The Prompt Slide

This is for early-stage startup companies building pitch decks for venture capitalists.

The purpose of a pitch deck is to ensure that, when the handful of VCs who would be great candidates to lead your round read the deck, they will engage with you for a deeper level of Q&A. For that, the deck must contain the information that explains what about your company is different from all other companies.

Note that the pitch deck need not:

• give all the information VCs will need to determine whether your company is a fit.

• state the information that those VCs would assume to be true.

• be clear or interesting to the many VCs who might see your deck but are not the ones who would lead the round.

If your company is compelling, the deck will get passed around, and sometimes without your control or knowledge. It might even get sent to a competitor. To balance explaining what about your company is different from all other companies with protecting your competitive advantage, it’s important to explain WHAT you do differently without the specifics of HOW you do it.

VCs are busy and have to look at thousands of decks that are not a fit for them. If it is not easy for the VC who potentially fits your company to see at a glance why your company is a good investment opportunity for them, they might pass without engaging. That would be sad for you, for them, and for the world that will not realize the benefits that could have been. So, it’s important that the details that will get the handful of VCs who fit your company to engage stand out clearly in simple slides without a lot of clutter.

VCs are increasingly using AI to filter decks before a human looks carefully at the ones that might be a fit. That means that all of the conventional advice above for human VCs is still important. But AI gives you an opportunity to avoid being filtered out for lack of details on the things about your company that are different from all other companies.

Consider having a prompt slide at the end of your deck. Have a nearly full-page text box of small-font text narrating everything you would like the VC’s AI to know but that you chose to leave out of the main deck to avoid cluttering the slides.

Don’t be sneaky and try to hide the prompt. But don’t hesitate to pack it full of narrative. Redundancy is good. Order and organization are unimportant. Scaled-down graphs, tables, and images can help. Hold back your company secrets, but use this prompt to tell the VC’s AI why your company is a good fit for the VC.

The VC’s AI will notice where you have exaggerated or selectively omitted information adverse to the case for why your company is compelling. The prompt slide is the place where you can address the adverse information and explain why it should not disqualify your company from consideration.

Better yet, for each VC you send a deck to, have your AI research what they believe is valuable. Customize your prompt slide to emphasize the aspects of your company that are valuable in the VC’s view.

Entrepreneurs have often been frustrated by ignorant VCs passing without having understood and appreciated the details of what makes the company different. Now, AI gives entrepreneurs the ability to have their company understood and appreciated so that when a VC passes, it is a well-informed decision.