the business underneath. They fail because the investor couldn't quickly see what the company does, who pays for it and why now. The same handful of mistakes come up again and again.

Here are seven, and how to fix each one this week.

1. No clear one-liner

What it looks like: A first slide with a logo, a tagline like "The future of work," and nothing else. Or a paragraph that tries to say everything.

Why it hurts: If an investor can't tell what you do in the first few seconds, they read everything after that with a question in their head. Many won't bother.

The fix: Put one plain sentence on your first slide: what you do and for whom. A simple shape that works:

[Company] helps [specific buyer] [do a specific thing] so they can [outcome they care about].

If you can't write that sentence, the problem isn't the deck yet. Work on the positioning first.

2. A problem without a buyer

What it looks like: A slide describing a real, painful problem, with no mention of who pays to fix it.

Why it hurts: A problem nobody pays to solve is a hobby, not a business. Investors want to know there's a budget and a person who controls it.

The fix: Name the buyer by role. Say what they do about the problem today and what it costs them, whether that's software, headcount or hours lost to workarounds. "Finance teams at mid-sized logistics companies spend [time or money] every month on [problem]" is a problem with a buyer.

3. Traction hidden on slide 11

What it looks like: Ten slides of vision, market and product before the investor learns you have paying customers.

Why it hurts: For a traction-first B2B company, proof is your strongest argument. Hiding it means the investor forms a first impression without it.

The fix: Move your best proof up to the second or third slide. Revenue, growth, number of paying customers, retention, notable customers you have permission to name. Show it as a simple chart if you can.

And be precise. Say whether a number is recurring revenue, signed contracts or pilots, and don't blur them together. A sharp investor will ask, and a number that shrinks under questioning does more damage than a smaller number stated clearly.

4. A market slide with a trillion-dollar number

What it looks like: A big top-down figure from an industry report, often with a claim about capturing a small percentage of it.

Why it hurts: It tells the investor you haven't thought about where you'll actually start. Huge numbers don't make the opportunity feel bigger. They make it feel less considered.

The fix: Build it bottom-up. How many companies match your ideal customer today? What would each reasonably pay you per year? Multiply. That's your starting market. Then show the path out of it: the next segment, the next product, the next geography. A believable starting market with a clear expansion path beats a giant number every time.

5. No ask

What it looks like: The deck ends with a team slide and a "Thank you."

Why it hurts: The investor has to guess what you want. Are you raising now? How much? For what?

The fix: State how much you're raising, roughly how many months of runway it buys, and the specific milestones it gets you to. "This round gets us to [milestone] and [milestone] in about [X] months" gives an investor something concrete to evaluate. The exact structure and terms of the round are a conversation for you, your lawyer and your lead investor, not something you need to settle on a slide.

6. Too many words

What it looks like: Slides with full paragraphs, three charts and footnotes.

Why it hurts: If a slide has to be read aloud to make sense, it's a document, not a slide. Dense slides get skimmed, and the key point gets lost.

The fix: One idea per slide. Make the headline the takeaway, not the topic. "Revenue" is a topic. "Revenue has grown every month since launch" is a takeaway (if it's true). Then cut anything on the slide that doesn't support that headline. If you need more room, split the slide in two or move the detail to an appendix.

7. A deck that can't stand alone

What it looks like: A deck built for presenting live, full of images and single words that only make sense with you talking over them.

Why it hurts: Investors forward decks to partners and colleagues. Yours will often be read when you're not in the room.

The fix: Make sure a stranger could follow it without you. Clear headlines, labelled charts, numbers with their dates and definitions. Some founders keep two versions: a lean one to present and a slightly fuller one to send. That's fine, as long as the numbers match.

Keep every number honest

A quick common-sense note. Investors rely on what's in your deck when they decide, so every figure should be one you can back up with documents. Label forecasts as forecasts and date your numbers. If you're unsure whether a claim is fair, leave it out or check it before you send. Being precise now saves a painful conversation in due diligence later.

A simple test before you send

Show the deck to someone outside your industry for 60 seconds. Then ask three questions:

1. What does this company do? 2. Who buys it? 3. What are they asking for?

If they get two of three right, you're close. If they get all three, you're ready to send. If they get none, start again with mistakes one, three and five.

What to fix first

If you only have an afternoon, fix the one-liner and move your proof forward. Those two changes do more than any amount of design work. A plain deck with a clear sentence and real traction up front beats a beautiful deck that makes the reader hunt.

Then work down the list. Most of these fixes take an hour or less. Together, they make the difference between a deck that gets skimmed and one that gets a second look.

If you're a B2B founder preparing to raise, create a free founder profile on Initio and start there.

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