The 10-Slide Pre-Seed Deck

Pre-seed investors decide in five minutes. Your deck has ten slides and one job: get the next meeting.

The slides

1. Title — name, one-line tagline (verb-led), logo.
2. Why now — the one thing that changed in 2026 that makes this possible.
3. Problem — one customer quote.
4. Solution — a screenshot, not a description.
5. How it works — three steps, max.
6. Market — bottom-up, not TAM hand-waving.
7. Traction — retention curve, not vanity MRR.
8. Business model — who pays, how much, how often.
9. Team — why YOU.
10. Ask — specific dollar amount, specific milestones.

What goes in the appendix

• Competitive matrix (one slide)
• 18-month financial model summary (one slide)
• Detailed roadmap (one slide)

The two most-broken slides

Why now

If you can't name a regulatory, technological, or behavioral shift that opened the window — you don't have a "why now," you have a hobby.

Ask

"Raising a pre-seed round" is not an ask. "$1.2M, 18-month runway, hitting $40k MRR" is an ask.