Feedback That Improves The Next Pitch
The product should diagnose what an investor understands, identify the belief gaps, and give founders specific edits tied to investor questions and comparable slide patterns.
Core Idea
A founder should leave the review knowing what to keep, what to fix, what evidence to add, and which comparable slide pattern can help.
The deck is not judged against one universal template. It is judged against stage, category, deck job, and the proof needed for the next investor conversation.
Two Deck Types, Two Scores
Private. Uploaded by a founder or reviewer for feedback. Scored for investor readiness: how clearly it earns the next meeting and what must be fixed.
Public. Uploaded only by an admin. Scored for benchmark usefulness, but profile publication does not automatically qualify it for feedback retrieval.
Reference decks require admin curation, source review, company-status research, and benchmark labeling before appearing in the public library.
A founder's uploaded deck should never become a public reference profile unless an admin explicitly promotes it and rights/permissions are cleared.
Reference Deck Qualification Gate
A reference profile can stay public for research, but the feedback engine should only pull positive comparable slides from companies that raised successful follow-on capital and show sustainable company signals.
| Gate | Pass Signal | Fail Signal | Product Rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| Successful round | Verified follow-on seed, Series A/B, positive acquisition, or durable financing outcome. | No verified later round or only the deck's own ask. | Failing companies cannot be positive benchmarks. |
| Sustainable company | Active company with stable/growing headcount, hiring, expanding customers, retail footprint, revenue, or product activity. | Shutdown, inactivity, lowering headcount, or unclear operating footprint. | Declining companies are held out of comparable-slide retrieval. |
| Source confidence | Multiple reliable sources connect the deck to later funding and operating evidence. | Conflicting snippets or unsupported claims. | Hold until verified. |
Default retrieval pool. Current examples: Caraway, Brightland, Cleancult.
Use only with caveats. Current examples: Yumi, SupportPay, JuneShine, Terra Kaffe.
Research value, not a positive model. Example: GRIN raised strongly but current headcount signals fail the durability bar.
Do not use for positive comparable slides until funding and sustainable-company evidence clears the bar.
Feedback Output
- Executive diagnosis
- What is working
- Top fixes
- Scores
- Slide-level feedback
- Unanswered investor questions
- Suggested rewrites
- Comparable slide recommendations
- Next revision plan
Feedback Types
The investor cannot quickly understand the company, customer, or product.
The claim may be right, but the deck does not yet prove it.
The story order or emphasis weakens conviction.
The slide creates a diligence concern or unanswered objection.
Investor Question Map
| Investor Question | What The Deck Needs To Show | Typical Feedback Move |
|---|---|---|
| What does this company do? | Plain-English one-liner, customer, product, use case. | Rewrite slide 1 for instant comprehension. |
| Why does this matter? | Urgent problem, current workaround, cost, behavior proof. | Move from broad trend to specific pain. |
| Is there proof of demand? | Revenue, users, pilots, retention, usage, waitlist conversion. | Add timeframe, denominator, and quality signal. |
| Can growth scale? | GTM channels, channel evidence, CAC/payback, pipeline. | Separate proven channels from planned channels. |
| Why will this company win? | True competitors, wedge, durable advantage, team edge. | Replace dismissive competition claims with a clear win logic. |
| What does this round unlock? | Ask, runway, use of funds, milestones before next raise. | Connect spend to measurable proof points. |
Scoring Dimensions
Research Sources
| Source | Used For |
|---|---|
| Sequoia | Canonical investor questions: purpose, problem, solution, why now, market, competition, model, team, financials, vision. |
| DocSend pre-seed guide | Investor attention, concise narrative, problem importance, and deck-as-meeting-converter framing. |
| DocSend scrutinized sections | Product readiness, business model, and competition scrutiny. |
| SVB | Concise, precise, narrative-driven pitch deck guidance. |
| First Round Review | Investor questions, partner meeting preparation, interruptions, and number fluency. |
| NFX fundraising guide | Learning loops, rehearsal, collecting investor feedback, and changing the pitch after meetings. |
| Bloomberg Beta / Roy Bahat | Context-aware feedback and caution against treating investor advice as universal truth. |